<p>So, I was recently accepted to Smith as a Transfer, and I received my packet with my financial aid award in the mail today. As it stands now, there is no way I would be able to attend Smith with aid they have given me. So, I am interested in appealing, but wanted some advice from people familiar with Smith FA. </p>
<p>Here's the lowdown on my situation: </p>
<p>1) As of January 1st, my Dad is currently unemployed. He is in the process of looking for another job, but this change in income wasn't reflected in my parents' most recent tax returns. </p>
<p>2) My brother will be attending college in the fall, and Smith FA states that this will be reflected in my Financial Aid award. It doesn't look like it was. </p>
<p>3) Another private school offered me much more financial aid. However, I want to attend Smith. Would showing my award from another school help my case? </p>
<p>So, do I have a a decent case for an appeal or should I begin looking at other schools? </p>
<p>I think it’s worth a conversation with the Financial Aid Office and a follow-up letter and accompanying papers with details. Ask them if they took your brother’s college into account. You could also mention you received a much better package from another school and ask if you should send that paperwork as well. Good luck!</p>
<p>Was the school that offered the more generous aid package one that Smith would consider a peer school? (Smith says that it’s offers usually come in w/in $2-3K of peer institutions.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but realistically, probably not. It’s a Southern University that’s a bit bigger, though I don’t think it’s what Smith would consider a peer school.</p>
<p>I’m also in the process of negotiating my award as it is currently about $6000 too expensive for my family. I will be having a conversation with the sfs people tomorrow about my fin and award and how my efc is calculated. Their calculated efc is originally $10000 more than what I’ve indicated in my fin aid app, and after my first re-evaluation this difference is brought down to $6200.</p>
<p>As such, I have no additional documents to show them that I need the extra aid. Everything they need is in my fin aid application, just that their calculated efc is vastly different from what I’ve indicated.</p>
<p>What do you think I can tell them to increase my award money? Will saying that my award from Mt Holyoke (I presume they’re pretty competitive for students - same area, consortium, etc) is currently $5000 more than Smith’s award help?</p>
<p>Also, I will be moving house late next year and will need to set aside about $40000 for renovation. All the proceeds from selling my current house will be used to pay for the new house. Will they take this into consideration? How do you think I should bring this up?</p>
<p>Thanks for all your opinions! I really want to attend Smith and the last thing I want is to let fin status stand in my way D:</p>
<p>Btw, I’m an international first yr student.</p>
<p>Definitely send them the award letter from Mount Holyoke ASAP.</p>
<p>Do NOT even <em>mention</em> your planned home renovation. That is an optional expense for you and would garner no sympathy; if you have enough money for a home renovation, it’s your choice not to pay for Smith instead. People often defer major projects, purchases, etc. “affordable” does not mean “no significant impact on your life.”</p>
<p>This is a prefect example of “need” vs “want.” Apparently the Smith calculation is not off the mark, especially if the $4K yxyxyx would like to set aside for renovations is applied to tuition/fees. </p>
<p>The MHC letter can’t hurt – but if you have already appealed and had your. award increased and there’s no new info, a second increase doen’t sound likely (Smith says in most cases - - not every case - - the award is w/i a few thousand dollars of that offered by peer schools). Also, even if Smith increases its award, that increse may come in the form of a loan, as oposed to a grant. And if any of that MHC money a merit award (and Smith hasn’t already awarded your a STRIDE or Zollman), I wouldn’t expect Smith to match the MHC scholarship.</p>
<p>Smith currently does not know that my family will be moving next year. It is not really an optional expense. The new house will be completely new and thus be totally bare. We will need to do everything from scratch, from the cupboards to the floorings. We bought the house last year or the year before, and can only get the keys next yr or next next yr since it is a build-to-order project.</p>
<p>@foolish pleasure</p>
<p>I do not have any merit award from MHC. All of it comes in the form of grants/loans/work-study. I did not qualify for merit award from Smith either. The problem now is that my parents are unable to afford Smith currently. It is not impossible, but I will need to complete my studies in 3 years. Attending Smith even if they award me $5000 more per year would mean taking out their life savings, plus future savings for the next 4 years (anticipated bonuses not included, that will probably go towards the moving house fund. It won’t be much anyway since only my father is working and he’s an engineer).</p>
<p>Do you actually think I can ask Smith to reconsider me for merit awards? My results when I applied wasn’t stellar, but I would say it was very good (overall top 25% in school - top 5% for economics, 2210 SAT I, 2400 for 3 SAT IIs). However my GCE Advanced Level results which was released in early March put me in the top 1.3% of the whole Singaporean cohort. I did include this information in an update letter to Smith but since I did not receive a reply to that email, I’m not sure if the admissions officer has downloaded my letter or not.</p>
<p>@Cherna – I think you have a very good chance of getting your financial aid reviewed. You have a very good explanation that can be documented. It’s common for people to run into these problems, since tax forms don’t always reflect current circumstances. Also, if your parents weren’t already paying tuition for your brother when you applied for financial aid, that wouldn’t be reflected in the evaluation either. </p>
<p>I’ve never been through one of these re-evaluations, but I think the main thing would be to have the documentation ready to back up your story. Your brother’s aid award for his college to show how much of that your parents have to pay, any documentation that indicates your father’s layoff (I don’t know what this would be. I wouldn’t stress about it if you can’t think of it, the financial aid office will know what they need to see and ask for it). Definitely feel free to say you got a higher award if it was from a peer institution. Remember though that Smith is not under any obligation to match anyone else’s award, but it never hurts to say “I was evaluated for XX by YY college. Can you help me understand the discrepancy? I would prefer to attend Smith, it’s my first choice, is it possible to see if I qualify for more aid at Smith?” </p>
<p>@xyxy – I agree with other posters, your home renovation is not really going to garner much interest or sympathy from Smith. I understand this is a real expense for your family and they are doing a build to order project, but the thing is from a financial aid standpoint, Smith has to evaluate what your family can afford if they were to make attending Smith the number 1 priority in their financial lives and devote their assets and savings to that end. If your parents choose to take on other priorities, like buying a new house that’s fine, but it doesn’t mean Smith is going to take that into account. Even if you bought the house several years ago and it needs to be completely built, they aren’t going to consider that a financial need for financial aid purposes.</p>
<p>Sorry, I did not mean to suggest that Smith would belatedly award STRIDE or Zollman. My point was that if Smith was unlikely to give you additional need-based ais to match MHC merit award. </p>
<p>But I’m confused. If, even after increasing your award by $5K to match the MHC award (unlikely since you’ve already rec’d a $4K increase), Smith is beyond your family’s reach financially, then why bother with the appeal?</p>
<hr>
<p>Cherna, I have been thru the re-evaluation: twice - - two separate years, with a favorable outcome (increased grant) each time. I never asked about a “discrepancy” b/c the Smith award and that of another school (schools apply different institutional formulas, so it’s not surprising that the awards are different; also, schools have different COA, so the real question may be not the size of the award, but the family contrib after finaid is applied). </p>
<p>In each case I had new info constituting a change in circumstance. I found the SFS staff to be supremely helpful - they walked me thru the steps so that the forms were completed correctly the first time, processed quickly and the grant immediatley applied to D’s account. If you want more details (what I said/wrote to SFS), send me a PM </p>
<p>I suspect the Southern Univ award will be much of a factor, as it is not a peer school (especially if some of it is merit money as opposed to need-based aid). </p>
<p>Wow, Thanks so much for your feedback everyone! I’m going to contact the SFS office as soon as possible, and started getting together the necessary documents to send off by the end of this week. I’m just going to hope for the best right now.</p>
<p>Ok, I guess I’m not going to tell them about the moving house thing.</p>
<p>@foolishpleasure, $5000 more would make it just about affordable. Without that $5000, I would say it is impossible. My efc is really fixed because my parents have this auto savings scheme where every month, ~$2000 goes into a savings account and the rest are all spent. That 24000/yr plus our previous savings (which needless to say, is fixed), will give my efc. I can’t increase that $2000/mth because we have a lot of expenses to pay per month that doesn’t contribute to our living quality, such as housing loans, retirement payments (mandatory in Singapore), insurance payments etc. Smith awarded me that extra $4200 because of the mandatory retirement payments (which was almost $17000 in 2009). </p>
<p>We are not flashy spenders also, we are the model middle-class family. A splurge probably means $100 on a pair of shoes, and thats maybe twice per year. The only really expensive thing at home is a Tiffany key they got for my 18th birthday. So there’s not much expenses we can reduce on.</p>
<p>Smith offered my $4000 less than Wellesley. I have no other reason for financial appeal other than the fact that my parents now want me to go to Wellesley. We are low income, with Smith being about $8000 a year and Wellesley being about $4000 a year. Should I even bother appealing? Do you think Smith will do anything? I am a STRIDE scholar.</p>
<p>You have to pay back loans, so you will indeed pay that money, possibly with interest, even though your payments will be deferred until after graduation. Of course, that can still make a difference since the non-loan, non-grant portion has to be paid upfront.</p>
<p>We were able to get Smith to increase our need-based aid after the first year (my d. was a Zollman) when 1) my wife had an aggressive form of breast cancer and couldn’t work; and 2) I had a major heart attack. I can’t imagine Smith increasing financial aid (I know I wouldn’t) because my family, having decided to buy a new house, now decided they needed to remodel it. Heck, a quarter of Smith’s student body is on Pell grants, with a significant portion of poor families underwater on their mortgages, and some near-homeless. </p>
<p>For the record, neither I nor my wife nor either of my kids have ever spent $100 on a pair of shoes in our entire lives.</p>
<p>@Yxyxetc: Automatic savings deductions can be changed. Even if the money goes into one of those pre-paid health funds, you usually have to renew at the end of December. And yes, we had to tap into our savings to help pay. That’s part of the sacrifice most parents have to make.</p>
<p>My husband and I stopped saving during the time that my daughter attended Smith. We figured that her education came first. We were willing to make sacrifices to ensure that she received the best education possible.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to be blunt, but if your parents think that all of your expenses should come comfortably out of their yearly income, then they don’t understand what most families have to do. If you have an option that will allow them to do this, then that’s fantastic. Chances are you were at the top of that school’s applicant pool.</p>
<p>Kym, let Smith know about the Wellesley FA offer; send them a copy and see what their response is. Let them know that you want to attend Smith but that $$ are an issue for your family.</p>
<p>After you get a response, please come back here.</p>
<p>Kymazing – I think too think you should consider emailing Smith again (or calling the SFS. Or having one of your parents call if that’s more comfortable) and explaining about the Wellesley offer. Explain that you would much prefer Smith, it’s your first choice, but your’e worried about the financial aspect. If they gave you STRIDE, it’s because they really want to attract you to Smith, so that may count in your favor. </p>
<p>I know this is a little uncomfortable and confusing, but just remember that the worst they can say is no. They won’t judge you or dislike you. They don’t expect you to be a financial expert. And if they say no, you’re no worse off than you are now, and you get to go to Wellesley, which is still awesome!</p>