<p>So, I'm just posting to inquire about how good the FA is at Andover and Exeter. My parents make ~110k a year, but by the time I enter prep school, my sister will be in university, and once you deduct income tax, the cost of necessities, and my sister's education, this puts them in no place to pay the full [or even HALF] of the boarding student tuition. Do you think that I would receive generous financial aid? [Ie. I would pay less than 15k a year?]
Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>[also, I know that these schools are "need blind", but would I get better FA if I was an exceptional applicant?]</p>
<p>If I recall correctly, the average household income of FA students at SPS being something like $140K, and the average FA grant is something like $39K, leaving about $9.5K to get covered by the family.</p>
<p>I just wanted to point that out because a lot of people seem to think that Exeter is need blind. Most schools have some kind of statement like this somewhere on their website. But don’t let that discourage you. Exeter has nearly half of its students on FA!</p>
<p>@middleschool8,
Applying as an international applicant puts you in a more competitive situation for FA and for admission. I think Deerfield Academy said that their international acceptance rate was around 8%. (I remember reading that somewhere) But in general there is less FA available to international applicants. Most schools will mention that somewhere on their website.</p>
<p>I think only Andover and St Andrews (?) are need blind, which means that the fact that you need FA will not affect your chances of admission. Your family income is low enough to make you eligible for a food amount of FA. You may ask the schools how your Canadian citizenship will affect your app. If I were you I wouldn’t worry about it.</p>
<p>@DAndrew: A visit to the SAS site confirms that it is indeed, need blind. I had not known that until you prompted a revisit to the site.</p>
<p>“At a time when many boarding schools have become accessible only to the affluent in America, St. Andrew’s commitment to need-blind admissions and socioeconomic diversity within the School enables us to develop a truly distinctive student body and School culture.”</p>
<p>Exeter is not truly need blind. The AO will explain this to you during the interview, if you ask. FA + Canada puts you in a disadvantage.
At $110k income, after Revenue Canada taxes, doesn’t leave a whole lot. There are also other expenses: travel, dry cleaning, etc. If you do get accepted, FA would likely cover nearly all of tuition. Might be less of a disadvantage if you’re from Ontario. Seems majority of BS students in the ADES are from Quebec, not quite sure why. Maybe because Ontario has a number of very good boarding and private schools? Being from Ontario might help towards diversity.
It doesn’t hurt to apply; you won’t know unless you try.</p>
<p>I think in Exeter canadians are treated as American citizens for FA purpose. Not sure a out other schools. You may ask either during or before the interviews so you have a clear idea before you apply.</p>
<p>@classicalMama: When you play with the options on that calc, it appears that —<em>in certain instances —</em>people who had a higher HHI got a larger grant from the school. Another example of YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).</p>
<p>The calculator, I gather, is based on the previous year’s grants. So I’m assuming that someone with higher income and fewer kids who’s getting a higher grant than our family probably has other stuff going on–most likely other tuition-paying children. So it really can’t be all that accurate an estimator. And yet it was. Maybe that was just us though…</p>
<p>@classicalmama: I figured as much. I had never really played around with those calcs on other sites before…I had always just tried it for our HHI/Household Size. I think it would shock many people outside the process to learn that even families making what most people would consider a healthy living qualify for substantial FA.</p>
<p>The lower your income is, the more accurate the calculator should be. For example, almost all families with income less than 100K, except in rare situations, are receiving substantial FA, so the calculator is a good indicator for the average grant that group of families will receive. For families with income > 300K, however, there may only be a few with extraordinary conditions received FA, so it’s hard to draw a conclusion based on what happened with that group of families in one year.</p>
<p>You are correct that it is need-based, without regard to e.c.'s or academics–except, of course, that that’s the stuff that gets the student admitted in the first place.</p>
<p>To give a more realistic picture, yes, Exeter grants 45% of matriculated students with FA, but for admitted students, it’s more like 30%. More or less is true for Andover and many other uber-competitive BS. What happens, I guess, is those who didn’t get FA tend to enroll where they got FA and those who got FA from Exeter tend to stay.</p>