<p>Hey everyone, </p>
<p>I was just wondering if current students could tell me if the financial aid is fair and covered their needs. You don't have to give me actual numbers, but I would like to know how fin aid is at dartmouth and whether or not it does cover 100% of financial need. thanks a lot!</p>
<p>I second the question...</p>
<p>My financial aid was amazing, even better than the offer at Brown (and the letter from Brown said they dipped into some extra funding from... the one guy with the vodka company who donated to them lol... for me, so Brown was pretty generous already). They covered 100% of my financial need.</p>
<p>The financial aid website also says that they replace the loans with grants for families with incomes less than $45K.</p>
<p>Their policy with outside scholarships allows you to cover your loans (if any) before lowering their school scholarships. And they also decrease or totally take away your student contribution (but not parent contribution, obviously) if you have enough outside scholarships.</p>
<p>My financial aid ended up being fantastic. Of the three ivies I was considering, Dartmouth originally began as the most expensive. However, I sent them my awesome aid package from UPenn and so Dartmouth decided to give me even more money than UPenn was willing to give. </p>
<p>My aid package ended up making Dartmouth the cheapest school I was accepted into. Right now I am paying almost half of what UC Berkeley was gonna charge me, and I'm a California resident. </p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that Dartmouth will cover all your need no matter what. And if you get a better offer from another school, just fax them that info and see if Dartmouth won't try to give you an even better deal.</p>
<p>The Good:
For the most part, aid is more than sufficient. For some the package starts really low but if you show them a better package they will up their deal.
Also, there are a limited number of Endowed Scholarships which, depending on your financial situation, may give even more aid than the FAFSA EFC (if this happens, Dartmouth will automatically pull you off federal Stafford/Perkins and give you a different loan).</p>
<p>The Bad: Early decision candidates may find themselves with "take-it-or-leave-it" packages--ones that are just low enough that you will complain, but just high enough that you won't really want to withdraw matriculation. The real strength of financial aid comes with applying regular decision and watching the Ivies up each others' packages in their bid to increase their yield.</p>
<p>The Ugly: Regardless of financial package, the expected student contribution from savings/summer earnings is rather steep. The work-study portion is reasonable, the expected summer earnings is not. Unless you work for three months at a decent-paying job, which can take the whole fun out of the last summer of high school.</p>
<p>Bottom Line: Unless financial aid is not a major concern, apply regular decision, not early decision. Try and get an outside scholarship as it will really help to offset the unrealistic summer expectations.</p>
<p>My experience with the financial aid office at Dartmouth has been fantastic - their initial offer was pretty small, and my family was supposed to pay more than we could afford. But after negotiating using offers from other schools (Georgetown and U Chicago offered $16K and $10K yearly scholarship money, respectively), and explaining some extenuating circumstances that the FAFSA did not cover, more than half of my tuition will be covered by grants from the school. I have an outside scholarship from National Merit that eliminates some of the loans in my financial aid package. Which, all in all, makes a Dartmouth education cheaper than going to my state university and any other private school I was considering (Georgetown, Chicago, Northwestern, Columbia).</p>
<p>One great thing about the Dartmouth aid process is the level of individual attention you receive - unlike a lot of big publics, the finaid officers actually read the emails you send them, follow up on forms, and take into account family situations that affect the ability to pay for college. They are more than willing to increase the aid amount if you give them a compelling reason to.</p>
<p>To follow-up on xine's "individual attention" comment...</p>
<p>I've never actually had to ask them to reconsider their aid (because... well :D), but I had to call them numerous times to arrange my outside scholarship checks (things got a little messy and I had to defer some). The second time I called, the finaid officer already remembered my situation (not to mention, the initial person who answered the phone did too).</p>
<p>On a separate occassion, I called simply because I was confused about how the whole system worked. I talked to someone, and he explained it in detail and answered any questions I had -- for about 45 minutes.</p>
<p>Ditto the experiences above. </p>
<p>And as for the expected student contribution from leave-term earnings, which can seem steep, that portion seems about standard across a wide spectrum of schools. I am not sure it isn't even federally formulated.</p>
<p>Additionally, Dartmouth includes a very reasonable estimate of expense for books and transportation in calculating the total cost of attendence. As with other schools, the family contribution is formulaically determined and then the balance (need) is awarded in a combination of straight-out grants, work study and loans. You may find that with respect to books and transportation, you can, through various means (used books, transporation deals, shared rides etc) often spend less than the estimate. That effectively reduces the portion you pay- it does not reduce the amount of the pure grant portion of your aid. Same with room and board. If you opt for a lower meal plan or less expensive housing [after Freshman year] than Dartmouth uses for their cost calculations, that reduces the amount you and your family ultimately pay.</p>
<p>With the understanding and caution that every family situation is different (just one example - two families of X size with Y number of kids of or near college age may have the same amount of annual disposable income, but one of the two families may hold more in tappable assets, such as real property), Dartmouth's financial aid packages, including the grant/work study/loan ratio seem very generous.</p>