If your scores and grades put you on the fence for admittance, you may get accepted without FA. This happened to my DD’s friend whose scores were at the average for the school. The irate mother called FA and was told that her DD was accepted without FA and that their analysis showed the parents could contribute full pay if they chose to. (and they could.) They chose not to and went to a 3rd tier school which offered FA. Seems to be doing well, so all worked out in end. My DD, who did get a generous package, though not nearly as generous as that enviable 89%, had scores well above the average for the school, stellar grades and ECs. And, having kids in college, our EFC showed a need.
Hope this helps and good luck!
My son applied five years ago and required (asked for) about 80% financial aid. Great stats, including a state title, all As, 99 percentile testing, underrepresented state, etc.
Results: admitted to one local day school and one local boarding school with financial aid needed, 7 wait-lists and one rejection from GLADCHEMS, and admission from Exeter with more financial aid than requested. One wait-list - Choate - actually wrote in their letter that wait-list was due to financial aid request.
He graduated from Exeter last year after four happy years.
So very YMWV.
@Vowelstate 5 years and the first post!! Welcome, please stick around.
Not the first post, but changed username for privacy purposes. Still, was mostly lurker for the last five years. 
Some of the posters are implying that FA has a correlation to how strong the applicant is. I intuitively agree. That said, that appears different from the information the schools have provided me.
I believe it is more how much the school wants the applicant, whether because he/she is very strong academically, URM, athlete, etc.
How a candidate become more desirable than having a state title, all As, 99% testing and underrepresented state?
“Gapping” and FA wait listing are common among schools with smaller endowments and lower FA budgets. Among the schools often mentioned here, Choate and NMH are doing it more often. And I haven’t heard of any of the HADES+G doing that, which doesn’t mean FA needs don’t affect one’s admission chances in these schools (except maybe Andover, which is NB) but rather that these schools seem to be committed to fully fund those they admit and need FA. In less competitive schools, I have the impression that SAS and George School (there must be more that I am not aware of) are more generous (in terms of less gapping and FA WL). Of course, almost every school has an FA budget so theoretically you have a chance of getting funded in every school, but since one can’t apply to every school, a filtering process based on “track records” taking consideration of how competitive a candidate one is could be helpful.
^^ All this wait listing regarding financial aid is stressing me out:). Kidding of course as the research here is clear that asking for financial aid will impact your chances. But, the big thing we have no clear understanding is the decision to reject or WL highly qualified students. I agree that it just depends on what the prospective student brings, be it that unique music talent, the position for which a student athlete is about to graduate, or that super unique EC (not the padding of a portfolio to display volume). These traits seem to valued as much as the 99% SSAT. The admissions folks look to build a class and know what they are looking for. We are just not privy to that unfortunately for those of us counting the days until March 10.
As I think I’ve suggested in my prior posts on this thread and elsewhere, when it comes to financial aid, there is no free lunch. Of course, I’m familiar only with our experiences at the two small-endowment schools my children have attended–and your experience may vary. But I am inclined to suggest that if you can pay, you should–for the simple reason that you and your child might just be a little happier in the end.
In the case of the horror story I related above (concerning an inadequate initial award), I can tell you that it was an awful way to kick off a relationship with a school. I don’t believe we ever spoke in person again to the admissions/financial aid director. I did write several letters to this individual asking–nay, pleading–that our family contribution not be raised. Once it worked; twice it did not. (One year we even had to borrow in order to pay our tuition commitments.) I can’t help but think our relationship with this person was left irremediably strained.
Notwithstanding our generous awards, we still have no–and I mean zero–discretionary income. My experience is that these schools manage to combine a sympathetic generosity with a dash of sadism when it comes to apportioning money, and that they never hesitate to squeeze every last penny out of you. Even Fefekid2’s school–the “can do no wrong” school–has been decidedly tight-fisted. The school encourages parents to speak up when they are financially pressed, but that does not necessarily mean that the school will toss you an extra grand or two just for the asking. I will say that this school has been extremely indulgent about letting us take our time paying–though we did just get a reminder that our child would not be allowed to participate in graduation ceremonies, etc., if we were not payed up.
As to whether a family’s financial aid status plays a role in their child’s day-to-day experience at a school is hard to say. I’ve heard the usual horror stories: for example, kid A and B have a serious disagreement; kid A is full pay; kid B is not; so, goodbye kid B. One never knows how much credence to give to these anecdotes. I’d be curious to hear other stories of perceived discrimination towards financial aid students versus full-pays.
It was mainly in our dealings with the school’s administration that we sometimes felt that we were second-class citizens–and just slightly, at that. It may be solely my imagination, but I could almost hear these administrators saying to themselves: “You pay about a tenth of what others are paying and you still have the nerve to complain! That’s gratitude. Take a seat.” And, honestly, I can see their point.
But, on the other hand, I’ve been encouraged by others to resist thinking of our family as somehow deserving of second-class treatment. People will tell me that if we are contributing all we can afford then there’s no reason to apologize–that we are essentially in the same boat with everyone else, as tuition alone never covers the full cost of a child’s education. That is, everyone–including full-pays–is getting some form of assistance from the school.
Both of our schools have a sizable percentage of foreign students that it depends upon to pay full fare so that kids like mine can go for less. So, it’s not hard to imagine that this foreign group is granted “preferred customer” status. When Fefekid1 was a ninth-grader and couldn’t get any sleep because the foreign roommate was up and making noise all night, the school was not particularly concerned. While there was a strict lights-out policy in place, apparently it was not consistently enforced. Once again, I can sympathize with the school: if word ever got around in foreign-country-land that the school was interfering with an ambitious child’s right to study all night, applications might drop precipitously.
What really hurt was that they made Fefekid1 wait for over five weeks before allowing a room change–notwithstanding that there was an empty bed across the hall. They should have just let my child change rooms, instead of making the kid pursue an endless series of petitions for redress (to proctors, to faculty residents, to administrators–and then back to proctors), all in a losing effort to get a decent night’s sleep. I have to wonder whether a full-pay student would have received an expedited room change and been spared the heartless procedural charade.
I also wonder about the families who are making $250k and more and still receiving financial aid. Now, I’m not suggesting they don’t deserve the aid. I’m just curious to know if they are allowed to continue to live in “the manner to which they’ve grown accustomed”–that is, if they are still tooling around in Beemers and Escalades and vacationing in Switzerland. I can assure you that of our two cars, one has tape holding on the gas-fill door, and I haven’t seen the inside of a hotel room in I-don’t-know how long.
So, one must wonder whether, in an imperfect world, taking financial aid is the better way to go if one can possibly afford not to. We took the money and stuck with it–and we have the scars to prove it.
@DonFefe, thank you for sharing your painful experience. I think that makes us better prepared for anything that might come ahead of us.
Living in a very capitalistic society, If SculptorKid enters a boarding school with a heavy financial aid as she needs, I only hope that she never take it as granted and pay some of it back by bringing more intangible values to the school than others, including foreign students who not only subsidize my child’s tuition but also reduce U.S. trade deficit. And god help the school that her education might lead her to become the next John Paulson.
This article about financial aid is 2 years old, but has some interesting information: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/15/your-money/for-boarding-schools-an-evolving-financial-aid-philosophy.html?ref=business&_r=0
Thanks GoatMama. Very interesting. Somewhat sickening too. We have been in private schools since kindergarten. Way back it was mostly done because of where we lived. We have never qualified for anything. Despite having one home, two unglamorous cars and no vacation home etc. I do resent many of the FA awards I know about.
This thread hits on a number of topics. I hope my bluntness is not offensive; apologies in advance if so.
One thing I never quite understood is why private schools do not charge full freight. I have heard some say it is so that a portion can be tax deductible as a donation. But as one who has been involved enough to know, I am always surprised by how many people (who, let me just say, appear clearly in a position to do so) do not make up the shortfall. In our case, we would never have my child attend a school without at least paying the full cost of their education; to do so would be tantamount to accepting aid we do not need. Yet many people do just pay tuition and ignore the larger responsibility.
I suppose there are cases where that incremental amount renders the school unaffordable, but I wonder how common that is? For example, if you can afford to be full pay at $55k, I am guessing you lead a pretty nice lifestyle and hence could come up with the incremental 10k or so. Not everyone, but a lot of people.
As for international students making up the difference, you might be surprised. They pay tuition, but, at least based on my experience, they do not donate to the school. So they are paying less than full freight! I have had some people tell me that certain cultures do not have the same tradition of charity (at least certainly not toward schools with OTT facilities and luxuries) so they just don’t “get it”. I am not sure if that is the case or not, but I would never assume international students are carrying the burden. Far more likely to be generous domestic parents who know the drill, IMHO.
As for the experience Fefe described, that is, to me, unacceptable. I don’t know anything about FA, but I almost wonder if the TSAO should create a separate arm that determines, under guidelines as specific as possible, how much any given family can be expected to contribute. Then a student would include in their application, my family can pay “x” and any amount above “x” needs to be FA. No negotiating or horsetrading or battles than poison the relationship. Just a yes or no. Maybe TSAO schools would agree not to offer FP opportunities to anyone who asks for FA (which also means you wouldn’t ask for it unless you definitely needs it, unlike some posts I have seen). Anyway, I hope you were imagining the slights Fefe (and you were open enough to say maybe you were), because that is beyond tacky!
All that being said, as a full pay family, who would also intend to try to cover the shortfall for other students who may need help, I am sometimes mystified by the tone of some posts in re FA. Yes, I know that we are fortunate to be able to pay without hardship, but it is still a ton of money to us. And it is money we earned and saved. Not everyone who is full pay has unlimited funds. If one assumes that you pay tuition plus shortfalls plus donations and misc. expenses, you can easily call it $300k. There are few families who can afford it, and even fewer who will never miss it. No one needs a BS education; our country provides education for everyone. It is a luxury, without question. So I kind of don’t get an undercurrent I sometimes detect of people being angry about the FA process or its impact on odds. I can’t think of anything else you can get through “charity” (for lack of a better term) that is not a necessity, that has a value of 300k. I think it is amazing that it is even possible.
@6teenSearch , even though I need FA and you don’t, my sentiment toward the issue is about the same as you expressed.
BS for SculptorKid is a very desirable and beneficial, but still unnecessary $300k luxury that it is truly amazing that it is even possible to be given for free or a fraction of the cost. It seems BS of other country are not so generous, and even BS of the U.S. have been less so in the past. I feel SculptorKid has been very lucky in many ways, and is very lucky to have the whole experience of applying. Just visiting and applying to BS is nearly impossible to vast number (probably majority) of kids in the U.S.
I often participated in a discussion about higher difficulty for FA students in admission because it is relevant to us. It is a technical variable just like kid’s being an Asian girl. I don’t feel sorry for them because benefits she gains from being FA and ORM are far greater than high BS admission difficulty. Not that I would resent if the benefits were smaller. The system seems very natural and reasonable, if not still too good to be true.
6teensearch and sculptordad: i guess i agree and disagree with you both. I cant afford to donate more than the tuition. the tuition comes out of our savings. we iive very modestly. i take issue with how someone who has four kids and makes $450K and has two mortgages can get a lot of aid and i cant…its a bit political but it is like the age old issue of what is the definition of rich. FA for BS and college is massively disenfranchising the middle class. They get nothing, take out huge loans yet those who qualify whether by special interest status or financial status get a free or subsidized ride…ugh. it is natural and reasonable to those who benefit.
@Center, “natural and reasonable” was about having higher difficulty for admission, the getting benefit was “too good to be true” part.
And BS and college are different issues. As was mentioned before, we have free public high school system.
Center, I would take issue too with what you describe, as one who would plan to donate to the school in order to provide aid to other students, I would want it doled out fairly too.
Sculptor, got it!
sculptordad: nothing is free. usually better schools require much higher property taxes
@Center, of course you are right. Some parents buy a smaller and expensive house for school district. But to those who paid high property taxes regardless of school district options, sending their kids to the better schools is then free. I know parents who paid heavy property taxes for living in a good neighborhood and are still sending their kids to private schools.