I was admitted to Georgia Tech for the class of 2020 as an out of state student. Due to intricate family circumstances, my efc was calculated to be zero (by fafsa and GT). However, I received only $5,775 in financial aid from the pell grant. Georgia tech is my dream school, but I cannot attend with tuition being $40,000+ a year. Other oos students with efcs greater than mine have received over $15,000 in financial aid. Why didn’t I?
Does it have anything to do with being selected for verification? I just mailed my verification forms yesterday.
You must talk with them to know for sure. No one else can truly answer. But, as a guess, once they establish financial need they look at other factors including academic scores, diversity, geographic, anticipated major, etc. My son is also OOS and he was only offered loans, which was no surprise based on our EFC.
I know it is hard, but you may have to pursue your career elsewhere. No one school can make or break your future. College is really about what you put into it, not what it puts into you.
Good Luck!
My EFC is also 0, but I got $24315 in aid. I’m sorry to hear that you didnt get any help. To be honest, Im not sure if I can pay the rest either.
Thanks a lot!
Yeah I don’t know why, I really hope I can get more!
Son got accepted into GT. we are OOS. He has been accepted by several other schools and all offered some good merit based scholarship (ranging from $6,500 (from instate university) to $28K (from private university) a year. It was clearly stated in the offer letter that all those scholarships are automatically renewed for four years as long as GPA stay at or above certain value (ranging from 2.5 to 3.0)
Just received the financial aid (FA) package from GT which included $7,000 GT Scholarship for Undergrads (or Institutional Scholarships and many kinds of education loans, total up to $47,634 for the year 2016-2017. We don’t have much interest for the education loans except for the $7K scholarship.
In order for us to make the go-or-not-go decision, we need some help for the following questions:
- Is the GT scholarship merit or need based?
- If it is merit based, should it be automatically renewed for the next three years as long as my son maintains his GPA (accumulative as well as per semester) above 3.0?
- If it is not automatically renewed, what is the chance to get it for the next three years?
Thanks for the help in advance.
are the $24315 in aid all grand and scholarship or some of them student loans?
Were you all accepted RD or ED? We’re in-state and my son qualifies for Zell Miller, and I’d like to at least see where we would end up after that has been factored in. I called the FA office and was told the letters are going out this week. In Buzzport, it says the award letter isn’t available yet. My son is really leaning away from Tech at this point, but I still want to have all the information in front of me before we do anything.
We also do not have the financial aid letter. We are OOS and son was accepted EA in January. Does anyone know if this comes via snail mail or Buzz port? Thanks!
I just called the FA office again and was told that award letters will be going out “this week”. I asked if that meant tomorrow since it’s already Thursday (and almost the end of the workday)… and was told that she can’t tell me exactly when, just that they would be going out “this week”. She said it should also be posted on Buzzport. To be honest, I feel like I’m getting the runaround, but I’m not getting any better information out of this office. Of all the schools we have dealt with this year, this is by far the most unorganized. I got all my documents in at the same time as I did all the other schools (back in February). Does anyone else have any better info regarding when we might get financial aid award info at GA Tech?
@bahiablue - I have always felt that the FA office was pretty responsive. I use email when asking questions. FA info just shows up in Buzzport. If they say that it will be this week then it will probably be this week. Although it may show up on Friday at 5:00…
Ok, thanks @MichiganGeorgia. I’ll check tomorrow and if not, I’ll try email. I know I’m getting impatient… and trying very hard not to. Thanks for your reply.
For my S, it was shown in his Buzz port.
Thanks @ProdParent3S. Unfortunately for us, it’s still not there.
@bahiablue I found out what happened with us. We had checked NO to loans, and we did not qualify for a grant, so Georgia Tech sends an email to the student saying we did not qualify and NOTHING appears in Buzz Port, if a family does not qualify for financial aid. Look in your students email, for a note that says you did not qualify for financial aid, but I got a call back from GT also explaining we did not qualify for grants but we could still apply for subsidized loans. So this may be whats going on for you. We found Malaka Thomas willing to help us, even though our name does not end in A-D. Try her at malaka.thomas@finaid.gatech.edu.
If you checked “no loans” on the GT financial aid application, as we did, then no financial aid letter will be generated by GT IF you do not qualify for an institutional grant . If that is the case for you and you want to change and say you want loans, they will happily send you a financial aid letter with those loans.
Thanks @Coloradomama! I just checked the 2016-2017 Georgia Tech Application Review Page and I see the loans are checked (with the exception of Parent Plus loans). The subsidized and unsubsidized are both checked, as well as work-study and the loan certifications. But, there may be something else going on so I appreciate the info!! I’ve already sent an email to the person I dealt with while sending all the tax documents in. I think I’ll send one to Malaka Thomas too though. Thanks again, I appreciate your help!
Check your son’s email to make sure he didn’t receive an email asking for verification or some other type of documentation. GT is usually good at releasing all the financial aid letters around the same time and they always appear in buzzport on the far left toward the bottom with the picture box and then text underneath it saying “Financial Aid Award” or letter. If it is not there then try calling a few times to get a live person. Tech has been good with us in replying to emails.
Just to follow up… after sending several emails to different financial aid people and calling several times on Monday, I finally spoke with the assigned financial aid advisor yesterday morning. Finally, she really looked at our account and actually admitted that for some strange reason, my son’s award letter for 2016-2017 had been overlooked. She doesn’t know why it fell through the cracks, but it has. All documents were received and there is no real reason why it isn’t done. It is just an error on their part. They are supposed to be working on getting it done now.
@bahiablue Please keep us posted for the progress on the issue. My son just committed to the school and paid the deposit. Per my son, for some reason, an accepted student needs to apply for the institutional scholarship separately from the previous request for financial aid. Otherwise, no such scholarship will be awarded. Did your son apply for such scholarship?