<p>My daughter was accepted to Williams and we recently received her financial aid package. Williams is her dream college, but there is no possible way for us to pay without dipping into our savings and taking out a substantial loan--our son is in college now, and we're already scrambling to pay for his tuition. My husband called the admissions office, but they said they couldn't do anything further.
My daughter also received a generous merit-based scholarship from another university--could we use that to negotiate for more financial aid?</p>
<p>You could call fin aid and ask. Sounds like you already did. There are unfortunately about 7000 people who would like your daughter’s spot…</p>
<p>Same situation here…All my friends got slightly better packages than me even though I think my family, financially, is a bit less well off…</p>
<p>I’ll wait to see what Swarthmore gives me before calling to ask…</p>
<p>Basically, if you were an early write, threaten them with not attending (make sure to mention Swarthmore or *<strong><em>Amherst</em></strong> (very lethal word) or Dartmouth or even better, an Ivy) if they don’t meet your financial demands!</p>
<p>lol, joking, joking…but you get my idea…</p>
<p>No, I don’t think a merit award would influence a need-based award at all. They expect parents to dip into savings and even to take loans if necessary.</p>
<p>We also had to send through two at the same time and some semesters it was a real squeaker.</p>
<p>They will be happy to talk to you about other need-based packages your child receives. I would suggest not mentioning that dipping into your savings would be a hardship.</p>
<p>Would you mind sharing particulars about your package? Does your son receive better need-based aid elsewhere?</p>
<p>At OP - I don’t understand your post. We are depleting our savings to send our child to Williams, not just dipping, and she had merit offers, as I am sure every other Williams admit did. I don’t mean to sound rude, but it has been a little frustrating to find people with similar incomes to ours who never saved much are qualifying for aid because they have no assets, when we skipped vacations and saved like crazy since our children were born.</p>
<p>Isn’t dipping into savings and taking out a substantial loan the norm for sending kids to college?</p>
<p>I will be auctioning organs. May not have enough left for grad school.</p>
<p>Didn’t Williams give up its no loan policy? That fact alone makes it less attractive financial aid wise in comparison to Swarthmore, Dartmouth, Amherst…</p>
<p>^^^^^^ Starting with the entering class of 2011.</p>
<p>Not necessarily true. The loan portion was very minimal, and some of these other schools are raising the summer contribution and coloring the packages in a different way.</p>
<p>From what I understand, Dartmouth’s aid is better, but I don’t think Swat’s and Amherst’s necessarily are.</p>
<p>Our Williams package was significantly better than the Vassar package, for instance.</p>
<p>Are the FA packages people are receiving in line with the Williams FA estimator? The estimator number was rather encouraging in our case, but we are still awaiting admission and FA info.</p>
<p>Our financial aid was close and we’re very happy with it.</p>
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<p>Williams is need-aware for 2010 internationals but nebulously-capped-loans for 2011 students, I believe. IF AWS all calculate a similar EFC, Amherst and Swarthmore should be cheaper than Williams for middle-class students (e.g. receiving significant financial aid but not low enough income to qualify for “limited” no-loans provisions). Adding back loans is a significantly greater net income than increasing summer work contribution, for instance. Swat is increasing summer work by $600; if Williams offers the same middle-class student a small loan, it’d be at least $1000 and probably more (I would guess the subsidized Stafford amount). There was an Ephblog discussion about this issue, i.e. the possibility of Williams losing middle-class students to its peers due to FA.</p>
<p>Dartmouth is also going back to loans for 2011, FYI. And Vassar simply does not have an endowment per student near that of AWS.</p>
<p>Keil: I don’t want to get into another argument, but there are other factors not being taken into account. For example, Winter Study keeps kids on campus for the month of January where they are housed and fed without any extra expense is a significant savings to my family. You can’t imagine what the food bills are for S.</p>
<p>I maintain that even with the loan issue, that AWS will vary by circumstance.</p>
<p>^True enough. (I, for one, eat like a typical 5’2" Asian female. ;)) But I maintain that even with varying circumstance, AS will hold a possibly nominal, possibly significant (depending again on circumstance) financial advantage over W for middle-class FA applicants.</p>
<p>unimom, it’s still early in the process. Wait and see what kind of need based aid packages your daughter receives from other colleges that are Williams’ peers. Then, with an apples to apples comparison in hand, you may have more leverage with Williams financial aid department.</p>
<p>For us, Williams was worth dipping into retirement savings, but every family has to face its own financial limitations. </p>
<p>Receiving an early write indicates that your daughter has something that Williams wants. [I’m assuming that she didn’t apply under Early Decision, which would present a whole different set of problems.]</p>
<p>The financial landscape at all of these LACs and medium sized privates is undergoing a seismic shift, so it’s very difficult to predict the outcome until all the information is available.</p>
<p>I know the indecisiveness is nerve shattering, but hang in there and see how the situation develops over the next six weeks.</p>
<p>Mythmom, what do you mean by minimal, as in the loan portion? Is it the Stafford subsidized full amount? That alone is $19,000, correct? I am not sure that would be considered minimal…more like moderate! And yes, this will impact middle class family students like mine, I am hoping my daughter can get into a college w/no loans! Makes a huge difference to folks like me!</p>
<p>Minimal was $1500 the first year. It does go up, but the highest it reaches is $5,500, but you don’t have to take it.</p>
<p>But if you don’t take it you have to pay out of pocket for that amount. Was your son admitted under the “with loans” policy mythmom? I haven’t seen anything in stone about what next year’s policy will be, but perhaps they will revert to the most recent with loans financial aid policies.</p>