<p>My daughter is completing her junior year in high school and is interested
in Wellesley. Her grades and SAT's meet + Wellesley's standards.</p>
<p>I am aware that Wellesley's aid is "need" based. We are a middle class family
with dad and mom working. 150K, house paid for, one son out of college with
2nd son a junior at State University. I am 62 with the wife 55-- retirement age
not that far off.</p>
<p>My specific questions-- How does Wellesley "need based" financial aid stack up
versus other "need based" aid programs of other schools? The usual suspects,
eg., HYP, Sisters? Have you as parents been pleased with the financial aid
provided by Wellesley? When your children were accepted at "need based"
FA colleges other than Wellesley were the financial aid packages similar to
Wellesley's FA or significantly different?</p>
<p>Not sure I can be of too much help - Wellesley was the only need-based aid institution my D was accepted to. Her aid is phenomenal, but our income/assets are lower (no house for example). Their financial aid website points to EFC calculators on the College Board website, but since Wellesley (like many schools) uses Institutional Methodology I don’t know if the calculators will give a good estimate of anticipated aid.</p>
<p>CollegeQ-- Thanks for the response. I’ve used calculators. You bring
up the point of Institutional Methology which is really what I’m trying to
get at anecdotally via other parents’ experiences with other “need based”
FA schools. What is Wellesley’s FA reputation when compared to others
in the “need based” only category?</p>
<p>Since I have no comparison I don’t know if I can be of help. Their website says that for parent income of $150,000 and above, the average grant is $17,608, with a range of $0 - $41,920. That’s the top parent income category, so it would include the gazillionaires. The band just below, $120,000 - $149,999 has an average grant of $25,889 with a range of $1,467 - $47,128. So I would think with an income right at $150K you should get some grant aid. </p>
<p>The CSS profile does ask about your home, retirement, cars, savings, etc. I really don’t know how those things are considered in the equation.</p>
<p>As far as I know, pretty much any “need based” school you apply to is going to give you the same amount of financial aid as any other “need based” school. That’s because they all do the same thing: figure out how much you need. Colleges and universities aren’t actually out to get anyone, in fact, they just want to help all the people they can so that they can obtain the most qualified students. I do know that older schools are of course more well endowed than other options you might have, but those other options probably don’t GUARANTEE to meet your full financial need (which they really are good at calculating) Wellesley does guarantee that. When I received my financial aid package in the mail, I thought that they didn’t give me enough, but that’s just because we all want to pay less. They gave me exactly what I needed and exactly what other schools would have given me.</p>
<p>LoveThatDog- Thanks for your response. I note a new article posted on the
Wellesley College edu site. " 63 Best at Providing FA" or something close to that
title. Wellesley is listed among them. This pretty much makes your case about
need be addressed adequately. Take a look at the responses from various folks
regarding the accuracy of the need being addressed claim. I note 7 interesting
responses so far-- FA gray area?</p>
<p>I just received my financial aid offer from Wellesley, and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised by how much they offered. I’ve gotten three other offers back so far from need-blind institutions, and the offer Wellesley gave me was significantly higher than any of the offers I received (One school even offered me a significant merit scholarship and still I would have to pay more than at Wellesley). In fact, I was leaning toward one of my other schools (Caltech), until I got the estimate from Wellesley. I’m not really sure how colleges calculate how much “need” a family has, but I would disagree that all colleges offer the same amount of need-based aid. Although, my family’s financial situation is pretty volatile right now - we’re an upper-middle class single parent home, but we’ve recently suffered some financial upheavals, so maybe Wellesley took that into account.</p>
<p>I just got accepted to Wellesley with generous financial aid. However, I read this comment on College ******* from a current student, </p>
<p>“100%” Financial Aid</p>
<p>C-Wellesley makes big claims about its generous financial aid, but don’t expect it to last beyond your first year. Many students find their costs tripling by their junior year. Financial aid packages can be reviewed and reassessed, but the financial aid department usually doesn’t listen to pleas from families who cannot afford tuition. Their advertised financial aid policies are misleading- they “bait-and-switch”."</p>
<p>^Is there any truth to that? I mean, the only way I can afford to go to Wellesley is if they continue providing this financial aid all four years.</p>
<p>We’ve had two years of awards so far, and they were very similar (and generous). Not much changed in our situation regarding income, etc. Don’t have her awards yet for her junior year. </p>
<p>Her senior year will be based on 2011 income and it will be interesting to see what that will be. H was unemployed but began working at the very end of 2010; plus S will also be in college that year, so I expect both of those events to impact her Financial Aid (H’s income will reduce it while S’s college tuition will raise it back a little, I expect). </p>
<p>So, if your circumstances change, expect your financial aid to change the following year. But no bait and switch for us.</p>