<p>Does a school tell you how much financial aid you will receive prior to application in its letter of acceptance? </p>
<p>Or must one wait until they decide to attend that college in order to find out how much money they will receive?</p>
<p>--Thanks</p>
<p>You will receive financial information after you accept the admission into the school</p>
<p>For most schools, the financial aid package and the acceptance letter are in the same envelope...</p>
<p>The financial aid package comes with the acceptance letter. Even then it says it's an estimate and could change depending on several things. For instance, after the aid package came to us, my D got another scholarship and the loans were reduced. Nice...</p>
<p>However, you can go to the school's financial aid office site and sometimes there is a calculator which can help you get a ball park figure, or College Board (cringe) has an EFC calculator on their site. </p>
<p>Please heed others' warnings, though, and be certain of your financial situation before applying for Early Decision which is binding and might not be financially acceptable. Sometimes you can break ED if the financial package is not enough, but it can be quite difficult. Good luck!</p>
<p>In my Ds case the financial aid information came well after the acceptance letter. Hers is a State U though so probably private schools are different. Hers also changed considerably with additional scholarship $$s reducing the loans.</p>
<p>Some colleges send the financial aid info even after the student has accepted admission. If money is important to you, I don't suggest accepting such a college's offer as we've seen students posting about accepting such an offer while turning down others, and then learning that their financial aid was not sufficient. </p>
<p>By contacting individual colleges' financial aid web sites and offices, you can find out when colleges notify aid recipients.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! This really helps....money is important. ;)</p>
<p>DD was accepted by 6 colleges. Five sent their financial aid offers with the acceptance letter. The other sent some information about financial aid (a merit award) with the acceptance letter, with the full aid letter arriving several weeks later.</p>
<p>You have received most of the info...the finaid award should come well before your May 1st date to commit to a school. In some cases, finaid does come with the acceptance. In other cases, finaid comes after the letter of acceptance. AND in some cases, (e.g. ED and EA or early rolling admits), you will receive an estimated finaid offer either at or shortly after acceptance, and a finalized finaid offer once your taxes are completed and the forms amended to reflect the correct amounts. AND that estimated finaid award CAN be different from the final one (DD had one school where the final award went down by $4000...and another school where the award didn't change at all...).</p>
<p>Our private school accepted D in the fall and we did not get fin aid info till March. You do not have to formally accept going to most schools till May 1. So you can then have the option of weighing the fin aid from all the schools you are accepted at -unless you're doing early decision or something...</p>
<p>Hmm...so if I apply EA, will I find out how much financial aid I would receive in time? </p>
<p>This is considering that the FAFSA is due as early as January 1, 2008. And that it takes 2-3 weeks to process if sent electronically and 6 weeks via "snail mail."</p>
<p>Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>Assuming you get your finaid applications done on time, you will have ALL of your finaid awards in time to make a final decision by May 1. This excludes ED applicants (not EA...EA is non-binding and you have until May 1 to make your decision along with your other schools) who should get at least the estimated finaid award to you very close to the date of your ED acceptance. For EA, in most cases you will get an estimated finaid award, and then when you update your FAFSA/Profile to reflect completed taxes, the school will send you a finalized award. And yes, the FAFSA is not available to file until Jan 1. BUT many Profile schools have a priority deadline for the filing of the Profile for EA applicants and students applying for specific scholarships...and this can be as early as October of your senior year of high school. There is a thread tacked at the top here called "Preparing for Finaid Applications". I would suggest reading it.</p>