<p>So after comming off my super excited mood when i got accepted on thrusday I actually sat down with my dad to look at the financial aid package they sent me. At first i was excited, who $7000 scholarship! but when you take into accoutn the $50,000 tuition price tag, they are some how exspecting me to take out 20,000 in loans per year! It just seems to make no sense that when my parent contribution is something like 14,000 per year that they think its okay for me to be 80,000 in debt when i graduate.
sry, i am ranting. i was just so excited and am sooo upset know. i may have to turn down my dream college because i can't afford it. Does anyone have a similar situation? do they possibly give out more financial aid or no? is this it? i sure as god hope not. . .</p>
<p>try appealing. from what i’ve seen on here oberlin has offered a wide range of different John F. Oberlin scholarships. ive seen as low as 5000 and as high as 27000. people are bound to turn down offers and maybe the FA office can offer more after that…</p>
<p>but i know how you feel. cal is my first choice but i was offered more at oberlin (2nd choice)</p>
<p>Whoa, my EFC is about 14000 too, and I got a better deal. Yet Oberlin’s deal wasn’t competitive with my other ones. They gave me over $8k in loans and then expected my EFC. That’s not reasonable for my parents…</p>
<p>How do you appeal? Do you have to have a good reason, or can you just ask that Oberlin try to meet my other packages from other schools? :/</p>
<p>Oh man, this is scary. My D’s fin aid letter has yet to arrive. Now I’m terrified. My EFC is $27.4K, and that’s with TWO kids in college next year. All I know is Dickinson and Muhlenberg covered the difference between the EFC and the cost of tuition, fees and room and board. Dickinson with only $3500 in loans; Muhlenberg with $5500. I’m willing to let my D take on $3500 a year, but 20K or even 8K is ridiculous.</p>
<p>Yeah, i was excited about my 7,000 merit scholarship, but that still leaves me with 20,000, including my parents’ contribution. Would it actually make a difference to contact the school and beg for more $$? It probably can’t hurt, right?</p>
<p>Well, If i get crap financial aid from Bard as well, I’m definitely going to go and ask for more money, politely of course!</p>
<p>Plainsman - when I had 2 kids in college (we were in that situation for 4 years), the schools essentially split the EFC. So if our EFC was $30,000, each school expected us to contribute $15,000 and the rest was made up in scholarships, grants, loans, etc. Our Oberlin package certainly reflected this.</p>
<p>^^^
I have to use that. Show 'em my D1’s costs for next year and ask if they can add on some additional grant dollars.</p>
<p>Plainsman - those figures should have been included on your FAFSA. I believe they ask you for information on ALL children attending college. Check your FAFSA and see if you included it. If not, you may need to submit an amended FAFSA.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>My other D’s college tuition is included in my FAFSA. I don’t understand, then, how my EFC could be $27.4K. Shouldn’t it be a lot lower? There are people on this board who claim a 0 EFC or $3K EFC. These financial aid offices aren’t very realistic.</p>
<p>It’s always possible a mistake was made in calculating the FAFSA. It never hurts to ask.</p>
<p>I agree, it is worth asking. I guess it depends on what your overall income is. If you own your own business, that may complicate things quite a bit.</p>
<p>Tuition increase for next year is 5% - up and over $50,000 - to $50,584 ($4?)</p>
<p>I appealed to the financial aid office to get a higher award, and it went from $7k to 10k. I sent them letters on what $ I got from other schools, etc. Sweet! I know it’s not that much more, but it’s enough to push me over the edge, I think.</p>
<p>When/how did you appeal to them, jam? I’ve been e-mailing them (and they’ve been responding back every two or three days – do they get that much mail?). I also filled out the appeal form, and sent that this Monday. Just wondering how long it’ll take them to give me a new award or deny my request.</p>
<p>It all happened in the course of this week (I think I sent in a request on Monday), and they got back to me today. Faxed copies of other schools’ award $ forms, sent in formal appeal, then got a voicemail today saying that the financial aid committee had reviewed my appeal and a new award was available. Really responsive and quick process - I was surprised (but happy!). Try calling the FA office and make sure you’ve gone through the correct appeal procedure. Then you won’t have to wait so long for an email reply.</p>
<p>is there a specific form for a formal appeal? or do you just write a letter to them?</p>
<p>Oh, good. I’m definitely calling them on Monday, to make sure…hope the FA office isn’t too busy from All Roads.</p>
<p>chicfreak318, they gave me a form for appeal; not sure if there’s just one general one, since mine was focused on my family’s next year income (I mentioned my mother just lost some of her unemployment benefits). Check around the fin. aid website, or call them.</p>
<p>My revised financial aid package came in today. Disappointing – only got 3k more in grants and it looks like they raised my loans slightly (??). I’m calling in Monday to see if they considered my new EFC (I e-mailed them last week but they said they didn’t see an EFC change)…but it looks very likely that I’m going to UC Berkeley next year. Oh well, I really enjoyed my overnight yesterday and Cal day today, so I’m much more excited about that school. :)</p>
<p>I have the opposite problem, Oberlin is giving me a lot more money than Cal is so I am leaning more toward Oberlin. Although I didn’t go to Cal Day, I went to UCLA’s AAP Scholars Day and I realized that I don’t really like big universities (maybe I was subconsciously thinking about money?). Although I don’t really like feeling like I’m in the middle of nowhere but I guess I can get used to it. I’m still staying overnight next week at Cal though, just to make sure that I’m making the right choice. I find it so weird that there are so many people that end up choosing between the two. When I went to Oberlin, my host who was incidentally from the same city I’m from, ended up choosing Oberlin over Cal and it wasn’t because of financial aid. But for those worrying about financial aid, there were a few students visiting at the same time as I was who received a full-ride from Oberlin but had already decided to go somewhere else so that leaves at least $100,000-$150,000 up for grabs.</p>