My DD was accepted to a few schools, thankfully.
One school, her first choice school, accepted her but only as a full pay student. They have put her on a Waitlist for Financial Aid. Since this was her first choice school, it has bummed her out, since we can’t pay full price.
Does anyone have any advice for negotiating financial aid, or even more imporantly, figuring out how to get off of an FA waitlist successfully?
If she does not make it off of the FA list, she has a great option, with aid, it’s just not her first choice, so I thought I would see what people have done in the past.
Appeciate any guidance.
I think the lack of responses here is because there are only two ways to get off an FA WL:
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Become full pay, but you’ve indicated that is not an option.
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Enough students admitted with FA decline and return sufficient dollars back to the FA pool to match your need and your child’s profile matches a hole.
Once admission letters go out, the school’s FA budget is allocated. There is nothing you can do to change that.
You’ve indicated that other schools did award FA to you. You could call the first choice school and ask how they calculated your need explaining that another school awarded $X to make that school affordable for you (and you must be willing to share that documentation) and let them know what your absolute bottom line is so they know exactly how much needs to free up to make their school possible for you. You want to ensure the school does not think you need more aid than you really do. It might not move the needle, but I can’t see any harm in the conversation. If nothing else, the school can explain to you the odd “accepted as FP” if they agree you demonstrated need.
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