<p>My daughter received her package yesterday, and she is accepted! It was very exciting, right up to the moment where she looked at the financial aid: NONE. Everything was loan or work study.</p>
<p>Holy smokes. We have an above average income, but to send her and pay out of pocket what Wellesley expects would be about 40% of our net income. FORTY PERCENT! I'm afraid that isn't going to happen, not because we don't want her to attend, but because that would be <em>impossible</em> without selling our house, completely decimating our retirement plans, or both. There are no relatives who can help, no significant assets that could be sold other than the house. </p>
<p>We have another child who is not attending college but who lives away from home and who gets support from us. I think this may have played into the FA decision, since as far as I could tell, there is no way to factor this into the picture.</p>
<p>I'm definitely going to call Wellesley and have a discussion about the situation. Is there any hope, or are the financial aid decisions final? My daughter has applied for dozens of private scholarships and will probably get a few thousand dollars, but none would come close to touching the $45-50K out of pocket our financial aid package suggested. </p>
<p>This is especially disappointing because Wellesley sent a brochure a few months ago called "The Financially Possible Wellesley", and extrapolating from that we would have gotten enough to possibly handle the finances, albeit with significant loans. </p>
<p>Has anyone had any success in negotiating, or ???? How do people making $150,000 a year send their daughter to a $50,000 per year school? If you make less you get significant assistance, if you make a lot more it is no big deal. We seem to be stuck in the middle.</p>
<p>We are in the same boat as OP. In the FAFSA crack, don’t qualify for aid but can’t pay $50,000 a year either. Very disappointed to get that “aid” letter giving us only the option of taking out loans. So Wellesley won’t be happening for my daughter. Smith has been courting her heavily and gave her one of their top scholarships. It still doesn’t make it equivalent to our state schools (Virginia) but brings it a lot closer. So we’re deciding between Smith and William & Mary (in state tuition) at this point.</p>
<p>Hi, everyone. I didn’t exactly “negotiate” my daughter’s aid package since she was accepted ED, but I did write a five-page, single-spaced letter detailing our financial circumstances and outlook for the future (retirement, etc.). </p>
<p>I believe calling will be in vain. I would just e-mail them, and individual letters from both the parents and the prospective student would, I believe, be the best option.</p>
<p>Kenzie1992 i feel for you-been seeing all your agonizing posts. Avoid more than 20-25k loans for undergrad years if you can. I had to take out 60k for grad school and thank goodness had only had very tiny undergrad loans that were already paid off (partly by feds for teaching in low income school FYI). You can get a great education at most schools in the US. You can find friends at most. And contrary to what folks think, you can get into great grad programs from virtually any accredited undergrad school. Its your record, your internships, your interests they look at. Many lesser known schools have excellent records on matriculating into grad programs and getting great jobs. You can do great things at L&C or at Wellesley. I do want to weigh in on the idea above that you get a lot of aid when you make less than 100k. Not if you have even a small house that appreciated and that you worked hard to pay down. Our combined gross income is under 100k, about 70k AGI and we got less than 10K in grants from Smith and about 14k from Wellesley. So–we are expected to remortgage–resulting in more loans. It’s pretty tough out there if you have been very frugal and saved well. I am truly very glad low income students get good aid, but I do resent that families with high mortgages for big houses but less equity get better deals and/or with kids in private K-12 get a break on tuition in calculation in the Institutional Method. Uhm–how is private k-12 tuition right up there with medical expenses?! D has a great full ride at a school she is not sure about and we won’t “make” her go there but also want to balance the debt issue. Want all if you wonderful, smart, world-changing young folks to be able to find work you like–or at least can be satisfied with–not that you have to do just for the money. I sound kinda humorless, sorry!! This process is wearing me down though–will be happy when negotiating for awards is done, she chooses and we can celebrate!!!</p>
<p>Daughter got an email from Wellesley informing her that they would not reconsider her aid. She doesn’t want us to pay more than $40,000 a year to send her to Wellesley. That’s more than 1/3 of our income. Fortunately our state flagship University of Texas has an excellent Engineering Program and we have pre-paid tuition for her. She also got accepted by Cornell. As a parent, I am really struggling to understand this crazy college financing mess. The idea of need base financing is good but that probably contributed to the sky high college tuition that drives people like us out of the market.</p>