<p>Anyone receive their financial aid award letter yet? Or is it posted on the portal? </p>
<p>No, and it is really lame. Come on UC Santa Cruz1</p>
<p>Per the UCSC Financial Aid Facebook page, there is strike activity regarding teaching assistant contracts on campus this week (apparently affects other UC campuses as well). The financial aid office was closed yesterday, open today. We are going to an OOS admitted students reception this evening and really hope we get an update about financial aid awards.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info @SESeattle – I’m tired of checking the portal for it and seeing nothing!</p>
<p>Over in the financial aid forum, someone posted that UCSC won’t give a FA package until you accept admission and put down a deposit. Anyone know if this is true? How do they expect you to decide if you can afford it? No way we are putting down a deposit without seeing the FA award first.</p>
<p>No school does that. That is ridiculous.</p>
<p>@SESeattle said that is what they were told at the OOS admitted students reception, at UCSC.</p>
<p>Called the FA office just now and got the scoop. A “conditional” or “preliminary” offer should go out this week (week of 4/7), even if the offer of admission has not yet been accepted. This is “for the purpose of comparing colleges.” The “official” offer will not go out until admission has been accepted (that must have been what @SESeattle was referring to).</p>
<p>So if you’re waiting for the “preliminary” offer, hang in there, I was told by the FA office that it should be coming this week.</p>
<p>Sounds like they are week behind schedule-- the FA paper in the packets that were mailed out said the preliminary FA package was to be mailed the week of April 1. Thank you for the update. I have been trying to be patient, since I know the routine was disrupted last week from the strike, but it’s getting harder. It’s the last critical piece of info we need to make the final decision, and even though I have a good idea of what I think it’s going to be, I’d rather have it in black and white.</p>
<p>Financial Aid stuff was up in my D’s portal tonight. No surprises.</p>
<p>God, that offer was insulting.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads up @lab317 – it was a bit surprising to me, that even with a $1500 per year scholarship, it will be more expensive for UCSC than UCSD. Will be spending some time really comparing the numbers, and maybe seeing if we can get them to tweak it a bit.</p>
<p>Is this offer complete? I’m wondering because it lists nothing. Just the COA and our EFC. No Pell grant (we qualify for a small one), no direct student loans, and not even the Regents Scholarship that DS got. Nothing in our “to do” list either. Weird.</p>
<p>D14’s showed all of those elements (Campus Merit in place of Regents), but the COA was a different screen, so maybe you aren’t on the right page</p>
<p>I think ucsc is so expensive because dorm expenses are so high. Guess it’s expensive lugging everything up the hill </p>
<p>You noticed that too, huh? A triple at UCSC is more than a single at UCSD. That’s crazy. I calculated out the cost of the meal plans based on their pricing info, and a double at UCSC came out to $3220 more than at UCSD for a year, just for the dorm room. I don’t mind paying more for the food part, because at UCSC it is unlimited. I wonder if they are recouping food cost in that extra high fee? The website says the 7 day plan is $4000 (not exact, I’m ball parking from memory) so when you deduct that from room and board you get a very pricey room. But I noticed UCB has similar high prices, and they also do unlimited dining. </p>
<p>…They are taking ridiculously long >.>" The wait is killlling me… </p>
<p>Also still waiting…any…day…now…</p>
<p>I got mine couple days ago. @.@</p>
<p>@CurlyCuriosity and @Seanzy --have you checked your portals? They did not send an email notice, so if you haven’t checked on your portal, it may already be there</p>