Financial aid

@theaterwork, I agree. No use in applying to a bazillion schools which will give you nothing and no one should be applying to a bazillion schools ever anyway. On the other hand, your did share some specifics about your EFC calculations so far and it looks like you actually will have some need that could be met in surprising ways. So what I’m trying to say is that you may be in a better situation than you think so it may be worth it to remain open minded as long as you have had “the conversation.”

Yes I did the EFC calculation again as I had a wrong figure the first time and it went up like like 7000 unfortunately.

@theaterwork - I tested the Wagner Net Price Calculator, and I think it works correctly. I put in d’s numbers and it spat out a fairly high number for “Wagner Scholarships and Grants” - the number was similar to the amounts for merit aid that she received from other private schools with a profile similar to Wagner (50% of tuition). You can plug in various combinations of GPA, class rank, and test scores to see what it comes up with for scholarships and grants.

I think the net price calculators are very useful to get a ballpark idea of where the numbers are going to fall. If you are really interested in a school and it falls outside your price range using their Net Price Calculator, you can always call them up and get more information about financial aid and scholarship possibilities.

You can also check collegedata.com and see what the aggregate numbers look like for a school for PROFILE OF FINANCIAL AID under the “Money Matters” tab. Or, you can look up their Common Data Set submission on their website, it will show the same numbers.

Thanks @EmsDad I will look up those sites. I know I’m doing this early & just using estimated since we don’t have SAT ACT scores yet. My daughter has a 3.9 GPA now. Seems like W/ Wagner I should go back in and estimate an average SAT with her GPA and see what I did wrong. Surely they’d give her some school aid. She had some initial interest in that school and is considering doing their summer program

@theaterwork - test scores matter a lot for merit aid. Using “an average SAT score” may significantly reduce the merit aid estimate for many schools, despite a high GPA. Although Wagner does not post their merit aid thresholds for scholarships on their website, many schools do, particularly in the Midwest, South, and West. Google around and you can see what test scores schools pay for.

Well that’s why it came up nothing I guess. Can’t speculate on test scores as my D is a good student but is know for not testing well and not getting a high math score.

Generally, only the aggregate score will matter for merit aid at most schools pursued by theatre students (i.e., not exactly tippy-top nationally ranked schools - although, of course, there are some exceptions). My d had a middling Math score but extremely high English/Reading/Writing scores, which brought her aggregate score up considerably. She got lots of great merit aid offers, including several top 100 nationally ranked schools (Elon, Baylor, TCU, etc.) and one well-regarded LAC (Illinois Wesleyan).

Oh that’s good to hear. Her English And writing are very good. I heard the writing portion is being removed from SAT? She’s going to take ACT too. We’re interested in Muhlenberg College & I hope her grades will be good enough for there. I heard they’re tough to get admitted to and we would need $$ for her to attend.

If merit aid is very important, then concentrating on improving scores will be worth every minute of effort and every penny of expense. First, figure out which test your student will do better on (my d did significantly better on the ACT) and then practice like crazy for that test. Just a few points on the ACT or a couple of hundred points on the SAT could be worth thousands of dollars in scholarships.

What none of us can predict for you, nor can any calculator or GPA or test score, is how much of a talent scholarship a school might give your child. Some schools give those and some don’t. Wagner does.

Yes @Calliene I agree the talent stuff no one knows till you audition. So we are just going to wing it! I am encouraging my D to do her best in the tests & that’s about all I can do really. Hopefully she’ll end up getting decent aid and merit awards at some schools she auditions for & we will have a few choices. That’s really all I want, a couple schools to choose from. I am going to strive for as little loans as possible or none. I am glad so far we have some schools that offer instate tuition , either thru the Academic Market or because of the MT BFA thing.

Many state schools (private, too??) lay out their merit scholarship formulae in nice neat grids - with this SAT/ACT, and/or this GPA, and/or this class rank, you will receive $X. And with with that SAT/ACT, and/or that GPA, and/or that class rank, you will receive $Y, etc. Often a combination of two out of three of those stats is what is used to calculate reward. It can be well worth a few hundred dollars in private tutoring if your S or D is within striking distance of a hefty scholarship. My MT S had a high ACT, but missed the “big” money at some schools b/c of GPA - measly 3.5 during application season - and being just outside the top 10% in class rank (improved by END of senior year due to dearth of academic classes that year, but by then it was too late for the money). He was still “invited” to compete for the “big ones”, but we knew he didn’t have a chance against all those kids who 4-pointed EVERYthing. His golden ticket was the PSAT taken October of JUNIOR year, resulting in full ride at current school. We knew from sophomore test he was in the running for Nat’l Merit, so we got private tutoring over summer before junior year for PSAT (also helps with SAT which yielded best score in December of junior year for him, down hill after that). That ONE junior year test can be worth a mint at schools like CCM, WSU and others. We also did private ACT tutoring for elder non-MT S (skill is different than for SAT, so it is helpful to know which plays to your kid’s strong suit). Non-MT S was able to gain 3 points on composite, which “leveled him up” on the merit scholarship grid (no free ride for that one, unfortunately).

I agree with @mom4bwayboy !

Also my D’s GPA was a smidge away from a higher $$ in automatic merit aid. I mentioned this to the private she was leaning towards - they gave her an additional scholarship that made the difference.

You never know until you try!

I agree…don’t be afraid to ask!!! My H called and talked to the department directly and explained our situation and being OOS. It was very late in the game…that ended up working to our advantage because they had offered talent $ to several kids who ended up choosing other schools and they had some money to give. All they can do is say no! We ended up making it work with a subsidized loan, an unsubsidized loan, a parent plus loan and the talent schloarship. These kids have a whole lifetime of earning potential while many of us are looking at retirement soon. The parent plus loan payments for our D will be based on 10% of her discretionary income…which will most likely be pretty low as she is starting out. While I don’t advocate these kids taking on a ton of school debt. A little is okay…part of growing up!

@theaterwork - the net price calculators are worthless because most are out of date and most don’t include merit aid. It really will vary from school to school. Every out-of-state school my D applied to offered scholarship and/or aid packages that put the costs there at very close or better than out-of-pocket cost at our in-state flagship university.

You will also have to factor in travel costs to and from the schools, and some of the fine print. For example. my D had a full academic tuition and fee scholarship to Arizona State for MT and the same Scholarship at Arizona (where she was waitlisted for MT). Arizona State included admission to Barrett, the Honors College. But if you did the honors college option, you had to pay more to live in their dorms which was all the way across campus from the MY school, and you had to pay substantially more for the meal plan.

@theaterwork and others - also look at schools who meet aid without student loans in the package. They are out there.

@theaterwork - one other thing, and i don’t want t add to your stress. Your EFC at schools like Carnegie Mellon may be higher because they include home equity in the calculation of EFC. This is typical of schools that use the Institutional Methodology. In our case, it pushed our EFC 15.8% higher even though we don’t have a lot of equity.

One thing you can do now if you can is to take liquid assets and put them in a Roth IRA. This is because retirement assets are not counted and you can withdraw principal tax free after you submit FAFSA and CSS Profile to pay school bills. Do NOT put money into deductible IRAs because that amount will be added back into your AGI for calculation for EFC.

Also make sure your child does not have any savings/assets that are NOT in a 529 plan, or they will be “taxed” 20-25% for EFC purposes.

Also if you’re going to need to buy a car, do it now and pay cash. You can’t deduct car loan payments from income, but if the money’s not in your checking account anymore, it doesn’t count towards your contribution.

Also, you probably won’t have any money for a car for the next four years…