<p>Is there somewhere that I can get detailed information about financial aid (perhaps some sort of financial aid 'calculator'? Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I can only seem to find general financial aid information (such as fill out blah blah blah form). Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>i don’t think there’s anything like a financial aid calculator provided by WUSTL - what you can do, though, is to use the calculator provided by the College Board (or the FAFSA, depending on which you’re using). You can expect to pay only your EFC, or less in some cases. is that the sort of thing you’re looking for? There is the FAQ on their website and all too, although I’m guessing you’ve seen that. :)</p>
<p>Sorry if I’m jacking your thread, but I just want to make sure that financial aid for WashU DOES in fact cover room and boarding? o.o</p>
<p>Financial aid covers whatever your WashU-determined expected family contribution doesn’t cover, which may or may not include loans. For example, with an EFC of 0, I can expect to contribute about $3000 a year in work study and a student contribution because there is no parent contribution expected. If WashU decides your EFC is $12,000, they will cover $40,000 (possibly including loans, I can’t remember their exact FA policy) and you will be expected to cover the other $12,000, regardless of whether you feel you can pay it.</p>
<p>Room and board are definitely included in the “total cost,” so if you have an EFC of $5,000 per year, your billing statement will show tuition, room and board, fees, etc (totalling around 50k), minus the aid you’ve gotten, with what’s left being your EFC of $5,000. (although technically this is all calculated on a semester-by-semester basis).</p>
<p>Also, if you move off campus it doesn’t affect your financial aid… So getting an apartment for $500 per month would mean you have an extra $400 per month of your financial aid package that can be used for something other than housing.</p>
<p>Question. Can anyone find a Cost of Attendance on WashU’s website that includes non-billable expenses (books, transportation, and personal expenses)?</p>
<p>Tuition: $37,800
Student Activity Fee: $378
Student Health Fee: $686
Average University Room and Board*: $12,060
Total Charges (including room and board): $50,924
Rates for room and board depend on the room and meal plan you select. The rate shown is for a double room in a traditional residence hall and the Meals Plus meal plan. Freshmen live on campus.</p>
<p>$6000-$9500 for room and board
Around $4000 for Meal plans </p>
<p>Non-billable expenses are going to vary from student to student. Books will depend on your classes, transportation will depend if you take public or not (cause public transportation is free), and personal expenses is of course going to vary lol. </p>
<p>But! I asked a friend and he said that he got by with less than $30 a week for personal expenses. He got used books from half and amazon and either got a ride from a friend or used public transportation. I hoped that kinda answered your question even though I don’t have specific numbers.</p>
<p>transportation will vary from person to person.</p>
<p>I drive up to school from home, so getting to school is very cheap (compared to airfare, it’s about $60-90 for gas for the 800 mile trip). When I fly for things like thanksgiving, it’s about $500 round trip. But if you live closer it will obviously be much cheaper.</p>
<p>And as sleepyz said, transportation in st. louis is cheap, seeing as how public transport is all free (even to/from the airport).</p>
<p>No, see, some schools include non-billable expenses in the CoA. This means that the number against which your financial aid is judged is arbitrarily higher, which is good for EFC 0 students because it brings our debt load lower. As it stands, WashU is going to cost me $12,000 or so in loans after graduation. That’s not bad at all, but there’s no way that stands up to Rice’s $0 or Chicago’s $7500 even though it’s my first choice (not to mention what happens if I get into Stanford or Yale). Rice, Chicago, Stanford, and Yale have such low numbers because they make the same promises as WashU for low-EFC students, but they do so by including books, personal expenses, supplies, and travel allowances directly into the CoA.</p>
<p>How do you know that you will get 12k from WashU? Also, I’m interested in how you found out that it will be 7.5k from Chicago.</p>
<p>I tried finding WashU the non-billable expenses on their web-site earlier this year with no luck, but someone in the fin aid office sent me the info when I asked. It also shows up in the fin aid offer. Here are the 09-10 numbers:
Books and supplies (estimated: $1,280)
Clothing (estimated: $660)
Food (estimated: $2,400)
Personal (estimated: $480)
Recreation (estimated: $630)
Commuting cost (estimated:$2170) </p>
<p>For Fed fin aid, the rules are set and won’t vary between colleges, but each college will decide how to distribute their aid under their own rules. By reputation and my own experience, WashU does a good job of working with families on the fin aid packages. A big plus for WashU over every other college I dealt with was that they do not reduce their offered aid if you get outside scholarships unless the combination would exceed the cost of attendance. At least one (I think John Hopkins) did that as well, but only for the first year.</p>
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<p>I know my family income and I know my EFC is 0. Many schools, especially top schools, make certain guarantees. Take Rice for example. For an EFC of 0, Rice meets full need and does so without loans. However, they do require an $1800 work study contribution (minimum) and a certain student summer contribution. For an EFC of 0, the summer contribution is waived. The $1800 work study is required, but because it is barely half of the allowance for non-billable expenses, it is expected to contribute to living rather than tuition, room, board, and fees (the billable expenses). For someone with a different EFC or unsure circumstances, no reasonable estimations can be made. Everything I’ve said is an estimation that could vary dramatically, but I’d give them a margin of error of no more than $2000 over the course of four years.</p>
<p>spenier, thanks for those numbers. Do you know which of those numbers show up on the COA in the financial aid package? If I take the liberty to assume books and supplies and personal expenses (as is the usual allowance), my four year debt at WashU would be decreased to about $6000. Not bad, not bad at all. WashU, like Boston U, GWU, and Pitt are my odd ones out. The latter three don’t make guarantees, and WashU’s financial aid policy is a bit fuzzy on the website.</p>
<p>i don’t know if this applies for you or not, but WUSTL made this announcement about a year (or two?) ago:</p>
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<p>Princeton Review ranks WashU as #3 for financial aid so I was assuming that there had to be something good about their financial aid. I guess I’ll just apply and if I get in, see what kind of financial aid they give me.</p>
<p>Just a head’s up: WashU is NOT need-blind. They do give some awesome scholarships to exceptionally outstanding students, but they look at your financial situation when reading your admission file. My mom told me this my senior year after I applied & I didn’t believe her…until I looked it up. I couldn’t find the term “need-blind” anywhere on the website or in any of the literature they sent me. Just to double check, I looked at Princeton, Yale, Northwestern and Emory’s websites and typed “need blind” into the search bar; they all had paragraphs about it. Do this at WashU’s website you’ll likely get one hit which is a memo from the Student Union there and it says, “WUSTL is not a need-blind school.” </p>
<p><a href=“http://su.wustl.edu/system/files/WUFUSED%20Minutes%200830_0.pdf[/url]”>http://su.wustl.edu/system/files/WUFUSED%20Minutes%200830_0.pdf</a></p>
<p>They’re playing a game to enhance their ranking, which is alright I guess because a University does have to run somewhat as a business; but a lot of students don’t realize that they would’ve been accepted if their parents made a little bit more or a little bit less money.</p>
<p>So low income (<$30,000) applicants are at a disadvantage?</p>
<p>there aren’t as many schools out there that are need-blind as you’d think. That being said, sadly WashU is not one of them, no. As far as I know, the first (roughly) 90% of decisions are made without looking at an applicant’s financial info. After that, as the school starts to run out of aid money, they have to begin taking aid into account. There have been huge efforts lately to make as much aid available as possible, so I wouldn’t expect this to be much of a factor in decisions this year, tbh, but “need-blind” is still something for WashU to be working towards.</p>
<p>If it’s any encouragement, I got in with ~$35,000 as my family’s income. :)</p>
<p>Need-awareness comes at the end of the process, I’ll agree with that. Also, all admissions sees when they see your admissions packet is whether or not you are applying for financial need, not how much financial need you have. So a kid with a $100,000 income and a kid with a $20,000 income are in the same spot. The only time need-awareness comes into play is when you are a borderline applicant at the end of the aid-giving season.</p>
<p>Oh thank goodness…so nerve-racking waiting for my ED decision lol…</p>
<p>Well… yes and no. It is generally considered reasonable that ED and the wait list are more need-aware than regular decision. But, the fact remains that unless you are an extremely borderline applicant, need-awareness won’t make a difference.</p>