<p>mom2collegekids:</p>
<p>Oh I don’t mean merit aid from UT itself. But I know there are plenty of scholarships that are associated with UT or are only reserved to UT freshmen:</p>
<p>texasscholarships.org</p>
<p>Realize that if you get an ED admit from Penn, you aren’t supposed to back out because of getting excellent merit aid from elsewhere. You’re supposed to withdraw all applications after getting your ED admit. </p>
<p>So… if money is any concern, don’t apply ED.</p>
<p>D applied ED last year (not at Penn). We checked the yes for FA.The good news: It didn’t hurt her in admissions, she got in.The bad news: We didn’t get a dime in FA. We knew that was a possibility, and we were prepared to pay. And we are.</p>
<p>*Realize that if you get an ED admit from Penn, you aren’t supposed to back out because of getting excellent merit aid from elsewhere. You’re supposed to withdraw all applications after getting your ED admit. </p>
<p>So… if money is any concern, don’t apply ED.*</p>
<p>That’s a good point. So, then, if a person applied ED to UPenn (or wherever) and also applies rolling admissions to Big Merit U and gets a big scholarship award, then gets accepted to UPenn with no aid, they can’t then say, “Oh, I can’t afford UPenn w/o aid, therefore, I’m going to Big Merit U”? </p>
<p>I can see that, but I can also see students trying to do that.</p>
<p>To Fallgirl:</p>
<p>If its too personal you don’t have to replay, but what was your estimated income?</p>
<p>The Harvard Finaid program, the most generous in the nation, puts $180k income as the upper limit for getting finaid. So, the OP’s family income of $180k-200k range would disqualify her for finaid.</p>
<p>Penn is very unlikely to give a cent on that income. And most with such incomes have other assets making aid even more unlikely. It’s HYPS that might give you something with that income and ‘typical’ assets, not Penn.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not one of the believers that schools are as need blind as they say. Those yes and no boxes are front and center and Penn has a high percentage of full pays.</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>I agree. Otherwise, the number of full pays and full needs would significantly change from year to year since these schools are only accepting about 1 in 10 students. It’s not possible that they magically always accept about the same number of full pays each year.</p>
<p>Even without the checked boxes, the ivies know that kids from certain zip codes and from certain schools have money. Maybe that’s why certain schools are known to send a lot of students to ivies, while similar schools don’t.</p>
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<p>If you want to be a big help to your parents, then apply RD and compare financial/merit packages in the spring.</p>
<p>At best U Penn would give you 5K or so per year, or 20K over 4 years. Ask for FA. You may get some. But even if you won’t 20K at your parent’s income level can’t be the make or break of deciding to go to Wharton should you get in. You’ll have a distinct advantage over other candidates by applying ED, and deferring the application for the sake of 20K (at most) doesn’t sound like a good financial decision.</p>
<p>I think the OP needs to have a frank talk with her parents. When you consider the COA increases that will occur over the next 4 years, it is safe to guess that a 4 year education at UPenn will cost about $235k.</p>
<p>If the OP’s parents aren’t comfortable with that, or the OP isn’t comfortable with that, she needs to apply RD and apply to a variety of other schools and see what merit packages she’d get from various schools.</p>
<p>^Good point, momof2collegekids–I always budget a 5% COA increase per year (and pray that it will be enough).</p>
<p>Im reading this and wondering, what is ED and RD? Maybe I should read more threads or is there a glossary somewhere? Im a new college parent and have a lot to learn…</p>
<p>ED = early decision. Applicant gets application into the school by an early deadline and will hear result from the school by mid-December. Applicant agrees to matriculate at school if accepted (except for instances where the financial aid offered by the school isn’t enough to make attendance possible). Decision to matriculate expected by the beginning of January.</p>
<p>RD = regular decision. Applicant meets a later deadline and will hear result in March/April. No need to make a decision until May 1.</p>
<p>By submitting RD applications, an applicant will have heard from all schools and have the different financial packages to compare one with another. Financial packages have been know to differ quite substantially in their loan vs. grant content and in the actual aid awarded–some parents have had $20K per year differences in packages.</p>
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<p>I disagree, but if they did, the first chunk would be work study.</p>
<p>Would rather not respond as to income but in the range you mentioned previously, I wouldn’t count on any. We really weren’t expecting any, but felt no harm in checking the box. My real point was that D was not penalized in admissions because we did.</p>
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<p>Small correction, Marite, in case there were students out there curious about Harvard’s financial aid reading this thread. . . . $180k is generally where the 10% of income = parental contribution line is drawn. Students whose families earn above $180k can still get need-based financial aid; in fact this past year more than 200 families with incomes between $180k-$200k received financial aid and more than 100 families with incomes over $200k received financial aid. It’s all about context and individual circumstances.</p>
<p>For more information, see [Fact</a> Sheet](<a href=“http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page246751]Fact”>http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page246751)</p>
<p>Although I will second the poster who already replied to say that UPenn is need blind during all phases of its admissions cycle, including ED, and so applying (or not applying) for FA will not affect one’s admissions decision. Note that an institution being need blind does not guarantee one receives the financial aid package one ‘wants’ (needs vs. deserves vs. wants vs. should get vs. thought he’d get. . . .it’s all very tricky with the lexicon here ;))</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Yes, but is UPenn as generous with aid as Harvard? I’ve heard that it isn’t. What is UPenn’s FA policy regarding incomes?</p>
<p>Re post #37.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction. It should be noted, however, that those exceptions are based on lots of financial factors, such as number of siblings in college or about to attend college, as well as other financial obligations. As well, the amount of finaid is likely to be fairly small.
UPenn is not known to be as generous as Harvard.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what “financial aid” means when looking at a particular college’s statistics? For example, if children of high-income parents take out the unsubsidized Stafford loan (which is available to everyone), does that student get added to the list of those on FA? If so, it would really skew things.</p>