BU costs MORE than $50,000 a year. Isn’t it over $60,000 now?
OP, I feel your pain. I’m also an admitted student to BU this year. The NPC told me I would receive about 45k in a BU Need Based Grant. How much did I actually receive?..a whopping $0!!!
I get when a school’s funding is limited or when they can’t meet full need, but when your NPC is THAT off, you are screwing over thousands of freshman applicants. I NEVER would have applied without that $45k ballpark. (And yes, all the info was correct and matched. No weird circumstances or high assets etc.)
When I emailed them about this, they sent me an automatic email back saying that there are no merit scholarships left, even though that was not what I had asked for or informed them about in my email.
BU was one of my top schools, but the fact that their NPC is that off just feels fishy to me…
There seems to be some systemic problem with the BU NPC. Either it’s a mistake, and if enough people bring it to their attention, they’ll fix it. Or it’s on purpose, to attract students into applying and inflate some numbers (which ones though? Any disingenuous tactic toward applicants would deal with rankings… but I fail to see what BU has to gain in increasing the pool of applicants it admits without providing aid?)
OP, can you stay one more year at the school you’re currently attending?
Also, are you aware of the NACAC fee waiver for transfers?
http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/feewaiver/Documents/TransferWaiverForm.pdf
The sad thing is that every year someone post heartbroken over BY’s financial aid and every year we have to remind them that
BU does not meet 100% demonstrated need
There is way less money for transfer applicants (especially scholarships)
http://www.bu.edu/admissions/apply/costs-aid-scholarships/scholarships/transfer/
While you are transferring with an amazing gpa (and an AA degree) , they are also still looking at your high school gpa and scores
BU is not talent blind when it comes to giving out their money
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/education/edlife/finaid-pappano-t.html?_r=0
other BU rants
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19188969#Comment_19188969
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18392229#Comment_18392229
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/14142601#Comment_14142601
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/14429423#Comment_14429423
if you search BU financial aid you will find many more threads
Hopefully, you have some affordable options on deck
@fishgill I’m sorry 
No aid at all?! That sucks, especially because the gap is so large…I hope you have other options in mind!
@sybbie719 While it’s true what you are stating, the calculator is just wildly inaccurate and frankly seems a bit unprofessional on their end. Of course paying just $4,950 (or whatever it was) sounds too good to be true, but you’d think that maybe 50% of that is okay to expect. That’s half.
If so many people have already been disappointed, don’t you think they should change it? I’m sure they make nice money off the application fees alone. It seems like a money ploy (like so much of college, let’s be real here).
50% of $56,000 would have been about $28,000. I got about $18,000.
The least I can do is warn some students who are also fighting through the maze of application processes and shelling out a lot of money (actually hundreds) on just applying to college.
Also, I read those threads. How can need based aid be dependent on merit? Isn’t that what merit aid is for???
“If you are an incoming student, your application for a need-based BU grant award will be considered based on several factors. These include calculated financial eligibility, academic achievement, and the availability of funds for your program of study.”
Oh, BU.
It’s called preferential packaging. Need based aid awards consider the strength of these students. The stronger students get better packages.
@thumper1 I recently watched a documentary where they discussed financial aid at BU. The director of financial aid said that once students were admitted, the FA office was notified and given the rating of the student. The FA office then used this to prioritise FA. Those with the highest ratings had their full need met and so on. As money ran out, lower rated students received less and less aid. NYU use does this too.
To my knowledge, preferential packaging is not based on the date an application is filed, so long as deadlines are met. It’s based on how highly the application was scored.
Yikes! Nothing like merit required need based FA! But I suppose it exists out there.
Is this disclosed on their NPC?
RPI’s NPC is bull as well. 20K more per year plus shift to loans from grants of that given.
NPCs are really misleading, and if colleges have to post them, they should be held accountable.
If the NPC is really off, as it seems to be in BU’s case, report it to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). I don’t think there is any agency overseeing the NPC, but the CFPB is really doing a pretty good job of looking out for students and would, at the least, shame the school into changing the output of the BU calculator into generating a very low ‘promise’ of aid.
There is no requirement that the NPC be available for transfer students, for example, so the NPC shouldn’t be used as an advertising hook for transfers as it was to the OP. Some schools seem to just do the minimum required on the NPC, using it to show the federal aid and loans, but not really calculating school merit or need. Other schools have added quite a few questions and do a fairly good job of generating a good financial picture for the individual student. My daughter’s school was a ‘good’ one, and in fact the NPC helped me catch an error on her merit award amount (NPC showed higher award, I questioned what she got, NPC was correct).
BU seems to want to use the NPC to attract applicants, but doesn’t include the disclaimer that aid is limited, that aid may be awarded to preferred applicants first, that early filers may get more aid. The CFPB is very good at putting the pressure on schools to at least make the NPC results clear.
I believe I said that BU did preferential packaging based on the strength of the application. But in addition, the later in their admissions round the less aid is left. The school does not have a bottomless flow of money…and about that they are very clear.
I’ve heard that they give preference to students “ranked higher” on their list, too. But my situation surprises me because I was admitted to their honors college as well. I know that this by no means puts me above every other applicant, but it is a very selective honors program, so I assumed I was toward the top of accepted students. So I’m surprised to see that their “preferential packaging” didn’t apply AT ALL to me (again, NPC predicted $45k grants and I was awarded 0 loans or grants). I guess even despite the honors acceptance I am not high enough on BU’s list for aid even with evident family need 
how kind.
@fishgill Now that’s straight up fishy (haha…your name…I’m lame sorry). But for real, you’re honors and you got $0?! I mean, my GPA is 3.84 so I get that I’m not the top percentage, but your case is really strange.
Makes you wonder what they use to score you. Going by your story, it may not be academic.