George Washington U. Need-based aid...URGENT HELP!

Paying for College
1

<p>I am applying ED to GWU so that I have a better chance of getting in because it is my #1 choice. I really want to go there but I probably won't receive ANY merit based financial aid because my GPA is a 3.66 and SAT is 1830 with SAT II score of 800.</p>

<p>So, GWU is one of the most expensive colleges in the country at $52k per year.</p>

<p>Every financial aid calculator says that Estimated Family Income (EFC)= $0
My father makes less than $20k per year and my mother doesn't make anything because she is unemployed. We rent as well and don't own any property.</p>

<p>How much in need-based financial aid should I be expecting, if any at all? Will it be actual aid/grant or just loans/work for most of it?</p>

2

<p>Since your EFC is 0 you have a gap of 52k per year. You are eligible for significant financial aid. GWU on average meets 94% of need which is quite a lot. Expect your financial aid package to consist of grants, loans, and federal work study. There will probably be a pretty large federal loan package because it would be difficult for the school to give you 52k in grants each year. I cannot give you exact numbers because no one can truly tell how many grants you'll get, but they'll be giving you all of the grants that they can.</p>

3

<p>With an EFC of 0, expect the following federal aid:</p>

<p>Stafford Loan - 3,500
Perkins Loan - 4,000
FWS 2,000 - appealable if it's any less
Pell Grant - 4,000
SEOG - 4,000<br>
ACG - 750 - Academic Competitiveness Grant, new for 2007, if you qualify. It's based on your HS course of study.</p>

<p>GW should meet the rest of your need in scholarships & grants.</p>

4

<p>I think you're making a big mistake to apply ED to GWU (where I got my graduate degrees with the help of fellowships) since you have financial need. I've heard that GWU is very stingy with aid.</p>

<p>I cannot recommend more strongly that you NOT apply ED, and that you also shop around for some of the many colleges where you'd get generous aid and possibly merit aid. GWU is not worth taking out huge loans to attend. </p>

<p>I have a friend whose father won a big prize in the Irish sweepstakes, and gave generous money to his kids to use as they wished. My friend used his $ to attend GWU, and says it was the biggest mistake he ever made. It's a nice school, but not a great school, and he certainly could have used that $ in a wiser way. Afteward, he had perfectly ordinary jobs. Would have done much better by going to an in-state public and putting the Irish sweepstakes $ into mutual funds or property.</p>

<p>If you want to be in the D.C. area, look at U Maryland and American U, and apply to GWU regular. You probably can get into GWU without the ED boost. And any ED boost won't help you if your loan package is too high to take or if you don't get enough financial aid.</p>

5

<p>I found the below from other posts by the OP, who appears to live in Orange County, Calif.</p>

<p>As a first gen, very low income college student, you'd be a highly desireable applicant at many very top colleges. Among colleges that might admit you with excellent merit aid are: Rice (which really wants low income, first gen students. I heard that directly from the associate provost), Bowdoin, and probably places like Amherst as well as Ivies. </p>

<p>BU is NOT generous with financial aid unless you're fortunate enough to get one of their top merit scholarships. I know someone who got one: valedictorian, very rigorous curriculum, very poor, immigrant, good ECs, GC who fought for her.</p>

<p>Strongly consider applying to your in-state colleges, which probably have some nice merit aid that you'd qualify for as well as need-based aid. You really don't need any ED boost. What you need is the best aid package that you can get -- and one obtains that by shopping around. California has some of the best and most public colleges in the country. You'd probably be far better off staying at home than taking on the extra expense of going across country to college. Even with good merit aid and financial aid, you'd still have lots of extra costs going to college in the East including higher travel costs and clothing costs due to the climate change.</p>

<p>"My college counselor said Vassar, Fordham, GWU, American and Boston U would be safeties. She only knew my GPA/APs and Honors taken however and not my SAT scores and ECs. </p>

<p>Some more info:
First generation college student
Father immigrant
Low income</p>

<p>APs
AP US- A, A 5
AP Bio- A-, A 3
AP Stats- A-, A-, 3
All of these junior year.</p>

<p>Senior Course Load
AP Art History
AP Computer Science
AP Gov/Econ
English 7-8
French 7-8
Physics Honors
Calculus at local college</p>

<p>Also, my school is very competitive and sent students to Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Princeton last year</p>

<p>Thanks for all the help"</p>

<p>and
am afraid the mistakes of my past will catch up to me now...!</p>

<p>Personal Circumstance #1:
I had an absolutely horrible freshman year of high school, with a 2.1 and 2.8 GPA for the semesters, 6 Cs and 6 Bs. I missed over 1 month of school because of a terrible sickness around finals, had to go back to school extremely sick with bronchitis. </p>

<h1>2: My mother has schizophrenia and was not medicated for the disease until my junior year. It caused me alot of grief at school and with friends. I had to move out of my house and live by myself in hotels, friend's houses,etc for much of my early high school career.</h1>

6

<p>I strongly advise against applying ED if you need financial aid. If you do not get the money you need and cannot work it out with the school, you would have to back out which is a major pain in the neck, and puts you at great risk in admisssions to other schools, as the process is filled with pitfalls. You also will have no basis of comparision with other schools. You may well get some wonderful packages, that you could use to negotiate with GW if you went RD. Unless a school makes an outright mistake, it is difficult to get substantial aid increases after they give you your package UNLESS a similar school has a substantially different package.</p>

7

<p>I am confused about what I should do. I would be able to pay $10k per year through jobs, etc around Washington DC. </p>

<p>However, should I expect to get atleast 44k off of tuition with need-based aid in grants/scholarships/etc since I have an EFC of 0?</p>

<p>If there is over a 50% chance that I will get 94% of the tuition/everything waived, then I will take that chance.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the warnings of caution though!</p>

8

<p>Hardin292, what the above posters are trying to say is that you would get loans not get 94% of everything waived. You would be graduating from undergraduate school with significant debt. I think it is ambitious of you to feel you can pay $10K per year through jobs, etc. around DC. Freshman year at any college is academically tough and not the time to be scrambling to earn money to survive.
What is being said is that applying ED without knowing what the money may be is NOT a good idea. Apply regular decision and apply to other schools too. Then see what falls where. My son applied regular to GWU, was accepted but with no financial help. He ending up choosing to go to Northeastern, where he received a very nice merit scholarship. In the end, he will be able to graduate without debt. Please consider this carefully.</p>

9

<p>DON'T apply ED to GWU if you need finaid. GW is generous with for high stat kids, but not so generous with average stat kids. A local SoCal kid at our HS applied RD last year with higher stats than yours, but his package was a LOT of self-help.</p>

10

<p>GW provided need based acceptees 96% of what they considered need back a few years ago. 79% of those who needed aid got 100% of their aid covered. However, much of that was through loans and workstudy.
To get a more up to date picture of what to expect, look up the financial aid section on GW on the USN&WR college guide.</p>

11

<p>Why not build a balanced list of schools, heavy on those that you might get a lot of merit aid (not loans!) at? I think you're making a mistake to be oversold to GWU. There's a lot of great schools out there that would love to have you and give you money too.</p>

<hr>

<p>Here are the current US News figures for GWU. </p>

<p>(Note - First figure is freshmen, second is all undergrads)</p>

<p>Need-based aid:
Students who applied for financial aid 55% 51%
Those determined to have financial need 42% 44%
Students whose need was fully met (excluding PLUS or other private loans) 62% 63%
Avg. financial aid package (% awarded aid) $34,139 (40%) $33,196 (43%)
Avg. need-based scholarships or grants (% awarded aid) $21,468 (39%) $19,828 (41%)
Avg. self-help aid, such as work study or loans (% awarded aid) $6,060 (32%) $7,727 (35%)
Avg. need-based loan (excluding PLUS or other private loans) $5,078 $6,806
% need met (of those awarded need-based aid) 91% 91%</p>

<p>Non-need-based aid
Avg. merit award (% awarded aid) $22,544 (18%) $19,290 (24%)
Avg. athletic scholarship (% awarded aid) $20,276 (1%) $20,921 (2%)</p>

12

<p>I agree with Weenie completely. No reaason not to apply to GW, but applying there early is cutting out a lot of options for you.</p>