Georgetown and Financial Aid (Generosity)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Georgetown University
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<p>So in this morning's mail, I received my financial aid award for Georgetown, after having been accepted EA. Whoever said that they aren't generous needs a serious reality check!</p>

<p>My mom is a single parent (father is dead) who makes a little less than $100k/year, and has no equity or savings. Having heard about Georgetown's notorious FA record, we didn't think that I'd ever be able to go there, much less stay on campus instead of commuting, with her salary and our EFC. We were awarded, however, $37k in total financial aid, with 3k from a federal subsidized loan, 3k from work-study, and 31k from direct GU Scholarships. That means that the total cost of Georgetown for us is only$22k...only $10k less than UMD Honors!</p>

<p>I hope that this isn't coming off as braggy; I just remember how worried I was for the months leading up to this that I would open the FA packet and see something that I just couldn't afford. This is for anyone who is in love with Georgetown, but scared by the $60k price tag: there is hope!</p>

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<p>this message = hope
:)</p>

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<p>What about Georgetown’s notorious FA record? I’ve always heard they practice need-blind admissions.</p>

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<p>They do, but they have a reputation for awarding little, and for awarding unpredictably.</p>

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<p>

Need-blind admissions doesn’t have anything to do with FA generosity.</p>

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<p>I was under the impression that need-blind admission necessarily involved their meeting 100% of demonstrated need. So in comparison with ivies, Georgetown is not up to par with financial aid?</p>

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<p>Need-blind admissions is just that–it means that admissions decisions are made independent of applicants’ financial aid applications–the offer of admission is independent of the student’s ability to pay. Many top/great schools, interestingly, are not need-blind in admissions, like Tufts, Wash. U., Johns Hopkins, Colgate, NYU, Reed, Smith, Bates, Colby, Mt. Holyoke, Lehigh, Lafayette, Franklin and Marshall, Trinity (CT), Kenyon, Oberlin, Carleton, Bowdoin, George Washington, etc. Also, MANY schools are not need-blind when taking students off of the wait-list.</p>

<p>However, just because a college is need-blind for admissions does not mean that they will provide good financial aid packages or even meet 100% of the demonstrated need of an accepted student. Many schools are more interested in buying top students, even if they don’t have need, than insuring that they meet 100% of the demonstrated need of their needy students (especially close-but-not-there second tier schools like NYU, GWU, BU, etc.).</p>

<p>Georgetown is NEED BLIND for admissions, through the entire process (EA, RD, waitlist, and transfers). Georgetown also meets 100% of the demonstrated need of all of its accepted students. Finally, Georgetown now generally provides excellent financial aid offers; and in cases where there is an issue of disparity between its offer and that of peer schools, Georgetown will re-evaluate their offer. In the past Georgetown did have the reputation of being weak with financial aid offers, but that is not the case now.</p>

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<p>I was a bit surprised too because I had heard that their aid was unpredictable - for me, it basically followed the net price calculator prediction which is a lot better than what the fafsa led us to believe we would get. It might still not be enough for me to be able to afford Georgetown (still 20k more than my parents want to be paying, probably 10k more than they can without serious loans), but it keeps Georgetown as an option! Now I have to decide how much debt Georgetown is worth…</p>

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<p>Thanks for the insight, medman. I got my FA offer today, which included a John Carroll scholarship. I am very pleased with Georgetown’s generosity, and money will now not be an impediment to my matriculation.</p>

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<p>Congratulations!!!</p>

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<p>I can also attest to Georgetown’s generosity. I received finical aid packages from UChicago and Williams that both offered me a very small amount of grant money. So when I received my Georgetown financial aid package today, I expected to see something similar to the last two. Luckily, I was mistaken. I was offered 20k more in grant money than the other two schools, making Georgetown the much more affordable option :).</p>

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<p>Congrats, guys! </p>

<p>Unfortunately, my D (accepted EA) is only “awarded” a $5K loan, even though my S is also in college (currently a freshman). I was hoping they would cover the difference between the cost and my EFC but they didn’t. Oh, well.</p>

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<p>@aparent any work study involved?
@medman Thanks. I still am waiting to hear back from other schools to compare offers.</p>

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<p>@aparent any work study involved?</p>

<p>Nope. Only Stafford loan.</p>

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<p>hey guys, just wanted to get some perspective on whether you consider the financial aide predicter accurate?i mean i want to trust the amount that it told me but i just dont know …</p>

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<p>Mada34: do you mind if I ask what your EFC is? Mine is like high 60k’s (which is quite a bit higher than my family can actually pay. Being middle class sucks.) and I’m curious whether your scholarships covered the difference between GU’s total cost and your EFC or if GU went beyond that.</p>

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<p>How can you check the status of your financial aid application to see if it’s complete? I haven’t received any sort of username/password for the MyAccess account to check and considering I was admitted EA I’m a bit concerned…</p>

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<p>^They sent me an e-mail saying I was missing certain components. I, too, was in the early crowd. You can call them or you can assume that it was taken care of.</p>

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<p>I’m also curious as to how I can go about checking my FA too.</p>

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<p>Call the financial aid office or shoot them an e-mail…</p>