<p>Hey all,
I work for a College Access Program & am in the process of putting together a brief presentation for my colleagues on effectively describing Professional Judgment to families.</p>
<p>I would greatly appreciate any tips you folks have on how you go about describing Professional Judgment to families with potential situations that may require petitioning for PJ after completing the FAFSA.</p>
<p>Please share any tricks of the trade for working with such families, as the area in which I work has been hard hit by layoffs & other issues with the economic downturn.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure, but one of my schools used PJ to override the changes to my FAFSA made by another school. The Financial Aid Administrator at the school said that the other college was ridicules to make the correction they had. If nothing els, I suppose a student could ask a school to reexamine the changes made by another university and see if a specific college will ignore it?</p>
<p>I have had the FAFSA changed after one school " corrected" it.
I was working with a financial aid counselor at another college and they seemed to have more experience with that area of the form- so I asked them to make a call to explain it to the other school.</p>
<p>They did so & it was fixed to reflect my original numbers.</p>
<p>I think just emphasizing to parents that the schools are not their adversaries, and how to review their packages realistically ( and identify affordable schools beforehand)- will be most helpful.</p>
<p>They also need to know that asking for professional judgment does not guarantee that the school will consider it.</p>
<p>If a family wants a PJ review, documentation is essential. Last pay stub, unemployment pay records, statement of separation, dates, etc are all required by most schools. A school-specific form is usually required, as well … and most likely 2009 tax returns, W2’s, and verification worksheet will be requested. Be prepared to submit any or all, but only submit what each school requests.</p>
<p>Realize that PJ is exactly that. Each school will handle it in their own way. By definition, it is “judgment” & one school may come up with totally different numbers than another school. Where I work, we won’t even accept loss of income adjustment requests yet, because families can end up with jobs between now & September. We do NOT automatically adjust income to 0 (some schools do). Understand that you may not end up “getting” anything - particularly if one parent still has a good income - or you may end up very pleasantly surprised.</p>
<p>In other words, get your stuff ready, contact the school to find out their policy, submit what is necessary in a timely manner, respond to all requests quickly & accurately, and wait for a response.</p>
<p>Oh, and remember: your debt is not considered. Sometimes situations have led to the debt (unemployment, extremely high medical costs, possibly even care of a parent …) … these may result in various PJ adjustments. Spending that is a choice does not factor in, generally speaking, though.</p>
<p>one of my D’s schools redid her FAFSA using PJ and changed it to a very unrealistic amount that we felt uncomfortable with. It made her eligible for the full Pell Grant which she would not have been. We felt it was almost fraudulant and didn’t accept it. Can a school do this? I asked them and they said they are allowed to use Professional Judgement since my husband has been on short term disability for a few months.</p>
<p>To Kelsmom- You mentioned that your school does not accept loss of income adjustment until later in the year. Does your school maintain a reserve on some Title IV funds for such students? Otherwise I would assume that much of your state & federal grant dollars would be allocated to students that completed their FAFSA in the spring & had no issues with PJ.</p>
<p>That is a good question. Obviously, Pell is always available if the PJ results in a Pell eligible EFC. SEOG is 0-EFC only for us, so not every PJ that results in a lowered EFC would have been SEOG-eligible, anyway. We don’t automatically reduce income to 0 for job loss, as I understand some schools do. For our pool that would have been SEOG-eligible, I don’t know what management will decide to do - the big wigs will have to review funding levels & make a determination when the time comes to award these students. Same with institutional funding (we use the equity model); it will require decisions I am not involved in making. Because we use dates for our awarding, I am sure that initial filing date will still play a role in PJ packaging.</p>
<p>I asked for a professional judgement review at three schools - two of them would not even talk to us until mid-May, well after the acceptance deadline. The in-state, regional university S is going to was very cooperative, however. I filled out their form detailing our loss of income due to H’s separation from the Army Reserve, and faxed a copy of the letter I recieved from my employer stating that my position was being eliminated June 30. OUr EFC was slashed and S recieved $1,176 in Pell money, a $2,100 state higher education grant and $750 Academic Competetivenes grant. Between that, loans and his scholarship, he’s set for freshman year. Of course, I’m still out of a job the end of next month, but heck, you can’t have everything.</p>
<p>How a financial aid representative can explain professional judgment and what professional judgment truly is in many financial aid offices can be two very different things. In many private schools there is a lot of leeway. I’ve seen some real stretches in professional judgment for kids that a school really wants. I’d be willing to bet that another accepted student not as desired would not get the same result with the exact same situation.<br>
There was a NYT series on some kids’ experiences with the college process a few years ago. One URM with strong stats was accepted at a school, Bucknell, that truly bent over backwards to give the young man a package that was acceptable to him and his mother. It gave some folks bad tastes in their mouths because they were in similar and, in some cases, more compelling circumstance, and they didn’t get a whit of consideration. </p>
<p>A financial aid office rep cannot make statements that will come back to haunt the college when the aid packages are distributed. Yet there must be enough of a “come on” that as many application to that school are submitted. </p>
<p>I’ve been very unimpressed with the presentations I have heard from colleges about the financial/merit aid situations. They truly add credence to the myth that the money is out there for students who are accepted to that college. I made one adcom squirm terribly when I pressured him about the fact, and I knew it was a fact, that the SAT scores were pretty much a first cut factor for merit aid from a particular school. </p>
<p>I’ve yet to hear a session that tells kids that their parents are the ones who are most likely to determine where they can go to school because parents are the ones that are on the hook for paying for college. Even Harvard, bragging that no student is denied because of lack of money, does not herald the truth that if you are accepted there and your parents are deemed able to pay for the costs, but won’t or can’t for some reason or other, you are not going to be able to go there. The college is highly unlikely to give you aid under such circumstances.</p>