how good is the financial aid of these colleges?

Paying for College
1

<p>So many colleges are vague on their financial aid on their websites, and so I thought I would ask those who have gone there or know something about their aids. I am an Asian girl looking to go into physics or electronic engineering. Right now I have narrowed down my colleges to these possibilities:</p>

<p>Reach
Princeton
Caltech
MIT
Yale
Columbia
Cornell
Duke
UPenn/Penn</p>

<p>Target
UCBerkeley
U. Illinois
Carnegie Mellon U.</p>

<p>Safeties
Georgiatech
UC Santa Barbara
WPI
RPI</p>

<p>I know Princeton has a really good financial aid program; what about the others? What other colleges with good financial aid (either scholarships or grants) are competitive in the majors I am looking into?
My father is the only one working and his income bracket is estimated (with stocks factored in and such) to be at $140,000 when I graduate from HS. I have a younger sibling, and we are currently nonpermanent residents, but we have already applied for permanent residency and are waiting for our green cards. I have a social security number to prove that XD</p>

<p>PS- My parents think that I would get depressed and commit suicide at Cornell because of its isolated location. I plan on visiting it to find out if this is true, but I would like to get an opinion of others before I do.</p>

2

<p>What state are you in?</p>

<p>Berkeley is a REACH for everyone.</p>

<p>GT isn’t a safety for anyone</p>

<p>Unless your family is willing to pay ALL costs at your safety schools, none are safeties. Getting accepted isn’t the only issue…having the means to PAY is just as important. </p>

<p>None of the OOS publics are going to give you much/any aid. </p>

<p>Some schools might give you merit scholarships, but those will get applied to “need” first. </p>

<p>Your FAFSA EFC is going to be at least $30k-35k per year. And, at the OOS publics, you may be expected to pay ALL costs. </p>

<p>How much will your parents pay per year? If you don’t know, ask them. That is important info.</p>

<p>Princeton and Yale give unique “super aid”…so they may only expect your family to pay about $15k per year (depending on your assets). </p>

<p>What are your test scores and GPA?</p>

3

<p>OP has a 2240 SAT.</p>

<p>If you need a financial safety (and everyone needs a financial safety), find several less-selective LACs or regional universities, where your impressive stats put you well about the 75% mark, and where the school is known for good FA, and where there is a strong physics program. WPI or RPI may meet these criteria (or may not), but none of the others do. Also consider your in-state public schools.</p>

4

<p>i have a 2240 sat from one sitting 690 CR, 760 M, and 790 W
um…790 bio M, 800 physics, 800 chem, and 800 math ii</p>

<p>my gpa is 3.97ish unweighted and 4.5something weighted</p>

5

<p>oh yeah, and thanks for replying >.< I was scared I’d go ignored…</p>

<p>I’ve talked with my counselor, but I feel like he gave me a really…distorted view on college admission. How much is being a girl going into STEM an advantage for tech colleges? I checked GT’s stats and their male to female ratio, so thats why i thought it was a safety, athough I do know it’s an extremely good school. UCberkeley definitely is too, but isnt it better as a graduate than undergrad…several people from where I am from (NJ btw) got in with even lower stats than mine and less ecs/awards, which really confuses me. I guess their essays were really good then?</p>

<p>my parents say they’ll pay about $20,000 and I plan on getting a job too to pay for my other expenses besides tuition.</p>

<p>I know the financial aid of my state college (rutgers) pretty well so I didnt put it down as a safety here XD. But I only plan on attending if I get at least a half-tuition scholarship.</p>

6

<p>You will be full pay for UCB ($50K plus). UCSB, UIUC and GT will probably be similar. The UCs are admitting more OOS students so they can take advantage of the OOS surcharge. What about TCNJ? With your stats you might get some good aid at Texas A&M, certainly at Alabama. Maybe U Minnesota which is relatively low cost and good in engineering.</p>

7

<p>your Math + CR is a 1450. Very good, but not that strong for the elite schools. Many schools do not weight Writing the same as the M+CR. And, many don’t even consider the Writing for scholarships.</p>

<p>Except for Princeton and Yale, your reach and match schools will expect your parents to pay a LOT more than $20k per year. Do your parents realize that? You will also have a “student contribution” of a couple thousand from a summer job. </p>

<p>You need some REAL safeties…financial safeties. Again, a safety is NOT a safety if you don’t have the fund to go there. </p>

<p>GT might accept you, but you will be expected to pay all costs…which is over $40k per year. Your M+CR would need to be significantly higher to be in the running for merit there. </p>

<p>Berkeley is a crapshoot. You can’t look at others stats and think you’ll get in. The school rejects kids with better scores. </p>

<p>UIUC will expect you to be full pay as well as the UCs.</p>

<p>Are you a likely NMSF? How did you do on the PSAT?</p>

8

<p>" income bracket is estimated (with stocks factored in and such) to be at $140,000"</p>

<p>What does that mean? Do you mean that the family income is $140k which includes some income from stocks? If so, then the value of the stock, savings, and other assets will also get considered.</p>

9

<p>OP,
If you have taken the SAT only once I advise you to take it again, after reading a LOT this summer in an effort to up your CR score, which is not strong for someone hoping to gain acceptance at top schools .You should aim for a number in the same range as your math score, which might get you a second look at the most selective colleges. And you would have to pay full fare for any of the UC’s as an OOS applicant. Believe me, for the same $ 50,000 that it costs to go to a UC, there are many private colleges where you would not be one of 450+ in a STEM lecture class, straining to understand an asst prof with a strong foreign accent. You need to cast a much wider net in order to find safeties that you can get into and afford[ if all your parents will contribute is $20000/ year]</p>

10

<p>First of all, until you actually have green card in hand, you may be considered an international student for financial aid purposes regardless of having a SSN. Having put in an application is not good enough. My SIL was nearly deported when her apps were delayed for no apparent reason, and with her being a shoo in to get her green card. They didn’t care. And Harvard considered her an international student, not that it mattered as they give equal consideration for fin aid for that category anyways, but that is not the case with a number of schools. So you had better ask each of those schools on your list and if you don’t have the green card in hand when you apply, you may be at severe disadvantage at some of them. CMU for instance, blanketly gives no aid to international students. So you had better get that base covered by individual school policies. Not “When you get your green card” but with what you have in hand now. </p>

<p>If you need money, your safety schools have to cover that base too. My son got into GT, but didn’t get a dime. He did not make the cut for the very competive Presidential awards and he had nearly perfect SATs. I know a number of kids who applied to GT, and they got zip in terms of school financial aid from them as OOSers. They do not guarantee to meet need, and do not do so, even for their own state kids, so the chances of you getting aid from them is really small. Unless you are a resident of the state of GA and get in state rates and if you qualify for HOPE, it is an expensive choice for you unless you get very lucky and get a merit award. Certainly not a safety. </p>

<p>The same with UCSB. If you are in state CA and qualify for in state tuition, it’s one thing, but if you are OOS, none of the UCs are safeties and are really long shots in terms of giving you a significant amount of money. UI is the same story.</p>

<p>Though RPI and WPI are good possibilities for merit aid, I would never put them down as safeties. They have no guaranteed merit awards. Any time you have to apply for an award, and it comes down to a selection process, it is not a safety. I know some kids with some great stats who did not get significant money from either of those schools. They got in, and I think they got something, but certainly not enough to make a major dent in the cost. Those are schools encroaching on the $60K a year point in cost. </p>

<p>Which brings us to teh very important question of what are your parents willing and able to pay per year? Not what the EFC is what the NPC gives, but what are they willing to put down on the table and say, “we will pay this much a year and no more”. Not, “it depends on the school” or “we’ll see”, but really what they will part with from savings, what they can scrimp out of budget in terms of current income and what they are willing to borrow for you. </p>

<p>The international thing is a big deal in terms of what your options may be since, as said before, some schools will automatically exclude you from any aid consideration, and you may be in a pool where even asking for aid will affect your admissions if you do not have a green card number that can be verified or some other document that is acceptable–not in process but in hand. Your parents will not be eligible to borrow through PLUS, now will you be eligible for any Stafford, Perkins, workstudy, state programs, etc without having completed, approved and processed paperwork. Don’t think the funds will necessarily be there in the time you are thinking it takes to go through the process either. The schools are not going to wait for you in dispensing their funds.</p>

<p>If you qualify for instate tuition, then your state schools may offer your best sure shots. Also some local alternatives. Those should be your safeties. The ones that will surely accept you even if your green card does not come through in time to be considered a citizen and that you can afford without financial aid or scholarships (all if factors and eliminate any school from safety if a condition of attendance).</p>

11

<p>Based on what you’re parents are willing to pay ($20,000) and the fact that you don’t yet have your green card, which in my experience, takes quite a while unless you’ve paid for the expedited process, and IF you’re applying in the fall, I strongly suggest you consider looking at McGill in Montreal, University of Toronto, and University of British Columbia for uber-strong STEM programs and a very reasonable International/OOS cost which your folks could afford and for which you’d need only minimal loans for living costs.</p>

<p>Those three schools are pretty much on par in terms of world rank with many schools on your list. They wouldn’t be safeties per se, but you’d be a strong candidate.</p>

<p>PS - FWIW, depending on how much stock you put in ranking, those three schools are all in the top 20 worldwide for engineering according to USNews, I believe.</p>

12

<p>^ Okay, I have to make a correction here. I haven’t lived in Canada since 2003, but wow, have they changed INTERNATIONAL fees in the intervening 9 years! </p>

<p>Those schools are charging about $30,000 a year for international engineering students now – still cheaper than some US privates, but about DOUBLE what it cost back in the 90s! Fees for Canadians are still in the $8k range.</p>

<p>So you might still want to consider them, but they’re not quite as “fiscally safe” as they were even a few years ago (eg. went up by 8k at some schools since '09!)</p>

13

<p>I would not even consider a school outside of the US without first checking with an attorney who specializes in immigration. I can see that thoroughly fouling up the green card process and perhaps even eligibility.</p>

<p>If the green card is not likely to be in hand by the time OP applies, it might be worth taking a gap year so she isn’t considered an international student. </p>

<p>You should work with your folks to do a FAFSA estimate, and then have a frank discussion – if your FAFSA EFC is 45K, but they can (or will) only pay $20K, then schools that do not give substantial merit scholarships are going to leave you with a huge gap. Run Princeton & Yale’s calculators for an estimate of what the most generous schools might do – pretty much all the others on your list that do not give merit scholarships (or give only a small handful) will do less than this. You recognize that these schools are a reach – and I’d say, coming from NJ, that they’re a significant reach. </p>

<p>Berkeley is very, very unlikely to provide much financial assistance to you as an OOS student. </p>

<p>If you’re a National Merit Finalist (how did you do on the PSAT?) then some other options open up, but right now your list is woefully short on schools that are financially safe with a $20K contribution from your folks, even if you take out the max Direct (Stafford) loan and manage to earn $2500 over the summer.</p>

14

<p>I don’t understand why Rutgers is not an option unless you get a half scholarship? Wouldn’t the cost be less than most of the other sticker prices? '</p>

<p>Do run NPC on some of your schools to see what comes out in terms of aid. The problem often is that the most generous schools are the ones with astronomical odds for getting accepted. Yes, Princeton gives great aid packages (though I don’t know what it would give to a family with your particular numbers), but getting accepted there is like winning a lottery. Being from NJ doesn’t help as the top of every class will be lining up to get their apps off there, along with NY and other surrounding states. Not to mention the top students from all over the country. All of those schools in your reach category have that as a problem–getting accepted. But if you run the calculators for all of those schools and find that even at best, they are not going to meet your need, you can make some cuts on that basis. Because those schools do give 100% of need, but no merit, for the most part, so those numbers are going to be pretty close to what they will be when you apply. We are talking $60K in cost, so if your parents’ maximum is $20K, you need double that in aid to make it a go.</p>

<p>For those schools that may give you merit money, look at what their scholarship requirements and history are. Georgia Tech, nor example, has full scholarships, but getting one is not easy… Highly selective. Still, give it a go. But be aware that merit and aid are usually integrated when awarded from a school so those merit numbers have to be high to make it worthwhile. My one son did get some $20-30K awards, but when you look at the $60K price tag, it still leaves a lot to pay.</p>

<p>But most importantly, you need to get your international status cleared up, because you many not even get your foot in the door at some of those school as an international student with need as some of them are not need blind in admissions to internationals, though they are for US citizens and those with certain paperwork.</p>

15

<p>Yes, arabrab is cct. in that depending on your PR type, you technically cannot be out of country for more than 6 months at a time without jeopardizing your status. However, again, depending on other factors, you can be granted permission to study out of country without it rescinding your status.</p>

<p>And re: international status – at U Michigan for example (which isn’t on your list, but which you COULD afford IF you were to receive one of the $20,000 scholarships they occasional give to ENG students - though you won’t get NEED BASED aid) admits roughly 59 percent in-state students; 35% OOS students (far more than UCB) and a mere 6% international students.</p>

<p>So you can see how your odds of admission dramatically diminish if you’re classed as an international.</p>

16

<p>thanks for all the replies!!
my parents can afford 30k but 20k tuition :/</p>

<p>we’re supposed to get it by october, just in time for EA so hopefully i will
if i dont, i hope having SSN will help a little since it shows that i will be getting a green card soon since they usually dont give ssn to nonpermanent-resident minors</p>

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<p>Your social security number means nothing. Many people have a social security number but are not citizens or even in the process. My own mother has had a socials security number without a green card.</p>

<p>Call up each school and find out what specifically you need to have in order not to be considered international.</p>

<p>Some of those school such as Princeton and MIT are need blind to international students and also will meet full need for the same.</p>

18

<p>thanks for all the replies!!
my parents can afford 30k but 20k tuition :confused:</p>

<p>Can you clarify?</p>

<p>are you saying that your parents will pay $20k towards your tuition and $10k towards your room and board …for a total of $30k per year?</p>

<p>Also, can you clarify what you said about stocks? Were you just including the income from the stocks? The VALUE of the stock will also be included…not just the income/dividends from them.</p>