How Should You Ask to Appeal Financial Aid Award?

Parents Forum
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<p>We're waiting to receive a financial aid package from Emerson College and I'm just wondering if we feel the aid offered is not enough, what is the best way to approach an appeal? We'll be going there in April for a visit, so I'm thinking it would be best to make an appointment and go in person, but I just don't know how to word it to come across respectful but, yet, firm. If the student has been accepted and offered money already at other schools, will that have any weight in asking for more money at Emerson? If anyone has had any experience with this, I'd appreciate some advice. Is there any kind of an average amount this school tends to offer? Thanks for your help.</p>

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<p>It never hurts to ask! But don’t get your hopes up too high. Unless the student has an exceptional talent of some sort that has colleges positively drooling over them, the days when students can negotiate significant changes in their aid packages are over. As the demographics change (i.e., as there are fewer HS grads), those days may return. But it won’t be in time to help the current class much.</p>

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<p>You’re already on the right track, shell8561. Financial aid officials often have a fair amount of wiggle room when it comes to adjusting aid packages. So you always want to be polite–and yet persistent. Act appreciative for whatever crumbs have been tossed your way so far rather than entitled to more.</p>

<p>Definitely make an appointment, whether it’s to meet in person during your campus visit (which is preferable but not always possible) or to talk on the phone.</p>

<p>If other colleges have provided better aid–whether it’s need-based aid or merit aid–have those numbers in front of you. At an in-person meeting, make sure you bring the official copy of these awards. For a phone meeting, offer to mail, email, or fax copies. Note, however, that bigger awards from other colleges will have the most impact if they come from more selective schools or at least comparably selective ones. But, even if they don’t, they are still worth discussing. You can say, “My child really wants to attend Emerson but we are afraid that finances will force us to choose [less selective school] where we have been offered $10,000 more.” If Emerson is eager to get your child, the thought of losing an accepted candidate to another college–even one that isn’t considered a peer institution–may be enough to spur a compromise.</p>

<p>Arrive at your meeting with a specific amount of money in mind that you hope to receive and specific reasons why you need it (with documentation, if possible). In other words, don’t just say something like, “The $16K you’ve offered us isn’t enough. We need more.” Instead, explain, “We’re very grateful for the $16,000 in this financial aid package, however we have determined that we will need $21,000 in grant money in order to make our child’s dream of attending Emerson a reality. As you can see here, we have medical bills from the past two years that we are still paying off …” or maybe it’s, "We had to put a small addition on our home last spring because Grandma, who could no longer live on her own, has moved in with us … " etc. </p>

<p>In other words, whatever your numbers and your circumstances are, be as specific as you can … both in terms of how much you need and why you need it. Obviously, some reasons (e.g., health care costs or ailing granny) will carry more weight than others (“We want to expose our children to the educational value of travel, so we have booked a Mediterranean cruise for next December. …”)</p>

<p>Again, your initial thoughts about being “respectful but yet firm” are right on the money–so to speak. Good luck!</p>

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<p>The advice we received was to marshall all the financial facts and documents, have copies of everything to leave with them, and to put it before them in a “humble” and straightforward manner. “Humble” was the actual word used by the counselor. It doesn’t mean grovelling, but it does mean being honest and genuine and acknowledging the generosity already profferred, not blustering (“My kid is so great and s/he has received $XX from X school”) or acting like this is a horse trade where you have equal power. (You don’t. :slight_smile: And remember that most FA people would genuinely LIKE to give people as much money as they need, but they don’t have bottomless coffers. ) </p>

<p>We arranged to meet with FA officers while taking kid to admitted students weekends. One school responded with a meager adjustment but basically denied our grounds for appeal, the other responded favorably and added $ to the award as well as restructuring it.</p>

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<p>My H has a friend who was able to get more $$ from Boston College with an in-person visit and persistent calls by his wife. Their son had rec’d better FA from Fordham (the mom’s alma mater), but the S really wanted to go to BC. I don’t think they gave them a lot more, but they were happy getting a little more. From what I know, the student is having a great time at BC (and the parents are thrilled at the value they are getting at SUNY Albany for their younger D)</p>

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<p>Be sensitive to the person on the other side of the table. You may be negotiating with a big, wealthy institution (in your mind) but you are actually negotiating with a nice person who may also have kids who he/she is trying to educate, who also tries to do more with less, who actually believes that what he/she does for a living helps society in some way.</p>

<p>Soooo- focusing on your lifestyle (and why it’s important to maintain it) is absolutely the wrong way to go from what I have observed. Your pitch needs to be how important it is to you to give your child a solid education, why you believe Emerson is the right place, and how you want to work hard with the institution to make it work for everyone.</p>

<p>Don’t complain about the sacrifices you are going to have to make in order to fund your EFC; don’t complain about the spouse having to go back to work; don’t complain about having to “rob your savings”. You are dealing with a person who has probably already done all those things- or if it’s a 32 year old, someone who knows they WILL have to do all those things.</p>

<p>Be respectful and thoughtful- “Here’s our calculation of how the award from Ithaca (to use an example) stacks up next to Emerson. We’d like your input on ways you can help us bridge the gap to make Emerson possible” NOT, “If she takes the Ithaca award we don’t have to cash out our CD for Freshman year. Since we’ve been banking on that money to buy a new car next year, why can’t you meet the Ithaca award??”</p>

<p>YMMV-- but I’ve seen folks get burned by not being sensitive to the human being behind the desk.</p>

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<p>Good luck. I’m sure all schools have ways of dealing with FA appeals but you may also run into what we did at Bard College. Bard came in with no merit or scholarship money thus making it a full pay univerisity for us. With it being our S’s first choice we thought we would contact them about money and see if they could do anything. This was the only school that we would request a FA appeal. FAFSA or Profile, we knew we couldn’t afford the approx. $55,000 costs. So we did what some others have suggested and send an itemized sheet of our costs for the year. And this included everything…all our costs and debts for the year which clearly showed that the COA was beyond our means. When we went over the sheet with a live person on the phone, her reponse was that with the money we were requesting, and it wasn’t much (equal to some merit money at other schools he received), we could house your son at a hotel for that amount of money. I think the stone silence at the other end of the line made her quip that she was just trying to bring some levity to the conversation. We got zero, he went to another college, and all is well. My only advice is to not be rude but just lay it out on the line. Either we get this amount or we need to look elsewhere. And I would tell them an amount that will get you child there.</p>

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<p>Humble and respectful is definitely the way you want to go when communicating directly with the FA people, however it doesn’t hurt to check and re-check your application numbers and calculations. We meticulously scrutinized every figure we submitted, just assuming they would convert everything to USD because that was our CDN tax return, we were reporting expenses, income etc all in CDN and of course on the other side, tuition and all other school costs were USD. The exchange was precisely the amount that changed the situation from painfully undoable to painfully doable! I think H said the officer’s words were something to the effect, “Well, that certainly will make a difference to you, won’t it?”</p>

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<p>A question to people on this thread:
What kind of $$ are you talking about asking for/ or have received after re-approaching the issue? An extra thousand? Five thousand? Just curious.</p>

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<p>Last spring, my son got a financial offer from one of his top choices that fell far below what we could afford. So I called the school and spoke with one of the financial aid officers. She pulled out his file and explained in detail how they arrived at that figure. She apologized that no additional grant/scholarship monies were available.</p>

<p>She asked what other offers he had. I told her that he was a National Merit scholar with several full tuition/housing opportunities on the table. He needed to select one. Then, she offered some wonderful advice that my son took – choose one of those offers, and she would see him for grad school in four years. She explained that she was a parent, and if one of her three children got that kind of an offer, she would send him/her elsewhere so he/she could graduate without debt.</p>

<p>Sometimes, the financial aid officer cannot come up with additional funding. But it was nice to hear her be so encouraging. She wanted him at her school, but not if he had to incur so much debt that it could haunt him the rest of his life.</p>

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<p>Are your child’s stats in the top 25% of the school? If so, you will likely have a better chance of getting more aid if you appeal. Schools do consider what your child does for them (statistics-wise) when divvying up their limited funds.</p>

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<p>She asked what other offers he had. I told her that he was a National Merit scholar with several full tuition/housing opportunities on the table. He needed to select one. Then, she offered some wonderful advice that my son took – choose one of those offers, and she would see him for grad school in four years. She explained that she was a parent, and if one of her three children got that kind of an offer, she would send him/her elsewhere so he/she could graduate without debt.</p>

<p>Yes, I’ve heard that people sometimes get that response, too, when mentioning better offers elsewhere. Most schools do have very limited funds, so sometimes the answer is to attend the school with the better offer.</p>

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<p>Thanks for your advice. It really helped and gave me a better idea how to approach this. We have one child already in college now, which of course is listed on the FAFSA, but we also have another 22-year-old who works and lives at home that we did not list on the forms because it said to only list it if you pay for more than half of their living expenses. We probably don’t pay more than half but it’s close. If I made a list of what we contribute towards his expenses, do you think that would help or is there any way it coud make things worse?</p>

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<p>^^^</p>

<p>How much does your son earn? If its something like $10k or $15k or so per year, could you really show that you spend more than that on him each year? If he works part-time for a lowish wage, that might be possible, but if he works full-time, that might be hard.</p>

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<p>In the case of the school that rejected our grounds for appeal, an extra thousand. (Still leaving us with a gap that was, IIRC, about the same as our annual income.)</p>

<p>In the case of the school that responded favorably, I’m having a hard time remembering, because it also involved a restructuring. I’m thinking it was about $10K per year. Their initial offer was significantly better to start with.</p>

<p>To clarify, this involved owning a part share in a family property that could not be sold or borrowed against. School A said, “Too bad. You still own it. Find a way.” (Trust me, there was no way. We tried.) School B apparently decided that we were telling the truth about being unable to tap the potential value for the foreseeable future.</p>

<p>If S had decided that he wanted School A, H would have gone back to them to see what could be done. (My suggestion was to sign over our share to them and let THEM see if they could get money out of it! :smiley: ) But luckily, S picked School B. (Not on financial grounds.)</p>

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<p>It would probably help to make this list, particularly because it sounds like your 22-year-old is working and not simply freeloading. If he’s also paying back college loans, note this on your list, whether you’re actually paying or he is. (It will enhance his image as a “good citizen” if one reason he’s at home is because he has loans to repay.)</p>

<p>But when itemizing the list, do avoid including anything that would make finaid folks roll their eyes … i.e., hopefully your list is top-heavy with items such as food, health care, and utilities–not luxuries. And the amounts you note should be appropriate for a young man and shouldn’t scream “extravagance!”</p>

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<p>He pays for his school loan, car loan, car maintenance and repairs, gas, half of the car insurance (it’s in our name for cost reasons), part of his private health insurance, clothes, shoes and boots, doctor co-pays, dental visits, haircuts, and some clothing and supplies related to his employment. I’m saying we have extra expense due to him still living at home, such as the groceries, utilities, internet, etc. Plus we pay for a good portion of his health insurance because it’s pretty expensive and we’re forcing him to have it since his job has no benefits. We also have a Parent Plus loan that we’re paying on, but it’s not too much. Do you think it’s worth to mention this?</p>

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<p>Yes, definitely worth mentioning. The only thing I would chop off that list is “Internet,” since you’d probably have the same Internet service with or without the son at home, right? You don’t want to make it appear that you’re grasping at straws to come up with extra expenses. Arguably, your food and utility bills will be much higher with a 22-year-old man in the house, and the portion you pay of his car and health insurance would be considered legitimate expenses by pretty much anyone, along with the Parent Plus loan. So do make a list of what you pay (both the category and amount) but leave the Internet off of it. Also itemize what he pays, as you’ve done here, just to prove that he’s clearly holding up his end as well, which he certainly seems to be.</p>

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<p>This is an interesting thread. Would something like braces for a kid be something to list?</p>

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<p>Can’t hurt to mention braces during an appeals process, especially if the student is still in braces–or you’re still paying the bill–at college-application time. But I wouldn’t push this one too hard. In this day and age, so many kids get braces that finaid folks will view this expense as about as ordinary as bus fare or pizza money. Of course, exceptional orthodontic bills can be put more front-and-center on an expense list.</p>