<p>I would appreciate advice regarding how to appeal financial aid awards. Should it be done in writing? Telephonically? In person? </p>
<p>Should I send copies of the awards from other colleges?</p>
<p>walk in with ragged clothes, torn books, and a holed up backpack and say you need help in person. works for the bums.</p>
<p>ahh thats so mean...
i think the op needs better, relevant replies...</p>
<p>Hi MSDAD,</p>
<p>What you want to do is request a financial review. You definitely want to do it in writing. Some school's have financial review forms, if your student has one in their package, fill out the form. If not, write your request for a financial review and state your situation (especially if if was not covered in your financial aid situation). Most of the time you can fax the request (call to find out if you can fax the request, get the name of the person you are speaking with and call back to confirm the receipt of your documents). Find out when you can expect to hear from the school regarding a decision.</p>
<p>Then if the school is your child's first choice let the school know. Don't be afraid to state what you need in order to make the school financially feasible for your family. If you are sending another school's offer, make sure that there use similiar methodologies.</p>
<p>for example if you got a package from a school based on need based only FA, sending a package based on merit aid will not help your cause.</p>
<p>If you are sending based on merit, make sure you know what the requirements are to get merit (is the criteria basically the same at both schools?).</p>
<p>We put together a spreadsheet of our budget highlighting the costs of living in the Northeast--increased housing costs, oil, car insurance etc.
We met in person with the director of Financial aid at my son's ed school.</p>
<p>They did increase his aid by about 6k which will make the cost easier to bear</p>
<p>Sybbie and Momof2sons, thank you for your responses.<br>
delirious_tree, I was going to ignore your post, but I will just say that I am not amused by your insensitivity.</p>
<p>so do I understand correctly momof2sons, that your sons school actually reduced the EFC? Did the other schools he applied to then adjust their packages to reflect the new EFC?
( Im also wondering that if the college then agreed to maintain this package until graduation, some schools do change their packages enough so that students are forced to transfer out, which IMO is worse than having to attend a 2nd choice school because of aid packages in the first place)</p>
<p>sorry to be mean, but im sure your situation isnt as bad as mine. my parents are basically in debt like 100, 000 k and they still have to pay for my brothers and i education. you cant put debt in Fafsa, only how much you can offer. if you dont get the money that you need for college, i would say have whoever is going to college apply for scholarships everywhere; so far i got aound 8k from them.</p>
<p>I posted the exact same post about two days ago, I got some good advice, maybe you could read it: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=319268%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=319268</a></p>
<p>TOCF, I read your thread and given that you are an international student, I think that your circumstances are slightly different than those of domestic applicants.</p>
<p>Mellody Hobson the financial contributor for GMA is on now talking about College and financial aid. You can probably get the ling later on ABC's website</p>
<p>From Mellody Hobson's segment this morning:</p>
<p>Appeal for More Aid</p>
<p>If your child didn't receive as much aid as you had hoped for, your first step should be to reach out to the financial aid office and appeal the amount of aid you were granted. It's best to try and make the appeal in person or at least over the phone — avoid e-mail if at all possible. </p>
<p>Hobson explained the two approaches to take when making an appeal. </p>
<p>"The first is obvious: financial. In this case, be sure to be able to present supporting documentation about your family's financial situation. which would support your request for additional aid," she said. "The second approach is competitive. Other schools have offered you more generous aid packages, so you want to see if the package at your first choice school can be improved."</p>