<p>Yes I know its much better than normal... but my parents are unemployed... we spend a lot of our money on med bills...
It's really hard for me to take out loans like that with my situation...</p>
<p>Tawny, I think you have one of the rare cases where it might be beneficial for you to discuss your situation with a financial aid rep at NYU, because of your Pell grant eligibility. You should at least bring it to their attention that they might have missed a component that could increase your package. The Pell Grant doesn't cost NYU anything, it comes from the federal government. I'd suggest that you email them, note that you are Pell grant eligible and that your other colleges have all included Pell grants, and simply ask why there is no Pell grant in the NYU package.</p>
<p>So sorry for the delay. As you can all imagine, things are particularly busy in our office this time of year. I'd like to respond to some specific points, but first, let me just put something in perspective. Our inability to meet full-need is not because, as has been suggested by a poster here, "there really is no incentive for NYU to offer large amounts of financial aid" since our high demand means we can "admit enough kids that are willing to pay full tuition." I think sometimes families forget that as an Admissions Committee (and Financial Aid Office) there would be nothing we would love more then to be able to offer better financial aid packages. We feel very strongly about the students who we have offered admission to and as human beings who have dedicated their professional lives to education there is nothing more frustrating then knowing that many talented students will not be able to attend our school because of the expense. It's not a matter of not wanting to offer better packages, it is simply a matter of not having the funds to do so. It is nearing offensive to suggest that our school has funds that we are not making available to students because of institutional greediness.</p>
<p>As far as some specific questions that have been asked:
Cloverdale 7 - You are more then welcome to reach out to our Office of Financial Aid to appeal your package. However, keep in mind that we have awarded nearly all of the aid that is available for the class. A succesful appeal may mean an increase of scholarship by $1000 or so. You should not anticipate dramatic differences occuring in your aid package based on an appeal. If another school has been able to offer you a great financial aid package, we are happy to hear that! However, what another school has been able to offer you does not impact what NYU is able to offer you.</p>
<p>HideandSeek - We would be glad to speak with you at length about our wait-list policies. Please refer to your notification letter which asked you to indicate in your wait-list reply if you would like to have one of our Committee members contact you to discuss this. Make sure you note that you would like someone to be in touch with you and we will reach out to you as soon as possible.</p>
<p>Finally, a note about Pell Grants. All families who have an Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) of $4000 or less are eligible to receive a Pell Grant. If your EFC is more then $4000 you are not eligible for a Pell Grant. This is a federal aid policy, not an NYU specific policy.</p>
<p>Thanks for your patience waiting for this response!</p>
<p>
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It is nearing offensive to suggest that our school has funds that we are not making available to students because of institutional greediness.
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You have choices as what to do with the limited funds you have. One of the choices NYU makes is to offer 5% of accepted students Presidential Scholarships, regardless of need. So basically you have a merit aid policy that ends up distributing much of your limited aid dollars to well-to-do families.</p>
<p>I know that NYU would like to attract top students, and there was a time that NYU was less prestigious and easier to get into, when it made sense to use merit money to "buy" the best students away from competing universities. But that time is no more -- you now are only admitting students with excellent qualifications, and many of these students have also been admitted to Ivies and other prestigious schools that will pay 100% of need. I'd guess that probably your top third of admitted students have an alternative that is an equivalent or better college offering them significantly better aid. So now those merit aid policies are probably costing you more top students than you gain with the few you attract. It is a shame when you lose a student like Tawny to Harvard over aid that leaves her $20K short, when obviously the $20K Tisch Scholarship she has been offered means she must be a student you would like to attract. (That is it is a shame for Tisch -- obviously great news for Harvard). </p>
<p>You could also change the way you distribute the aid among the students who are given grants. My son attended a college with a limited endowment that could not meet full need of all of its students -- so it resolved the problem by meeting 100% need of some of its students. There was a merit component to that in determining which students would get the grants -- but if a student did get a grant, then the aid was sufficient, and aid was only given to financially needy students. Obviously these policies were frustrating to the students who got no grant aid whatsoever, but at least a certain percentage of students received aid that enabled them to attend and to graduate without crushing debt. </p>
<p>One thing that separates the very top colleges from all the rest is that they do promise to meet 100% of need. If NYU is competing for the same students who are getting admitted to those schools, then NYU is going to have to develop competitive financial aid practices. I know that there are students who desparately want to come to NYU, but no parent in their right mind is going to take on significant debt to send their kid to NYU when their need is being fully met at a more prestigious college. </p>
<p>So thank you very much for explaining your policies-- we definitely appreciate your honesty and willingness to engage in dialogue. But the low level of aid that NYU offers is an insult to many of the students who have worked hard to get into your school.</p>
<p>We appreciate your feedback. Our institutional priority IS to provide our most needy students with the greatest amount of finanical aid. In the future, we very well may offer aid to ONLY financial needy students. This may or may not necessarily mean meeting full-need, but I'm certain if that happens we will be equally vilified on this web-site for that decision. Sadly, it does not appear that most people on this site want to engage in conversation unless it is negative and/or speculative in nature.</p>
<p>If you would like to learn more about our University's $2 billion capital campaign (of which $650 million has been ear-marked for immediate financial aid relief) please feel free to visit our web-site.</p>
<p>NYU UGADMISSIONS is here to answer questions and clear up misconceptions, and if you notice, in very few of the boards....yet, everyone seems to be antagonizing him/her. We should stop using him/her as an opportunity to get out our (sometimes justifiable) frustrations because that isn't his/her purpose for being on this board! (Or is it? Because I'm feeling like all NYUAGAD. does is defend, defend, defend and it's not getting anyone, ANYwhere) Besides, if we force him/her to take the online time to build up defensive arguments, we'll never get any other useful answers that could be commented upon.</p>
<p>'aid' encompasses loans....does offering loans to students cost NYU any money? I hope this doesn't sound disrespectful, I'm not trying to be rude (I'm just wondering).</p>
<p>I agree with jaime, we should all just tone down the bitterness in our posts. Speaking as a student that was accepted but won't be able to attend I understand the frustation, but interogating or making speculatory suggestions won't change things for us. I'm greatful for just having been accepted, and proud that I could get into my #1 school. It is hard though, but wherever we go in the fall we'll be successful because our drive is that strong. We've already proved it by getting into a top-notch university, and theres always time for graduate school. And I'll end my little speech (haha lol) with something I tell myself whenever something bad happens, don't dwell.</p>
<p>calmom, I'd like to say something from the other side.</p>
<p>I'm only here at NYU because of my merit scholarship. My family is solidly middle-class, but when I applied to college, I knew going in that there was no way my parents could cough up 50%+ of their income just to send me to school - not while supporting my sister and my grandmother. NYU's money made the difference for me - without it, I'd either pay $25k a year for CMU (a financial stretch) or $10k a year for UD (not as good as NYU, in my opinion).</p>
<p>I guess what I'm trying to say is that NYU is not some Evil Empire interested in luring in the brightest, wealthiest students at the expense of the brightest, most disadvantaged students. Financial aid is not what it could be, but I honestly believe NYU is doing its best.</p>
<p>
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Sadly, it does not appear that most people on this site want to engage in conversation unless it is negative and/or speculative in nature.
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I don't know whether that was addressed at my last post or not -- but I don't think offering suggestions and criticism is "negative". You need to realize that NYU is not only coming up short for aid, but it is also far behind other schools. My daughter has been awarded substantially larger awards at every single college where she has been admitted, including larger grants from our in-state publics (where obviously our need is far less). I took all the award numbers and put them on an Excel spread sheet and sorted them all -- NYU is at the very bottom of the heap. </p>
<p>No one is saying that you need to turn around and offer a free ride to everyone with less than $60K income, like Harvard has announced. It's o.k. if you aren't the best financial aid around - many students and their families would be willing to pay a few thousand extra to attend NYU. But if I was running a school, I wouldn't want to be in "dead last" position when need-based aid dollars are compared.
[quote]
If you would like to learn more about our University's $2 billion capital campaign (of which $650 million has been ear-marked for immediate financial aid relief) please feel free to visit our web-site.
[/quote]
That's great news - can you post a specific URL for that information? (I couldn't find any reference to this on the NYU home page). Maybe some of the well-off parents of your Presidential Scholars might be willing to contribute generously for the sake of students who are less fortunate.</p>
<p>When NYU is successful in its capital campaigns and can meet 100% of the need of the extraordinary students it accepts, it will be able to step up and assume a place at the table with the likes of the University of Chicago, Washington University, and a very short list other great Institutions outside the Ivy League. That is what NYU must do to attract and retain the best students in the country --but then it will be even harder to get into NYU.</p>
<p>calmom, you think NYU doesn't realize it has financial aids difficulties?! If you think about it objectively, it's pretty amazing that NYU does so well in the first place--all of their buildings (and we're talking BIG ones: wide with many floors) are in a PRIME section of New York CITY. Just paying for the real estate of over 23 buildings (I'm pretty sure) in one of the world's most popular cities must ALONE cost a REALLY big part of their income. But after the rent bill (or whatever), they still have to upkeep all said buildings (and if you've visited the campus, you'll realize they do this incredibly well), pay all of their FANTASTIC professors and other staff, arrange for hundreds of internships, market their school to prospective students and general public, and THEN they've still got spend $650 million on financial aid (which more than a fourth of the money they have for capital campaigning). </p>
<p>If you think of it that way, maybe that'll help you justify the costs and NYU's inability to raise enough net profit to offer as much finaid as schools like Harvard and Yale.</p>
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market their school to prospective students and general public
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Well, maybe they could save money and do with a little less marketing. NYU is second only to Washington U. of St. Louis in the volume of mail we've received over the years, most of which goes straight to our trash can. </p>
<p>It's not just Harvard and Yale that NYU is unable to compete with in terms of financial aid - it is also many less prestigious schools as well. But I understand why the school might not be concerned about what the less selective schools offer in financial aid. </p>
<p>I realize that you are very excited about your admission to NYU and I certainly am happy for you that your mom can afford to take on this expense. But the fact is that it is not a choice for many others. There are kids who have posted on this and other threads that their parents are unemployed and they have very small FAFSA EFC's, and yet they are "offered" a $29K parent loan -- obviously their parents would have no way of making those kind of payments. </p>
<p>I just think it would be better for NYU to change the way it prioritizes the distribution of its existing aid dollars, as well as to focus on increasing the overall funds available for aid. It would be better for the students, but more important, it would be better for the University in the long run. US News ranks NYU #37 among national universities, on a par with Georgia Institute of Technology and Case Western, and far behind the top publics, which rank around 20-25. I'm not a big believer in the ranking system, but I am sure that like all other colleges, NYU would like to see its rank increase -- that in itself would bring in more funds in the long run.</p>
<p>I was just curious because my friend was offered a $25,000 scholarship to NYU but she has decided not to attend, so what would happen to the merit money she was offered? Would some financial aid packages be increased?</p>