If XXX matched my Harvard FinAid offer, will they screw me over my sophomore year?

Parent Cafe
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<p>Even though my family's adjusted income is less than 140k, our EFC is really high so the only college to offer me financial aid was Harvard (I was accepted into quite a few other ivy league schools...).</p>

<p>I have narrowed down my college choices to Harvard, Princeton, Wharton Fisher M&T program, or Columbia (where I am a Davis Scholar for SEAS). If these other colleges matched Harvard's finaid offer for my freshman year, is it possible they will reduce my finaid to 0 for my sophomore year once they "locked me in"?</p>

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<p>Icon - You have asked a grown-up question, so I will provide you a grown-up response. … No one knows what the future holds.</p>

<p>Life decisions are always a gamble … which is why parents encourage students to identify the college(s) they prefer most, and use COA as a tie-breaker.</p>

<p>OK, you don’t get it. So try this … do you really think the schools in question are so marginal financially that you need to worry about this???</p>

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<p>The short answer is no unless economy or the school went into a big funk. My S’s fin aid actually gone up slightly the 2nd yr and he was at an Ivy. These institutions aren’t out to “screw” you. They are out to build future leaders and visionaries. What makes you think like that ?</p>

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<p>Our family had a similar experience to richlane’s. At Princeton, my niece got a pretty lucrative (for the hours it took) research job for a psych professor in her sophomore year; her FA went UP in her senior year.</p>

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<p>Please don’t ask any of them to match it unless you plan to accept if they do.</p>

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<p>I can’t believe the question.
Gets accepted at 4+ schools. Income at 80 percentile.
where’s the critical thinking?</p>

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<p>

Best opening line ever. Thanks for the laugh!</p>

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<p>If another school matches that offer, ask Financial Aid the following:</p>

<ul>
<li>Is this financial aid offer contingent on my maintaining a specific gpa?</li>
<li>Is the offer good for all four years?</li>
</ul>

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<p>Don’t ask unless you plan to attend if they give you what they ask.</p>

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<p>Never heard of financial aid contingent on GPA–merit scholarships, yes.</p>

<p>Also, since financial aid is highly dependent on your parents’ income, the best they can tell you is that financial aid will stay the same as long as your parents’ income stays the same.</p>

<p>I’d take Harvard’s money and run…</p>

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<p>mini, why did you leave out the ‘please’ in your 2nd post ?</p>

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<p>I left the “please” out because at $140k family income, I thought it important to be even more insistent. LOL!</p>

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<p>OP</p>

<p>No way to know…at 140k , a 55k+ COA is hefty and depending on your family’s obligations etc…any great aid from H is awesome.
From what I hear, H is traditonally far more generous than the othere ivies.
So unless you want to go to another school–don’t ask them to macth H’s offer</p>

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<p>hmmmm
■■■■■ alert?</p>

<p>OP claims H is offering 20K…and guess P and UPenn dont see it that way…</p>

<p>One post the OP claims to want to study engineering…and somewhere else, finance…</p>

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<p>I think I agree with you, Fogfog. I think this is a little bit of fantasy here as well. Accepted to Penn’s M&T and doesn’t want to do finance?? Not sure how he was admitted unless the essays were bogus. Plus I find it rather annoying when people brag about being admitted to HYP, blablabla and just “don’t know where to go”…seriously?
We traveled to most of the Ivies (at least twice) and while you might be happy at any of them, you definitely get strong feelings about each of them when you visit and definitely have your favorites. I, too, am very surprised that the aid was not comparable. I found that my son’s packages from the Ivies were very comparable. (certainly not 20K difference) And definitely don’t put a school through a FA matching game if you don’t plan on attending if they come through.
With my second son I did try to get a school to help out more (not match per se), as he really wanted to attend and we liked it very much as well. They did not come through, which in hind-site is probably a good thing, as part of it was merit attached, and he did not fair as well as he had hoped his first semester and would have lost that aid and we would have been totally stuck for four years! Some things happen for a reason :)</p>

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<p>Even within the Ivies, it really varies with your financial situation, some people have relatively similar FA packages, others have very different ones.</p>

<p>Our experience was a 15k difference (HYP vs. B) the year before HYPS changed their FA policies and a 25k difference (Y vs B&D) the first year of the new policies.</p>

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<p>That’s true, entomom. They are trying to gain equity, but some are not there yet. HYP (and I’m assuming Penn, because their FA is great) I doubt are that far apart. Of course, we were not comparing packages from all the Ivies, just a couple :wink: But based upon financial need alone, with the same family (of course different families have different situations, etc.), we did not notice a huge enough difference to say that it was worth one over the other. Even with packages, the reality of student loans is nearly inevitable with tuition/college costs nearly $60K per year, at least in our household.</p>

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<p>We’ve noticed a big difference within the Ivies for FA grants this year. One Ivy FA award is $20,000 a year less than the most generous Ivy award. The other Ivy FA awards are at least $15,000 more than this one low award Ivy.</p>