International student financial aid versus athletic scholarship

Paying for College
1

Morning! Please can I pick your brains about our dilemma?

Son (17 today!) has received a 50% athletic scholarship offer for an amazing private college - usual cost $88,000 a year, so brings it down to $44K. However, having spoken to them this week, the Uni has confirmed that once we are ‘in’ via the athletics back-door, we can then apply for a needs-based scholarship and accept the most generous of the two. Again, we are very grateful.

Having filled in the Uni’s net-price calculator as honestly as possible, the figure for financial aid is coming out of $66K, so we would pay $22K. I have two worries / questions though that I’m hoping you could help me understand:

  1. The CSS profile says that it takes each country’s economy into account. How do I find out the +/- impact of this regarding our application?

  2. Can we complete the CSS early for 2023 academic year? I’m worried that the figure may be so different from the calculator on the college website, that we can’t afford it - and then how do we back away, having potentially agreed to the athletic scholarship?

I’m very risk averse and worry about these things. Any advice would be so very welcome. Many thanks.

2

You are living in the UK and the private college is in the US?

The UK economy would not give you any benefit for financial aid. That would be for applicants from poor countries.

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3

Did the net price calculator ask if you were an international student? If not…please understand that these calculators are not always accurate for international students.

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4

The best thing to do is talk to a financial aid officer at the school. You can ask your questions & get a better answer than we can provide.

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5

Did your athletic offer say 50% of COA or 50% of tuition?

Some schools would give you a pre-read, basically doing the calculations for you. This would include a need based aid pre-read.

You cannot fill out the CSS early, except as a sample (which is sounds like you have done). The office CSS for the next year won’t be available until fall of next year.

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