Will colleges deny a student for needing aid? Is the admissions committee (those who review your app) also in charge of financial aid or are the two determined separately?
there isn’t a single school i know that will reject a student just because they aren’t rich
Sort of.
There are schools that are need aware for admissions. This means that your financial need IS taken into consideration when your application for admission is considered. At those schools, it is very possible that a student will be rejected, especially towards the end of the application review cycle, if their financial need is significant.
So…yes…at some schools, if you can’t pay the bills, there is the chance you will be rejected.
This is VERY true for international students not particular but also applies to citizens at some schools.
In most case, the financial aid office has nothing to do wothnadmissions decisions. The financial aid office computes your financial need.
The admissions office reviews your application for admission…and this job isn’t shared with financial aid officers. The admissions office often awards merit aid, and that is typically based on application strength. The admissions office does NOT award need based aid.
BUT at need aware schools, financial need of applicants is communicated to the admissions department…and that financial need might be used as part of your admissions review.
so like are the more highly competitive schools need aware? Or are the less wealthy schools more need aware?
This has nothing to do with “how wealthy” the colleges are. Some schools are need aware and some aren’t. Some are need aware towards the end of their admissions cycle. Some are need aware for transfer students but not for first year students. Many are need aware for international students.
What colleges are you concerned about?
There are some competitive schools that are need aware. There are plenty of “less wealthy” schools that are not need aware, but they do not meet full need and will simply admit academically qualified students but gap them with institutional need-based aid.
honestly I’m not concerned about money, neither is my family we are able to pay whatever but I did file the FAFSA and my dad earns foreign income so we only report what he earned in the US which seems low, but when colleges look at the css profile and see the cars, property etc we own they’ll realize that were not needy.
Im concerned about Boston University mainly and Northeastern
Sometimes I regret filing the FAFSA at all just because I don’t want it to hinder my chances at these schools
I don’t this is right. @BelknapPoint, when financial aid forms ask about income, don’t they mean all income?
Yes, the financial aid forms are asking for all income.
It could be that the OP is referring to how the foreign income is recorded and taxed for US income tax purposes.
Are your parents divorced? Do you live primarily with your mom?
If your parents are married, it doesn’t matter if your dad earned his money on the moon, it MUST be reported on the FAFSA form.
Are you talking about the foriegn income exclusion folks get for tax purposes? Please clarify.
Boston University and Northastern both require the CSS Profile. If your parents are married…ALL of their income, even the money earned in a foreign place, MUST be listed on both the FAFSA and Profile.
I would very strongly suggest you get this corrected ASAP…because if you omit any of your parent income you could end up getting need based aid you are not entitled to get…at all.
The MOST important thing on these financial aid forms is HONESTY. If your dad earned money…you need to include that.
The foreign earned income excluded portion should be added back as other untaxed income on the FAFSA.
The foreign income was taxed, but there is an allowance so no tax may be owed. I don’t think it is added back in on FAFSA.
Foreign earned income from wages would also be reported in response to this question:
How much did Parent 1/2 (father/mother/stepparent) earn from working in 2017?
the reason why this happened was because the taxed income seemed to be very low, so we took this out and just put the full amount in AGI (we did this last night) and our efc changed to 056934
my parents are married. we did the css profile too