Meeting financial aid for international students without the Marquis fellowship

Colleges and Universities A-Z Lafayette College
1

<p>Hey guys!
I have been all over CC and the official website, and I think Lafayette meets full need of accepted students irrespective of whether they receive the Marquis fellowship. However, another member on CC just messaged me that in practice Laf. meets very little FA for international students.</p>

<p>Can I please have a clear position on this?
Thanks a bunch!</p>

2

<p>Hello thenewdude,</p>

<p>I’m Taylor, a junior at Lafayette and a student ambassador.</p>

<p>Lafayette guarantees to meet the full DEMONSTRATED NEED of all accepted applicants. “Demonstrated need” refers to the amount you need based on the FAFSA and CSS profile. Sometimes, however, students don’t feel that it is enough. I think this is what creates the confusion.</p>

<p>Please note that the Marquis Fellowship finalists have not yet been announced. All finalists will receive an invitation to participate in two on-campus assessment activities that will take place in the spring. These invitations will be sent out in early February.</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

<p>Taylor</p>

<p>PS: To access an up-to-date conversation about the College, I encourage
you to visit the ‘Lafayette College Prospectives’ Facebook Page. This student-run page has new content everyday as well as student ambassadors available to answer your questions.</p>

3

<p>Hey Taylor,</p>

<p>Thank you for your reply, it was very reassuring!
I will submit my application by the end of December for consideration of the Marquis scholarship.</p>

<p>I have two more questions for you:

  1. Is EDII at Lafayette binding for international students who can’t meet the cost of attendance due to insufficient aid? I would mail the admissions office, but it’s holiday season and everyone’s out.
  2. I am passionate about two field of study - computer science and environmental science, and am not sure about which one I want to pursue for a major. If I apply for environmental science now, how difficult would it be to switch to computer science, if I wanted to at a later date? Would I still have to compete against a bunch of students who want to move to CS, or would it be relatively easier?</p>
4

<p>And yeah, I have been checking out the FB page for sometime now. Thanks for informing anyways!</p>

5

<p>I advise you to check college p r o w l e r to see comments on every aspect of the college.
Apparently:

  1. No school can force you to enroll if you can’t pay school fee. But the Office of Financial Aid will listen to your problem should you write them an appeal letter. Lafayette website also states that the college does not run out of aid for ED.
  2. Transferring to an engineering major is hard. </p>

<p>Above is the info I gathered at the time I checked college p r o w l e r.You should double check to get the latest info.</p>

6

<p>thenewdude,</p>

<p>To answer your questions…</p>

<ol>
<li><p>ursawarrior is correct. If Lafayette accepted you, it has agreed to meet all of your demonstrated need. If the Office of Financial Aid does not meet your need (which won’t happen), then you are not obligated to enroll.</p></li>
<li><p>Switching majors is NOT difficult to do at all. It is not something that is competitive–you simply go to your advisor and tell them you want to switch, it’s as simple as that. Lafayette is not divided into separate schools, so you don’t need to send in an application if you want to change your major. Also, know that you can change your major at any time. However, if you choose to change your major later than the end of your second year, it may be difficult to fit in all of your coursework in order to graduate on time. This holds true for any major switch. So, provided that you change your major in the first two years, it should be no problem at all (whether it’s CS to enviromental science or vice versa)!</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Also, just to comment on ursawarrior’s response—it is not “difficult” to switch into an engineering major. Anyone can do it if they would like to. What <em>is</em> difficult is graduating on time after switching into engineering simply due to the coursework required. For that reason, we advise that any student considering engineering should start as an engineering major. Why? Because one can always switch <em>out</em> of engineering and graduate on time. Switching <em>in</em> presents the only issue in squeezing in the courses.</p>

<p>Let me know if you have any other questions.</p>

<p>Taylor</p>

7

<p>Successful negotiation. I got additional $7,000 :smiley:
You should write an appeal letter too should the current aid be insufficient for your study at Lafayette. :D</p>

8

<p>hey ursawarrior,
you just got your decisions on additional financial aid now.actually the appeal i made didn’t cover the extra $1500 aid i needed and there seems some problem for me.did u ask for $7k and got that?</p>