My daughter currently attends a very good liberal arts college and recieved an outstanding financial aid package. She is currently in her 3rd semester but is considering transferring to an exclusive program at NYU. My question is this: if she applies to transfer to NYU and does NOT get in, will this affect her good standing with the college she currently attends? If she does not get in to NYU she plans on remaining at her current college. Will they still give her the financial aid she currently recieves? Will this taint her in any way? Worried Mom.
No, it should not taint her at all. The only interaction she’ll have with her existing school about this is requesting a transcript to be sent to NYU. She would not initiate withdrawing from the current school unless she’s admitted to the new one.
I agree with @Amser409. To me the biggest risk here is that she will get into NYU with little or no financial aid. Then you will be stuck deciding whether it is worth the money to transfer. Her opinion on this subject might end up being different from yours. We have also seen a few posts on CC from kids who transfer and then are sorry and want to transfer back – something that might or might not be possible but that probably will also hurt financially.
Agreeing with @DadTwoGirls - and amplifying it: NYU is not famous for good financial aid, and transfer students get even less. If your daughter has an “outstanding financial aid package” at a “very good” LAC, you need to do the financial math before she gets any farther down the transfer road mindset. Can you afford NYU? if not, you need to be very, very clear about that. Remember that she cannot take out more than ~$5K in loans in her own name: the rest will be on you to co-sign.
Lots of students are attracted to NYU’s “exclusive” programs and great location, but if you can not afford it (and she does not have her own source of income to pay for it), better to face that now than after she applies, is accepted and then can’t go because she can’t afford it. Truly. Seriously.
Is she applying because she dislikes her school? Or because she just likes that particular problem? If she dislikes her current school, she should apply to more than NYU. As stated before, NYU is notorious for giving little to no financial aid for transfer students, and they don’t really do merit awards because everybody applying is pretty merituous