<p>Does anyone have any successful strategy they would like to share about negotiating with college financial aid department to received additional scholarship/aid? I am about to start this process with 3 schools so I was interesting in what worked for others.</p>
<p>a couple clarifying questions:
Have you been admitted to these 3 schools?
Have you received their FinAid packages?</p>
<p>D will be freshman this fall. All 3 colleges are private. Have received initial finaid letter with academic scholarship from all 3. All say final finaid letter will come in March after FAFSA review. Have not submitted FAFSA yet (don't have w2s yet). Did not know if contacting them in advance would be of benefit. Additionally D admitted to state school. Usually not much luck negotiating with state school (previous experience with older daughter) but will contact them as well. Older D will overlap fall semester.</p>
<p>you can fill out and submit FAFSA in advance of W-2s. Just use end of year check stubs to get your EFC. That will give you a better idea of their package- as will looking on web site to see how much need they usually meet.</p>
<p>Do they use PROFILE? or have their own finaid forms? Many private schools do.
Best to check.</p>
<p>Your best strategy, if they are schools that are at the same level and compete for students, is probably to use the best of the 3 packages to negotiate. I.e., my daughter really wants to come to you Bowdoin but Colby offered her much more aid, can you help me understand why? They will then probably invite you to fax them Colby's offer.</p>
<p>It's kind of hard to negotiate without having the actual aid package, but if you need clarification to understand the process at these schools you can certainly ask now. If you don't know already, find out how FA typically structured, in terms of grant, loan, and work-study. How are outside scholarships treated? Do they reduce grant or loan, or some of both? (If outside scholarships reduce loan first, then it would be of great benefit to apply for those scholarships.)</p>
<p>I had a rather tough go of negotiating better FA. I was successful in getting more aid, but it was not enough to allow my son to attend without taking on more debt than he was comfortable with. I don't know if that meets your definition of success or not. In my case I needed to be persistent for a number of weeks and ultimately it came to within a couple days of the May 1 deadline.</p>
<p>The "help me understand why" approach hmom5 suggests is a good one. However, you really need to understand the the FA packages and total cost of attendance. The better command of the numbers you have, the better you will be able to make your case. In addition, try to project the implications of the FA over 4 years of college. Looking at 4 years magnifies seemingly small first-year differences in FA. It can be better to state your case by saying the difference between the packages is $15,000 over 4 years than $3,500 in the first year. If the $15,000 is in loans, your daughter should understand how much she will need to pay back at the end of 4 years. It may help her to be more flexible in determining which school to attend.</p>
<p>I wish you luck and hope the FA packages are good enough that you don't have to do much negotiating.</p>