So, I have hit a huge frustration. My D has really strong academics, so we have been fortunate to get strong merit aid offers from all of the schools she had originally applied to (17) - regardless of artistic answers. We visited colleges last week during her spring break, and she had a definite favorite. It was a school she did a walk-in for in Chicago, so we were late applying, but she had already gotten her academic and artistic acceptance. Since then, they said her financial aid offer was ready and it was all loans. When I called them yesterday to see if there was something additional that needed to be done to be considered for academic merit money I was told she applied too late and there was no option for any scholarship funds. Now - I understand this from an Admissions standpoint - but I am unbelievably frustrated. There are two other schools she applied late to after doing walk-ins and they have both offered merit money - one gave her an out-of-state waiver and the other offered a generous 4-year scholarship. How is it our luck that the ONLY school not to offer her merit aid is going to end up being the top of her list!!! I have a message in to the theatre department - since they are a school that I know does a lot of walk-ins - I am guessing she will not be the only person who this affects and it may make a significant difference in their acceptances.
@KelivVan, if it is her first choice, you may want to contact the theatre admissions folks and explain the situation directly to them.
It’s possible that when other accepted students decline by May 1, scholarship money will open up again. Expressing her strong interest and her financial situation to the theatre head/department cannot possibly hurt.
Sometimes though life happens and the kids cannot go to their top choice because the money isn’t there. This happened to my D. It is what it is. In her case, in retrospect, she ended up at a better place for her–and with much less debt!
Good luck.
@Kentmtmom Your question is too generic to give you an answer. We hjave no idea how many kids you have, how many are in schools, if it is a FAFSA or CSS Profile school, what schools are you talking about, etc.
One thing you have to do before going in is to do your homework if you are dealing with a CSS Profile school. This is because they way they calculate EFC is far from transparent. For example, when you get your aid letter you need need to call the school and ask if they include home equity in their EFC calculations. If they do, ask them what your home was valued at. Take that number and see how it compares to sales in your neighborhood and tax valuations. In our case we found they had grossly overstated the value of our home and challenging this increased the grant award we got.
Also, if you included any special circumstances on the CSS Profile do not assume that the school got them. Write them up as a separate letter and submit it. It can work.
@KelviVan absolutely contact the theatre department. If the money the school grants is limited, ask what happens to the grant money for kids who give up their merit aid? My S received merit aid everywhere he was accepted (between $18,000 and $27,500 per year) and he can only go to one school. I am sure that wherever your D’s first choice is, the same will happen. You just want to make sure that your D is first in line to sweep up the merit money once it is freed. Our spring break ends April 17 so he will be making some decisions between the 17th and 25th, releasing schools and probably doing some negotiating of our own between his top two choices whatever they are. My advice. Establish a good contact in the theatre department, email that person once/week to ask if any money has been freed up? Your D will be first in line to get the newly found merit aid.
While the theatre dept might help and try to be a champion for aid if they really want a student, often it’s out of their hands. While lots of aid/scholarships are left on the table when students turn down offers, understand that yield calculations are built into their formula for giving out $. The percent of accepted students with scholarships who turn down their offers at a particular school tend to be in the same range year after year. So unless a surprisingly high number of students turn down their offers, there might not be $ available to other students.
There will be a huge range of responses in each school. There are many unknowable factors, but the main ones overall are: the money available, the autonomy of the theatre department, how much they want you.
Outside of basic need-based offers (as long as you are accurate in running a NPC), it is impossible to predict specifically what an individual school’s offer will be or how they will react in your case. However, there is certainly probability–you can easily look at each school’s record of meeting need based aid in grants/scholarships (what percentage), record of merit/talent aid, and their overall endowment. It’s very hard to tell how much autonomy the theatre department has within the larger school, however. Some theatre departments have much more autonomy than others, and are therefore more free to decide whom to give money to, how to assign the money etc.
It never hurts to ask, ever. However, it does hurt to have unrealistic expectations going into the process. It is imperative to apply to a wide range of schools from a financial perspective. As I’ve written earlier, I strongly suggest applying to at least 2 schools that are financial safeties regardless of the status of their theatre department. This way, you are not left with getting into, say, 2 BFA programs both of which you can’t afford. A driven kid can always forge a good education in theatre; there are many ways to do this, including classes outside the college via other colleges, theatres, internships, casting agencies, theatre schools, individual classes.
My son has been admitted to several Liberal Arts Colleges. Two mid-western colleges have given him merit aid. A third mid-western college, which does not give merit aid and is ranked more highly (on someone’s scale), has given him roughly the same amount as the other two mid-western schools - but as financial aid.
My son is interested in a LAC in the East which also does not give merit aid but does give financial aid. The Eastern LAC gave him zero financial aid. The mid-western LAC which gave him financial aid and the eastern LAC which did not, are both in the top 10 LAC schools.
We gave the following reasoning in our CSS Profile application. About a quarter of our savings are outside of protected retirement assets because when we accumulated them we did not have access to 401(k) plans. We are academics and were on postdocs for umpteen years before we were able to get somewhat permanent positions. Had we had access to 401(k) plans during that period, our savings would have been protected retirement funds. As it currently stands, these unprotected savings are subject to be used at 5% annually for college tuition and we would ike to avoid that.
I think the mid-western LAC must have taken our comments into consideration because that’s what their aid numbers show.
Do you think it is reasonable for us to call the eastern LAC and point this out?
@corhai, I think it is totally reasonable to call up the Eastern LAC and explain the situation, especially if this school is his top choice. In your case I don’t see how it will hurt to call the Eastern LAC, say how much he wants to go there, but you wanted to explain the financial situation. Somewhere in there you can mention the Midwestern LAC financial aid.
@connections Thank you. None of the four eastern LACs my son got into gave him financial aid. Not the top choice school needs to know that as we negotiate. But I’m just wondering if the midwest school is giving merit aid couched as financial aid. Or if they actually read and agreed with our explanations on the CSS Profile.
@oorhai Did you check the common data sets for the school that gave him money? All schools need to report on that form if they give any non-need based aid. Do a search with the school’s name and common data set. It should come up. Under financial aid, there will be data for both need and non-need aid. They will also say what they use to determine it. I’m assuming that you are hoping that they granted him financial aid, so the other school will match it.
@uskoolfish. Thanks for the suggestion. I did. The mid-west school appears to have a small amount of non-need aid but it is very small - a few hundred thousand compared to $50 million for need-based aid. Not sure what to make of that. Please see the email I sent you privately for details.
The other thing to remember is that this isn’t a science. It certainly helps a great deal to come armed with stats as @uskoolfish and @CollegeDadofTwo and others wisely suggest, particularly if you’re dealing entirely with the financial aid department.
But once you start dealing with the actual department, there are other things that come into play, subjective factors–mainly how much they want you and if they think you’ll come if they give you more money. This is why it’s very important to know what your top choice is and to communicate that to the department (and mean it). Just because another school doesn’t have matching financial need offers, doesn’t necessarily mean the school won’t give you the grant/scholarship.