<p>I just wanted to start by saying that Im first generationneither myself nor my parents had any clue about the college application process. Im an intelligent girl with a 3.8 GPA and 1940 SAT. My intended major was aero engineering.</p>
<p>I applied to 4 schools early action and I was accepted into 3 of them including Purdue, which is ranked 4th in the nation for my major, and Maryland, which is ranked 10th. I was absolutely in love with Purdue and Maryland from the get-go. I couldnt picture myself anywhere else. My parents completed the FAFSA before the RD deadline and our EFC came out to 10K. This is where I made my first mistake.</p>
<p>I knew that money was tight for my family and my parents wouldnt be able to contribute much more than 10K so I went onto the Collegeboard website to check financial aid info for the schools. Collegeboard reported that Purdue meets 94% of need while Maryland meets 57%. I thought Great, Purdue should come close to our EFC and I can just make up the difference in loans. Applying to college is expensive so at the RD deadline, I applied to only Smith College which offers a free online application and claims to meet 100% of need. My parents were completely fine with this.</p>
<p>My family and I were completely unworried about financial aid. We would be happy paying as much as 20K at Purdue since the education would pay off in the end. Flash-forward to now and I have no options. I received my finaid package at Purdue which was nothing but a $5,500 Stafford Loan (which I have to pay off anyway). I got the same $5,500 loan at Maryland plus a 2K grant. That leaves me at 40K a year at Purdue and 38K at Maryland. I also got waitlisted at Smith, my financial safety and a school I was pretty sure I would get into.</p>
<p>My parents are furious that a college can say that they will meet a portion of your need, never mind a high portion, and then not meet any of it at all. Now Im left considering my options. I could go to Purdue, my dream school, and acquire massive amounts of debt, go to community college and then transfer to another school later on, delay my entrance to Purdue for a year and work full time at home to acquire more money, or take a year off and work full time then apply to a public school in my state (which doesnt even offer my major).</p>
<p>Ive already started looking at schools which are still accepting applications, but many of them are in the 30-40K price tag range and at this point, I cant expect any money from those colleges. My question is: what is my best option at this point? And my advice to others: ALWAYS apply to one school which you can afford with minimal aid</p>
<p>First of all, I am sorry that no one in your high school guidance center helped you. Purdue is a public school, and they meet that % need for in state, not OOS, students. Taxpayers do not want to subsidize students from other states. I assume that you are not in state for Maryland, either. The mistake was in only applying to schools that you absolutely should not have counted on being able to afford.</p>
<p>A community college is a wise choice. However, I don’t think Purdue will be affordable for the final 2 years. You will need to consider more affordable options for your final 2 years.</p>
<p>The problem with this thinking is that if accepted the school would meet 100% demonstrated need, however, from an admissions standpoint, it is not a safety.</p>
<p>You needed to have a true safety on your list that meet the following 3 criteria:</p>
<p>You have an excellent chance of being admitted (usually rolling admissions)</p>
<p>it is a financially feasible option for your family</p>
<p>Have your GC call Smith to help you get off the waitlist. Smith was never a “financial safety” for you since you weren’t assured of admission.</p>
<p>% of need met means NOTHING when you’re an OOS student. That stat is for instate students because THEIR costs are lower and it’s easier to meet THEIR need. State schools aren’t going to use state taxpayer money to help an OOS student. If OOS publics were going to do that WHY WOULD THEY BOTHER to charge high OOS fees? OOS publics accept OOS students as “money makers”…because those students pay more.</p>
<p>And…saying that a school meets an AVERAGE % of need is not a PROMISE that it will meet that % for all students. For some students it is meeting 100%…for others it is meeting much less. And, as said earlier, those stats are mostly for instate students. </p>
<p>What state are you in? Did you apply to your state school?</p>
<p>BTW…thinking that a school would come close to your EFC and that you could make up the difference with loans isn’t the way it works. Schools put loans in the FA packages to begin with, so you wouldn’t have been able to take out a loan for any gaps. Your parents could but you wouldn’t have been able to do so without your parents.</p>
<p>Did you use any of the net price calculators on these schools’ websites? If not, why not?</p>
<p>I’m sorry this happened. If you were my niece or a daughter of a good friend, I would tell you to defer school a year. Research how many credits you can take at a community or local college and still retain freshman status for college, and redo the college applications with your new found knowledge. You can use these boards for questions as you go along. Though your counelor can call Smith and maybe get you in there, I don’t know if Smith meets full need for wait listed students–clearly if that works out, it would be great. Also I don’t know, nor do you how your family’s need will compute on PROFILE. </p>
<p>You can also earn some money to sock away for school; pay it to your parents for expenses and have them save it rather than you saving it in your name since FAFSA hits students accounts harder than the parents’. Start looking at some schools where there is a real chance of getting a full ride. Momfromtexas has a thread on this site that will give you some tips. Your state schools, some hidden gems from the Full Ride scholarships thread and looking at some schools that guarantee to meet full need will make up your list. I think you’ve learned enough to do a bang up job the second time around. </p>
<p>Also look for some things that will enhance your profile. Maybe retake the SAT after studying for it. You are now in prime shape to do this right the second time around. </p>
<p>Where did you read that Purdue meets 94% of need? That was the one school that did not offer me a dime many years ago and I was a NMS with a number of full ride pluses. Maybe “most” students get 94% of need met? Maybe they include the ones with no need to be at 100%.</p>
<p>Ok, so let’s pair you with an in state student who has need of $2000 and she gets full need met. You get 12%$of your need met–$5500 which averages out to 66% of need met between the two of you. Take a couple more of the same and pool them with you and I guess we can say that group has 94% of need met. Statistics, more Statistics and damned lies.</p>
<p>What about the Purdue Calumet campus their COA is a much lower in cost. You can attend there for two years, and then transfer to the main campus in West Lafayette.</p>
<p>While I am all for calling up colleges to get more info and plead cases, I just have to worn you about Smith. My daughter is a student there and last year so many women applied and then accepted the invitation to join the class of 2015 that, as far as I know, no one was taken from the the wait list. This year they had a super record of applications, so prospects for getting in from the wait list do not appear to be that strong. I’m sorry to say this. But much of the other advice above is excellent. Good luck!</p>
<p>I agree with njcdmom and would not bank on getting into Smith off of the waitlist. In addition, even on the off chance that Op gets into Smith, just because she has a 10k EFC (from the FAFSA) doesn’t mean that she will have the equivalent EFC once Smith looks at the information from the CSS profile.</p>
<p>2bnoir, how much cheaper for OOS? We are talking about NO money outside loans she can get through Staffords, and as an OOS, the chances of her getting anything Purdue are even smaller. It’s not that she can’t get accepted; she is, it’s getting money and that is not going to change. Purdue is off the list.</p>
<p>I will also add, that the only reason Purdue was on my list was because I also applied for an NROTC scholarship, something you might want to consider for next year. It would pay ALL of your tuition, but you have to make a commitment to being an officer of the US Navy. There are also such scholarships for all of the Armed Foces. As a female and being interested in engineering this is an option that might work for you, IF you research it, and feel this is something you want to do. My third child after much thought, turned this down, but it was under heavy consideration.</p>
<p>This student was very poorly advised. I hope she has a financial safety. I hope she applied to some instate options and some techie schools that want more females.</p>
<p>Why don’t GCs mention to the classes that they advise that when kids apply to OOS publics that they need to be prepared to pay for most/all costs unless the school is known to give big merit or is UVA or UNC???</p>
<p>She says she does not have any financial safeties, She was poorly advised or not at all. She thought that with a 94% need met stat for Purdue where she was accepted early action, she was fine. She didn’t get that even with that stat she could still get nothing from them. And that is what happened. </p>
<p>She still has options. Her parents can come up with $20K, she can borrow $5500 from Staffords, and with work there will be some in state or local option for her that are still accepting apps that would love to have her. But if she wants to go away to a school like MD, or Purdue, and she has shown she can gain entry to them, she needs to reapply as a freshman next year, knowing how things work. As a transfer, she is even less likely to get major awards, nearly impossible, actually.</p>
<p>*I knew that money was tight for my family and my parents wouldn’t be able to contribute much more than 10K *</p>
<p>It sounds like the family can just pay the $10k per year EFC. it sounds like they were willing to take on debt for Purdue, but not for just any school. </p>
<p>Frankly, since many kids start in eng’g and end up changing majors, it’s not a good idea to take on debt for a particular major at a particular school. </p>
<p>If this student had used the NPCs instead of relying on a stat that really doesn’t mean anything, she would have known that she wouldn’t get much. Her stats aren’t high enough for merit at Purdue. </p>
<p>BTW…Purdue reports that it meets an average of 71% of need on Collegeboard, not 94%. (and that’s mainly for instate students since the school is 62% instate and the OOS kids are either affluent who are paying or doing ROTC.)</p>
<p>I’m sure that the OP has learned many valuable lessons from this experience. Clearly, neither she nor her parents knew how to read into the published stats that make schools look very generous nor did they know to use NPCs or realize that what the FAFSA and Profile say is a reasonable EFC and what you have in your bank account may be vastly different. This is all water under the bridge at this point. Nothing can be changed by asking “why didn’t you…” etc. If my D had to navigate this without the benefit of H and I, I’m sure many of the same mistakes (and more) would have been made. Navigating the nuances of college applications, and especially financial aid, is not very intuitive or user friendly!</p>
<p>OP, I am so sorry that you are in this situation.</p>
<p>I agree with cptofthehouse - If Smith doesn’t work out, taking a gap year and reapplying next year as a freshman may be your best bet to get good aid. During the year you can work to save money, research which colleges are apt to give good aid (merit and / or need based), and retake your SATs. Although your scores are good, they are not high enough to get a lot of merit at many schools. Also consider taking the ACT. My D’s SAT scores were about the same as yours and she decided to try the ACT - ended up getting a 33 which qualified her for merit at a number of schools. I am certainly no expert, but everything I have learned here on the boards and from researching other sources suggests that freshman applicants get the most money.</p>
<p>I know a year seems like a long time right now. When you look back later, though, it will seem like nothing. </p>
<p>Please – OP is not sophisticated enough to determine how many courses she can take in GAP year. It will be different across the board. Just work or do volunteer work, and redo applications. </p>
<p>OP --as few schools as meet aid, many only do for Freshman, NOT transfers. DO not give up Freshman status – with your stats, there are many 4 year schools that will welcome you. btw, many people in your field will do grad work, and you may find that UG degree in a variety of engineering fields works.</p>
<p>“We would be happy paying as much as 20K at Purdue”, indicates that the family can pay as much as $20K" albeit perhaps unhappily, when not for Purdue. which just puts them into a large category of families paying for college, unhappoily, LOL. </p>
<p>She wasn’t thinking about merit but financial aid, and when I looked up Purdue, I saw the same 94% she did; in fact, it’s now up to 95%; I 'd like to know how that was calculated. Maybe ROTC kids were included. </p>
<p>What the student did not understand is that there are kids who get zilch even in a 99% model,and if they are grouped with kids who got 100% because their need was met in other ways, like ROTC, merit, state awards, or their needs were small amouts, the stats do not show the picture. Purdue is a large school. Even 1% comes up to a substantial number of kids who could have gotten nothing.</p>
<p>Right…don’t take ANY classes during the gap year. It’s too hard to know in advance which schools will still give great awards/merit to a student with some post-HS credits.</p>
<p>Few schools give big merit or aid to those who’ve taken post-HS credits…even if they’ve taken just a few.</p>
<p>She wasn’t thinking about merit but financial aid, and when I looked up Purdue, I saw the same 94% she did; in fact, it’s now up to 95%; I 'd like to know how that was calculated. Maybe ROTC kids were included.</p>
<p>Collegeboard shows a lower %.</p>
<p>That said…keep in mind that the % reflects those who ENROLLED. It does NOT reflect the thousands who got lousy aid pkgs and declined their acceptances. There are probably many OOS kids like the OP with low EFCs who got lousy aid and declined. Their stats aren’t included.</p>
<p>Think about it…which OOS kids WOULD be able to afford Purdue? Affluent full pays, ROTCs, and others with high stats who got generous merit whose parents can pay their EFCs and then merit and loans pay the rest. Those kids enroll and their stats are used.</p>
<p>“We would be happy paying as much as 20K at Purdue”, indicates that the family can pay as much as $20K" albeit perhaps unhappily</p>
<p>I’m not sure about that. The $20k may have been $10k out of current income, a few thou from the student, and the rest loans…because they thought Purdue would be worth it.</p>
<p>^^^^ Excellent point, Kayf. I have edited my post to take out the suggestion of taking a few courses while still retaining freshman status. You are right - there are too many variables to consider.</p>
<p>With a school of 20K kids, even 6% is a sizable number. Also if they are all OOS, that is a decent percent of them.</p>
<p>My friends son was rejected from Purdue despite their then 80 something % accept rate,something that was a real slap in their faces. He was OOS and applied to a small selective department that had a 20% accept rate, so the overall rate meant nothing in his case. That’s the problem with stats.</p>
<p>This case is not so much an issue with Purdue, but in how a person should have a true safety school, financial as well as admissions wise.</p>