Hi,
I have been accepted to Boston University for Fall 2015. I have already paid the enrollment deposit but when my financial aid decision came in today, I was very scared and stressed out more than I usually am during finals because I noticed I did not receive any aid.
So here’s the deal: my dad owns his own small business, so it takes a VERY long time for our financial aid documents to be completed because he has to wait for documents for his employees before he can do his own, which takes months. My family has also been dealing with the loss of a family member, and among other things, and basically my profile was not completed until April 6th, but the fafsa was on time.
BU did not give me ANY grant aid whatsoever. And I only received 9,105 in federal aid, for the whole year. I am planning on attending BU, but know for sure I can NOT afford that with the nonexistent aid I have been given. My EFC is only 3,132!! I know the profile was late, but clearly from the 3132 efc, I very much need the aid.
Well, BU is notorious for being generous with aid for a select few students, and ridiculously stingy with others. So this may or may not have anything to do with the late Profile. File an appeal, but if you don’t get anywhere, tell BU “thanks, but no thanks!” . . . and then ask, under the circumstances, if they’d be willing to refund your deposit. (I’d doubt it, but it can’t hurt to ask.)
Do you have any other options for school? Can you remain at your current university? Boston University is really expensive.
@dodgersmom I know they usually give good aid, I don’t understand why this could be. BU is really the only option for me, and the only school I would want to attend. One of my family members graduated from BU Law and another from business, but not immediate family, Uncles and such. I have been through a lot the past 4 or so years, and very sick for quite some time during high school, and again last year. My grades were not the greatest as a result (3.499) but not the worst either, so getting in to BU was a huge deal, and I have to find a way to be able to stay there.
@txstella I hate the school I am currently at, and transferred to BU specifically for the better programs and the great things that come along with graduating from a top 30 private school like BU. Could this just be a mistake with aid?
No, @nyutransfer2015, you misread my post. My clumsy writing - sorry. Let me say it a different way: although BU is generous with a select few students, it is notorious for being ridiculously stingy with the rest. We get complaints on this forum all the time about students getting into BU . . . and then being told they are getting NO aid whatsoever, despite timely filed FA paperwork, and EFC’s of ZERO.
You need to contact BU and find out what the story is. It’s unlikely this was a mistake, but perhaps you can find out if it was the result of your late application, or if they would have screwed you anyway, even if you’d filed on time. Chances are that they won’t tell you. They may suggest that you try to defer your enrollment for a year and then file your FA materials on time next year . . . but, of course, they won’t guarantee to award you anything next year either.
Maybe I’m just being cynical. Maybe they’ll be honest and nice and tell you whether you’d have qualified for aid if your Profile had been filed on time. Heck, maybe they’ll even agree to reconsider!
But if they don’t reconsider, then you need to be prepared to walk away. You can’t do it without aid. You know that. No reason to be scared . . . it’s just time to come up with a new plan.
@dodgersmom Oh, thank you for clarifying. How could I have received no aid with such a low efc though? I’ve seen kids with efc’s of 20000 and complaining they only got 30,000 in aid from BU for example, so I do not understand how I could have received nothing.
I plan on making an appeal anyway, but do you think this could be a result of my father owning his own small business? (Where the income may seem high, but with expenses, overhead, and paying employees, it is still only about 35,000 of income - which basically disappears anyway with mortgage payments every month)
I know I probably should come up with a backup plan, but I have been so desperate to attend a good school so I can get a better job and life to avoid all financial struggles that my family had endured. It would be hard to back away from BU, especially being forced to hear about it all the time as a result of being from Massachusetts.
Thanks
Those people with 20,000 EFC you are referring probably got Merit Aid. Transfers usually get little to no merit aid regardless of their EFC.
Did you try the net price calculator for BU before you applied?
Did you believe that BU guarantees to meet FAFSA need?
How much did you expect to receive and what was that expectation based on?
There is usually little aid for transfer students – that’s more likely a reason for BU’s decision rather than your dad’s business.
@Madison85 Well with the net price calculator, I don’t think it clearly measured up. As I mentioned in the additional circumstance section of my profile application, which I doubt they looked at, I went through a lot last year and during high school. I never re-took the SAT’s so they are only average, and my GPA is only a 3.5. Additionally, I have learning disability, so school does not always come the easiest to begin with, but I do pretty well given the circumstances. When i tried the calculator with my expected GPA after this semester, it gave me 40,000 in need-based aid. I’m hoping to illustrate this in the appeal
As for your other questions, I completely get they can’t meet everyone’s need for aid, but I was still expecting at least 30-40,000 given that I will also be living on campus. When I considered all the expenses totaling over 62,000, and given my low efc, I made that expectation.
No, @nyutransfer2015, that’s the problem with BU (and also NYU, for that matter) - they’ll completely screw some students when it comes to aid. What they give to one student in no way determines what they’ll give to another student, even if the two have exactly the same income! From what I’ve seen, it doesn’t matter if you’re a transfer or an incoming freshman . . . if they really love you, they’ll shower you with money, and if they don’t really love you, you could find yourself completely out of luck. I absolutely despise BU for just that reason. I’m sure that a lot of people love BU for a lot of reasons, but what we see in this forum is one train wreck after another . . . students who’ve dreamed of attending BU for years, only to find that BU will only love them back if they can come up with $60k/year!
As for avoiding the financial struggles that your family has endured, you do that by attending an affordable school. Attending a self-important, overpriced private university is NOT the way to achieve financial security! If you’re in MA, you’ve got a lot of options. If none of them is possible for this coming year, then you take the year off, get a job, and apply for the following year. The work experience will help you more than you can imagine when it comes time to find a job after you graduate from school . . . so it’s not time wasted!
And if BU changes it’s mind and gives you buckets of money, I’ll take back every nasty thing I’ve ever said about them! 
Did the calculator ask you if you were a transfer? If not, then it doesn’t mean anything because it is meant for freshman only. Transfers don’t get the kind of aid that freshmen get at schools that don’t meet full need for transfers, which BU does not. In any case, BU say “Unfortunately, we do not have sufficient funds to help every student who qualifies for need-based assistance.”
CSS Profile should have been in long ago with best estimates. Maybe you would have at least got estimate aid so you could see that it wasn’t going to work out earlier. When there isn’t enough aid to give everyone, combined with filing past the deadline, then you can’t expect much left. You can ask if you were disqualified because of the late profile and if you would be considered if you deferred your enrollment to next year.
When people have their own business, many times they have deductions and some or many of those deductions can get added back in as income.
Just mentioning any factors I can think that you should be aware of.
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My EFC is only 3,132!!
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that is only your FAFSA EFC which doesn’t take into acct various aspects of your dad’s business.
your dad likely took a whole bunch of deductions which made his income “appear” to be quite low resulting in that low EFC.
However, your desired school uses CSS Profile, and not only do that “add back in” some of those deductions, but they will also consider the value of the business.
NPCs do not work well for transfer students and/or those whose income is from a business.
Stop looking at your fed EFC. It means NOTHING to this school except to see if you qualify for Pell, which you did likely because of extensive business deductions. Your dad’s income was likely a LOT higher than what was put on FASFA.
I hope you didn’t cut ties with your current school or have a cheaper back up.
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Where the income may seem high, but with expenses, overhead, and paying employees, it is still only about 35,000 of income - which basically disappears anyway with mortgage payments every month)
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BU doesn’t believe that. They don’t believe that your dad’s income all goes towards the family mortgage. What would pay for food, electricity, water, cars, gasoline, insurance (health, home and car), property taxes, state taxes, cell phones, cable TV, internet, clothing, and so forth?
that’s one reason why BU doesn’t believe the stated income. Is your dad deducting cars, cell phones, and other similar items from his business?
“35,000 of income - which basically disappears anyway with mortgage payments every month”
That may be your answer. Colleges care nothing about mortgage payments, car payments, medical bills, helping out poor relatives, etc.
It may not be fair, but they do that for everyone. And unless you have full access to, and understanding of, your dad’s small business financials, you really don’t know what his business is worth. If he only takes home 35K per year, but his business is worth $1 million, the colleges will assume he can borrow based on the value of his business.
And to be honest, it is possible they gave out “all” the aid at this point, and the reason why you filed late is immaterial. It is like getting to the bank after they’ve locked the doors, you can’t get in no matter what reason you are late. Not that transfer students are first in line for aid anyway.
But the CSS Profile should have been a clue as well - owning a small business is a great thing for FAFSA-only schools, but can be a problem for CSS Profile and FAFSA schools. The only reason I can see that my son’s college requires FAFSA is to give out federal aid, the EFC was not a concern to them.
Perhaps you should be looking at colleges that have rolling admissions and are FAFSA-only. They may not have the name brand of NYU or BU, but it is possible that your family circumstances make it impossible for you to attend a private university.
BU does not guarantee to meet full need for all.
OP- let’s try a different tack.
How much can your family actually afford? (dollar amount per year or per month is fine). Where do you live, and which colleges are in commuting distance from there?
BU is a fine institution. But it’s not all that generous with aid from the git-go, and you are a transfer student which further reduces the pot. So going into this process- you were not well informed about how the finances were going to work.
Start at the beginning and the gang here can help you come up with a couple of affordable options. Living in an overpriced dorm in the middle of Boston, one of the most expensive cities in the country, is not likely to be one of those options if your family can’t pay room and board.
Your life isn’t over if you can’t afford BU- thousands of kids are in your shoes every year.
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Good question.
Student: How much WILL your parents pay each year?
Also…How much have they been paying for the last two years???
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I will be transferring from a state school in Massachusetts with a 57% acceptance rate, which is pretty high for NYU but is one of the better state schools here in Mass. Since I am a sophomore, I will not be submitting my test scores because they are not required. I know the application is due today, and it probably was not the best to wait till now, I have just been trying to work on my essays for the application and finished everything but that.
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@blosson + everyone else: Thanks for trying to help. Unfortunately, even the total income of my dad’s business is not even 1/10 of $1 millon…i wish.
I live about 25 miles outside Boston, so theoretically I could commute to BU if they are able to award me grant money, but did not apply to anywhere else in the area. My family has literally no college savings for me or my sister, who is also currently in college. They do not really have any other savings either. My parents are constantly fighting about paying the mortgage and other expenses and are lucky if they can come up with enough for the payments each month, let alone affording to pay out of pocket for college for me.
There is no reason why I shouldn’t have gotten at least 35-40k in grant money. I did the calculator again today under a transfer student and it still said $49,000 in BU need-based aid. I know the calculator is off sometimes, but the real thing can be lower and also higher than the estimate.
I already quit my current state school but did not want to go back there anyway, and I paid the enrollment deposit at BU as well. I am the niece of an alumni, which probably won’t count for anything, but I know BU is the right fit for me and that I am meant to be there, I just need to find a way to get there.
@mom2collegekids Yeah that was kind of worded weird in that post. NYU did not work out. My current or should I say former state school had a 57% acceptance rate. With loans and because it was a state school, I did not get the greatest amount of aid, and luckily my parents were able to pay about 1200 out of pocket. I currently do not work and have been trying to find a job - I also reported making zero last year.