Financial aid meets your needs is a very misleading statement. For the middle class that means you take out tens of thousands in loans or your parents dilute the equity in their house, savings, or their retirement. For those with no money financial aid comes closer to meeting “need.” Not sure why people that can’t pay for it “need” to send their kid to a $65K school, but that’s a whole other thread. Mis-leading kids to believe they can go to USC is deceptive and cruel, especially to those that don’t qualify for grants and free money, and most teens are too young to understand the system. Only those with zero financial resources get what they loosely call aid, for most people aid means borrowing the money. Aid = student loans for most people. Kids, remember that.
@blueskies, to be sure, there are loans involved in our package, But there were generous grants, too. And I can assure you we were not in the “zero” financial resources category. That said, schools like UChicago and Vanderbilt have “no loan” policies, which is why son #3 will go to UChicago unless he gets Trustee from USC. To me, it is about weighing the cost v the payoff. For sons 1 and 2, USC was the best place in the country for their respective fields. And if they/we had to incur a bit of debt for them to realize their dreams, that is fine. For son #3, USC is not the best school for his respective field. UChicago is a better fit and, based on their preliminary numbers, will be better for us financially. So, in his case, USC would not be worth the debt. He would have to have a Trustee before USC would be plausible for him.
I completely agree with blueskies2day. I would love to go to USC but since my family is considered upper middle class, we are not receiving any aid. In addition, my parents have to pay to send my sibling to medical school which leaves us with less money to spend on my college and simply not enough for something this expensive. I really wish it would be possible for the financial aid to meet all needs but we will see how this goes.
hopefully they start sending out notifications tomorrow based on previous years they were sent on a friday!
do you guys think a good interview would increase your chances of receiving a scholarship? or are they more focused on academics and numbers?
@tinyone, I’m pretty sure FAFSA takes expenses for graduate schools into account if your parents are paying for it…
does everyone have the down for maintenance thing on their portal
Nope. Looks the same as it ever was.
@couplemoreweeks is it when you log in or before you log in?
I don’t have it now, but it was there on the login page before i logged in last night
@cdcupcake interviews can definitely help you but an interview alone won’t do a whole lot for you. Statistically good numbers will help you more than a good interview can but a good interview can help as in some cases it can swing them from a ‘no’ to a ‘yes’. But because its not required for everyone and not everyone has the ability to be interviewed, so not a whole lot of weight is placed on it.
@couplemoreweeks Yeah my portal is the same with no maintenance
@couplemoreweeks you have no maintenance right now?
@awesomekid wait do you?
@mellyjune Nope, that’s why I was wondering- does anybody?
No I don’t but I did last night. Looks like everyone had it.
guys i dont think website maintenance is going to have anything to do with your individual account, its probably a schedule site-wide maintenance…
You guys should go play video games, go to a movie, or find a hobby for the next 24 hours then see if something happens, you will make yourself nuts checking your site every 10 minutes. Confess — some of you are!
Whoever receives the scholarship notification, please remember to post your stats in the other stats only thread and not this one!
Good luck everyone!
@CADREAMIN, I’m a parent…I should probably go clean the toilets or something…or it will be a long weekend. 
@MsMommy me too. I just went to check the mailbox and saw something from USC and had a heart attack but it was just a postcard reminding us to apply for financial aid. Lol. Oh well