@carachel2 The College website had not updated its NPC. It happned to several people on this site who ran the NPC early for Boston University. Not the best thing to happen when you allow you kid to apply ED based on the NPC of $8,000.
@melvin123 It was her No.1 School on the list so even with a NPC of $55,000 I still would have let her apply as Boston University offers a lot of Grant based scholarships to help students that they want with the cost of attendance.
She was told when she applied that if she was accepted and didnāt get enough scholarship or grant money for the college she would not be able to attend. I have several post on this forum and others about it. Fortunately for my D she got excepted to BU with a very generous package that has made it possible for her to attend. We would not have been able to pay $55,000+ dollars a year.
@melvin123 My regret is that D17 didnāt spend enough time on campus before making her decision. All of our visits were group tours during Spring Break of 11th grade and the following summer. Itās really true what they say - try to visit while class is in session. Once you have all the admissions decisions, try to visit the top contenders a second time.
Fresh back from Northeastern with son17 for orientation. He had a great time and got to meet a bunch of people heading to London too. The campus was looking great, very tidy. He was able to spend a great few days exploring the campus more so he liked that and I think heās pretty happy with hid decision. I was impressed again, the new engineering facility they built is out of this world, its like a fancy Hilton, lol. I enjoyed poking around. Itās a very diverse group there. My son is happy to easy access to the city but be able to come back to the confines of campus. When you are on campus it feels like you arenāt right in the middle of the city. Itās a well thought out design. You step out from any of the little quad zones and bam you are in the action. Come back in, and itās a little park like zone with interesting buildings and students.
Interesting stat; 4000 or so new students, 1300 of them NU In participants. Record number of 54,000 applicants this year.
@RightCoaster I am so happy for your son that he had a wonderful time at orientation. Quite comforting as a parent to have your child attend orientation and know they made the right decision.
Itās been a little while since my last posting. In that time weāve done a couple of graduation parties, orientation, and a small Southern Californian vacation.
AP scores are in: 3 5ās and one 4. High school total: 8 5s, 3 4s, 2 not taken. D received the max credit available at her school, 32 out of 128 units. This is roughly equal to sophomore standing, but due to the way USC awards AP credit, it wonāt really save any time. She does have some additional schedule flexibility.
Sheās also signed up for Thematic Option, USCās the honors program. She is pleased with her classes; most of her professors were 4.3 or higher on rate my professor.
T-minus 33.25 days and counting.
@NolaCAR thanks for your suggestion. She is thinking about ED to a place she visited with her school. I had never visited the school, so I did so today. I donāt see what the magic is. Granted, there are no kids on campus now. But this made me convinced that she needs to visit this school again before making that commitment. She still has several other schools to view for the first time. Unfortunately, all of these visits require flights, so Iām worried about how sheās going to fit this all in. Visits were really important for us because for her, vibe matters a lot. And given the short time period between hearing from ED and application deadlines for RD, she canāt wait to hear from any ED decision before visiting RD schools or even writing the supplemental essays for the RD schools. (I donāt want her writing essays for an RD school while she is bummed out about the negative ED news).
How does the negotiating with the schools for FA work in my situation, which I think is fairly common? We wonāt qualify, and are firmly within the donut hole. Is it possible to get a merit scholarship from a second or third tier school and use it to negotiate with a college for need based aid at a first or second tier school that doesnāt offer merit? If yes, then I think Iād clearly have to do all the FA paperwork, even knowing I wonāt get any unless I can negotiate with the merit money. Any opinions anyone? @botcom ?
@melvin123 Iām not an expert but just from reading all of the posts here, I think that scenario is highly unlikely. The higher ranked university is likely to not care at all what your kid was offered in merit aid from another school. Hopefully others can chime in.
@botcom I can see how the NPC might be off a few thousand, heck maybe 10K. But 30-40Kā¦thatās crazy! No EDs allowed here at all. Too much of a doughnut hole family.
@melvin123 Thatās not going to happen. If you have no need, you have no need. And schools only consider merit offers from peer schools and need based packages from peer or better schools.
@melvin123 I read your intro post with your daughters stats and ECs. WUSTL has some merit scholarships also so make sure she hits it hard and heavy with those essays. I donāt know much about Rice or your other schools.
My daughter had pretty much the exact same stats and you can dig through and find my summary post where I listed her merit offers. Good luck!
@melvin123, as @itsgettingreal17 correctly noted, comparing merit-based and need-based aid is like comparing apples and oranges, and any need-to-need or merit-to-merit comparisons (assuming merit is in play at the tier being considered), will only work if the schools are considered to be within the same tier.
HYPS, for example, does not care if youāve gotten full tuition or full ride scholarships from ANYWHERE if itās based on merit. They will tell you flat out that they donāt offer ANY merit and any aid they give is need-based. Moreover, they will only match need-based aid from other HYPS schools. Yale flat-out told us when we presented them with a combo need and merit offer from U Chicago that perhaps if it were āHarvard, Princeton, or Stanfordā they might reconsider, but U.Chicago?!? Not a chance!! (I felt like reminding her that Yale and U Chicago were tied for 3rd place in the USNews rankings and that the latterās acceptance rate was likely going to be quite a bit lower than theirs for the 2017 cycle, but I didnāt bother. Princeton, in the meantime, ponied up some $$, so we went back to them with that.)
The only successful FA ānegotiatingā we did (and, when talking to schools FA offices, never refer to it ānegotiatingā or āmatching other offersā ā we used the term āreconsideringā) came from peer schools or, in the case of merit aid, by waving acceptances to higher ranked schools at them.
As for merit aid, some scholarships are automatic and based on stats (check the yola site and do some searches on automatic merit scholarships). Some schools give you automatic consideration and offer merit as part of their admissions offer (e.g., Rice, Scripps, Bryn Mawr, Oberlin, U. Chicago, University of Southern California), while other schools have specific scholarships that you must apply for separately (Wash U., Vanderbilt, Dukeās Robertson), while others require nominations (Davidsonās Belk, UVAās Jefferson). Some schools offer a combination of these (for example, If you are a finalist for Davidsonās Belk (full ride) Scholarship but do not get the full-ride, they will automatically award you their Chamberās Scholarship ($25K). Also, some schools will offer merit for specific talents (music scholarships at Whitman, sports scholarships at Davidson) or specific populations (e.g., Duke has some scholarships for African-American students and others for children of alumni, and others from āthe Carolinas.ā).
Make sure to pay attention to early deadlines (for USC, itās Dec. 1st; for Emory, it was November 15th). Applying ED will preclude your ability to compare and/or negotiate offers, and probably would make schools less inclined to try to lure you with merit.
If she does ED then I donāt think she will be able to compare offers.
So if the net price calculator estimate for the school is not favorable, then I wouldnāt do ED.
@melvin123 we are also a donut hole family. I still filled out the FASSA as colleges require it for federal student loans. Some private Colleges like Boston University required you to complete the CSS profile through the college board website. The information on this form is what colleges like BU use to determine if your D will qualifiy for Grant aid and how much they would give her if she did.
BU had a spread sheet on its website that showed income bracket and the amount of grant aid you could be considered for.This helped us with trying to estimate how much we might have to pay if D was accepted. You should see if the schools your D is interested in applying to have something similar.
In terms of negotiating Grant aid you would need to look at each colleges policy. Some schools will allow you to appeal the award and have a specific process you need to go through. This site has some forums with helpful information you may want to look at about the appeal process.
You will also want to see if the Grant aid a college offers is guaranteed for all 4 years. Some colleges donāt grantee that the aid amount given as an incoming freshman will be the same when your D is a sophmore, junior and senior.
Do as much research as you you can and start creating college financial spread sheets so you can easily compare each school to see the differences in afordability.
Remember that ED appications are binding and if your D is accepted she will have to comit to that school. and you will not be able compare offers in april. Most ED schools require you to pay a deposit in January to secure your spot. You, your D and your Ds guidance counsolur will also have to sign a form if she applies ED that says you understand it is binding. Guidance counsolur will have to sign a form saying if she is acccepted they will not send her transcript to any other colleges.
Thanks so much @LoveTheBard @carachel2 @botcom and @mommdc. Really appreciate the information!
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to see that my son got a 3K dollar grant from his school. We are basically full pay but we did fill out Fafsa and submitted the CSS profile for one private school. I suppose they awarded him the grant from just his Fafsa which is weird since they too required the CSS profile. I called to double check with the FA office and they said yes they gave him a grant! Sweet that pays for his new laptop!
My daughter just had orientation this week and signed up for classes. I would advise any 2018 parents to schedule their orientations as early as possible. There were so many classes that were already filled by the time the second group got to register. More surprising that the freshman seminars were filled too!
Just a few more weeks until the start heading off to college! The piles of stuff are growing.
congrats on 3K bonus @twoforone99 ! That is timely. Iād love one of those 
No stuff piling up for son17. At orientation they basically told the kids to bring as little as possible, buy what you need when you get there, and then leave it/donate it when you leave after the semester. Sounds good, I like that approach.
One suitcase, and heās off.
Just back from orientation. Lots of info in 2 days but ds says he still loves it so Iām happy. Less than 5 weeks til heās there for the 1st semester. Yikes! I feel like we were just doing applications.
Purchased airline tickets to get DD off to Columbia. Iām only staying two nights in NY as itās super expensive and from what I hear, they prefer the parents take off after move in/parent orientation anyways. I could do one night but itās a long flight back so going to get a good nightās rest and hang out in the city a little bit before heading home. Weāre flying Southwest so 2 free checked bags so we should be able to get all the stuff she needs there and anything else, we can buy once we get there.
Parent orientation? Now that doesnāt sound fun. LOL