If one of your child’s parents works for a participating TE college/university, the child is eligible to apply for a competitive scholarship that covers either $41K or full tuition, depending on the school.
5 Likes
My son was accepted into the Xavier University Honors program yesterday so that was great news to start off the long weekend. Current price is one of our highest COA’s @ $33K but potential for some extra merit and I believe they are open to appeals so not counting it out.
We are still waiting on the Pitt decision. Applied 11/30 so hoping we hear by the end of the month 
Financial aid (including any merit) will be released for Fordham beginning 1/17 on a rolling basis so hoping we get ours soon. We will probably get some FA, but it’s such a high price tag so we aren’t feeling too hopeful it will be a realistic choice. My son didn’t get the full tuition award for National Hispanic Merit Scholar from Fordham (apparently those are announced with the admission letter) which was a long shot anyway, but hoping to get some merit with FA.
We are counting down the days for Northeastern EA (I’m hearing 1/25?) which is his top choice.
He has 3 scholarship essays due tomorrow 1/15, one due 1/20, and a few more (plus a music supplement) due Feb. 1st. He’s doing well with the deadlines, but a little stressed. He has a gymnastics meet in New Orleans so we will be there 1/19-1/23 which will be fun but not an ideal time to miss school at the end of the quarter, although he spoke with teachers and said everything was fine. He’s doing well, all grades above 95, so not too worried about it. My daughter attends Loyola in New Orleans so excited to see her during our visit!
Have a great weekend everyone!
19 Likes
I finally pulled together a spreadsheet so we could compare costs better. It’s an evolving process because I do believe her mid year grades could offer some negotiation room at some of her schools.
But as a next step we’ve decided that we need her to visit one of the cheaper options she hasn’t visited yet: UMaine, Western Michigan, or one of the instate schools she hasn’t applied to or considered yet (rolling admissions). That way if we go for a more expensive option we will feel better having given due consideration to the others.
I’m going to encourage her to dig deeper and choose one of the following options to visit:
-
Western Michigan has an honors admitted students day in Feb. I’ve heard good things about their honors program. And the school checks quite a few of her boxes.
-
Or we could visit UMaine when she does URI Admitted students day in April. UMaine doesn’t appear to have admitted students events which is disappointing. In fact she’s never even gotten a letter or anything indicating admission or merit. It’s just in her portal and we had to call to find out the merit. Not impressed with UMaine’s communications or organization so far. And our expectations are not super high IMO.
There are about 6 schools she still needs to hear from and one could certainly surprise us with money still. But I’m taking steps for all of us to truly understand the money portion of this deal (keeping in mind that our original list is by no means crazy money wise - all under 45k COA).
7 Likes
Interesting. We are in-state. Super high stats, submitted test scores.
We got a hard copy of the acceptance letter from UMAIME including information on Financial Aid.
2 Likes
What does it mean when a school changes your FAFSA? There was no change to the expected contribution. We just recently submitted Princeton’s specific financial aid forms.
We had a FAFSA verification which was followed by a correction done by a college that brought our EFC down a few hundred dollars. I have no idea why and no one told us, though someone thought it could be that they wanted to confirm our income in light of us having a lower middle class income but not a lower middle class EFC. We had to send a copy of one of the schedules from our tax forms as well as any W-2s or 1099s. I I wondered if I could have just made a mistake when I input some numbers, though I did use the ITS data retrieval tool. It was frustrating that it wasn’t more transparent.
1 Like
Wow! A SLAC sent 23 a present. We were surprised. 23 has not yet accepted an offer there either, which is why we were surprised.
6 Likes
I did a simple Word doc chart. Excel is not good for my brain. (And yes I know to add books/transportation/etc at the end but sticking with this first. A lot of the “extra costs” are pretty equal across schools hes looking at)
9 Likes
We have received hard copies via snail mail about everything, including financial aid, from Maine. And they do have an admitted students event, but it’s in April. We’ll be doing a regular tour there in a couple of weeks, then if my kid decides thats the one, he’ll go to the event.
3 Likes
Do you know the date in April? I searched everywhere and couldn’t find it ….
Looks like D23 needs to follow up with them in general
2 Likes
April 21 and 24. The admissions person said mid-December that information would come out about it by the end of January, I think.
2 Likes
You can ask the school specifically what they changed on your FAFSA. It’s usually due to a number that was entered on the FAFSA not matching either a supporting document or a conflict between your FAFSA and CSS Profile. In either case, the school should disclose what the discrepancy was/is and, if necessary, give you an opportunity to inform them of what is correct. Once they have the correct information, they can change the FAFSA for you.
1 Like
Thank you so much!
Eek that’s cutting it close!
1 Like
S23 submitted to Swanson Engineering 10/11,
application went to review 10/17, official acceptance 11/6.
11/16 received Cathedral of Learning Scholarship for $80k ($20k/year)
12/20 received Swanson Eng Excellence Award for $24k ($3k/semester)
ETA: There was no mention of TE at all
8 Likes
D20 took her car back to school with her starting sophomore year. Hamilton doesn’t allow first years to have cars. The insurance didn’t change because the insurance company still considers it housed at home for the bulk of the year. I don’t know if some of that was due to living in MA and her college being located in NY. A campus parking pass for the academic year is reasonable at around $200. (I can’t remember the exact number.)
Her car experience has been overwhelming positive. She drives the 3.5 hours to and from home during breaks and finds it’s great to have for getting off campus. Even though she is involved in several clubs, she enjoys being able to head to Utica for brunch with friends or going to the local Target and nearby grocery store. She has even visited a friend at Syracuse a few times. Hamilton has a free jitney service that takes students off campus to Utica, New Hartford, and Clinton, but her car is more convenient. She is sometimes the DD when friends are drinking, but several friends have cars so they tend to rotate who drives when they go out. I think the high number of students with cars on campus is due to being upstate NY.
To be clear, we only let her take her car because she is in Clinton, NY. We were clear when she was applying to college that she would only get to take her car if it made sense given the location. If you know anything about Hamilton, you know a car makes complete sense! 
Had she attended school in a major city, it wouldn’t have even been a consideration. We just dropped her off for Hamilton’s “Semester in New York City” program, and she left her car at home. She had no desire to bring it with her, so we didn’t even need to have a discussion about it anyway.
S23 is headed upstate NY as well, so he’ll probably take his car starting sophomore year too. Even if Cornell allows first years to have cars, I want him to fully embrace and explore all campus has to offer. It won’t be a consideration until his second year there.
3 Likes
Congratulations.
TE notification does not come out until end of February. And merit seems to come out randomly per the Pitt threads.
Mine applied 10/17. Acceptance some time mid November I think. She listed math as her major. TBH, I have no idea what school it is in.
Mine applied to Hamilton. We haven’t visited, she has no car. Doesn’t even have a license .
2 Likes
While a car is convenient, I think the jitney is sufficient for generally leaving campus. You don’t need to have a car. And there is so much to do on campus that most students aren’t leaving at high numbers. My D leaves for things like brunch or dinner out with friends, trips to Target or the grocery store, donuts at the Cider Mill in the fall, and her obsession with Utica Coffee Roasters. 
As I mentioned, she is involved in a lot of clubs on campus, has many friends, and her social life revolves around campus events and parties. Going off campus is not about finding things to do. There is a lot happening on campus.
2 Likes
My D17 never had a car of her own at Hamilton. Weather permitting she really enjoyed the walk to Clinton for small errands and between the jitney and friends with cars, she never had problems getting to New Hartford or Utica. There really is a ton to do on campus. She was very happy there.
4 Likes