<p>I'm a senior in high school and I've always worked hard in school thinking that it would pay off one day. I've recently discovered that in total I can only afford about a $15,000 school, (5,500 in student loans, about the same in loan from my dad, and a generous 3,000 from my grandparents -which I really appreciate.- ) this is a problem because my dream school is Fordham. I know I can get in, but there is no way the 55,000 - 60,000 sticker price gets down to 15,000 just from need based aid. And although I'm confident that I will get in I'm not confident that I will get very much - if any - merit aid. </p>
<p>So I guess my two questions are:
did I not work hard enough? (Should I have gone for the 2400, 4.0, and presidency of 3 clubs, & captainship of 3 sports. Losing most friends & all social life along the way?) </p>
<p>forgetting about the past - something I'm currently struggling with right now - is there any way that I can afford this school given my current situation? I know this sounds crazy but Are there any sort of "black market" loan programs that could use my education as an "investment?" I'm studying accounting so I know with good grades I can get a well paying job upon graduation (especially coming from Fordham.) and I'm very savvy with stocks, and investing in general so i know I can grow money and put a fat paycheck to work for myself. Plus I've always been a saver & I wouldn't even mind living in "white collar poverty" for a few years. What I'm saying is I know that I will be able to start paying back in 5 years and possibly in full by 10 years but the banks & typical lenders probably don't know that & probably won't listen anyway. So are there any other options, given the fact that I know I can pay back?</p>
<p>Sorry I guess that turned into a little more than 2 questions. & sorry if I posted this in the wrong forum, I didn't really know where else to put it. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance for any feedback whatsoever, positive or negative.</p>
<p>First, reality is what it is. I wanted to go to an expensive private school for college, but it just wasn’t financially affordable. That has nothing to do with how hard you work. I ended up at a community college for two years and the local university (living at home) for the final two years–I have a degree and it did not put me in debt. It has served me well. I worked full-time and my company paid for my master’s degree. So there are many ways to an end, even if it isn’t the original dream plan.</p>
<p>You can start applying for any and all scholarships you can find. Look for local small ones as well as bigger ones. Did you qualify for NMF? That can offer lots of scholarship opportunities. Does Fordham offer any merit scholarships? Sorry I don’t have any magic money tree to point you toward. </p>
<p>You may want to expand your college search to other places that will offer an excellent education as well as financial/merit aid. There are a lot of great schools out there, don’t limit yourself to just one.</p>
<p>Go to the financial aid threads and fall in love with a school that offers automatic merit scholarships.</p>
<p>You can and will be happy at another school. Many, many students are in your situation, and discover that broken hearts can lead to wonderful experiences at schools that they had to “settle for”.</p>
<p>You will need to fill out a FAFSA and get the financial aid offers from various schools to figure this out. You may find that a private school is more affordable than a state school, or maybe not. You will need to look at “profile” schools and those that are not. If you need aid, you probably don’t want early decision, but want to apply to a number of schools and compare the results. In terms of a “black market” for loans, it is called home equity on your parent’s house. Otherwise unsecured loans will dig a hole you will never get out of.</p>
<p>There are many good schools - check them out. Then apply and you may find that the one you love (especially if they know it is your top choice) comes through with enough FA to make it work.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, and yeah I completely understand all of your points. I know there are many more kids with the exact same problem as me, probably more than those who don’t actually. Sorry for coming off so pretentious, I was just very heated fresh off a very frank conversation with my dad.</p>
<p>Count yourself lucky that you had this conversation now. Many, many students don’t have it until their acceptances arrive in the spring attached to a whole bunch of unaffordable financial aid packages.</p>
<p>Go read through the merit aid threads at the top of the Financial Aid Forum, and see if you can find anything you like that will work as a back-up for you. When you’ve got some safeties pinned down, re-run the Net Price Calculator at Fordham’s website with your dad. If the numbers look like they could be workable, go ahead and apply. You might get lucky on the aid front there.</p>
<p>If you don’t mind taking the time to apply and don’t mind paying the application and testing fees, you should apply to Fordham and just see what their financial aid package looks like. You might be surprised. My daughter applied to some expensive private schools, was accepted, and the financial aid packages made our out-of-pocket costs cheaper than our state flagship. My daughter knew that she could only attend the private colleges if the FA worked out and she was willing to take that chance.</p>
<p>Are you saying your dad will NOT pay for college even though he’s making enough to help and will only give you $3,000 in loan for each year?
(Does he realize that nowadays, it basically only covers books, transportation, and miscelaneous, unlike when he went to college? Have you run NPC’s together? In short, is he setting this amount because he wrongly figures it’ll be enough, or is he setting this amount knowng it will hardly make a dent into any tuition bill, even an in-state public?)
What about your mom?
Or is it they would like to pay, but can’t due to financial issues?
If you can post your basic stats (GPA, SAT/ACT, National/Regional recognition for one or more ECs) people here can help you find good, affordable schools.
If you’re in situation #1, you need to find schools where you’re well over the top 25% mark (look at the range provided in college data - for example, at Fordham, you’d need to be above to well-above SAT 1950-2000 and at 3.7+)
Do you qualify for their Honors College, for example?
If you’re in situation #2, apply for colleges that meet 100% need and for ALL colleges you apply to, run the Net Price Calculator to see how much you’d have to pay. Definitely enter the data on Fordham’s NPC and see whether it’s within your financial means + read about the honors program to see if you meet the minimum qualifications.
Colleges consider that the #1 responsibility for financing your education
Look for colleges similar to Fordham: Marist (Catholic near NYC), or DePaul (Catholic in a big city), etc. Your cheapest alternative if you’re in-state is one of the SUNYs.
No matter what, apply to several schools. If they have rolling admissions, the earlier the better (for admission but often also for financial aid, depending on whether you will need merit or need.)
Finally, as as been pointed above, look at the financial aid forum on this website and check the automatic and competitive scholarship threads.</p>
<p>Did I miss, somewhere, how much the dad is making? Clearly Myos knows he isn’t giving what he could.</p>
<p>But to Em, know these things: Va mom is right, there is more than one way to a successful end for an industrious individual. And know that more happy, successful people today didn’t graduate from Fordham than those that did! There are alternatives.</p>
<p>did I not work hard enough? (Should I have gone for the 2400, 4.0,</p>
<p>Well…if it were possible for you to have gotten a 3.7+ and a 2150+, then yes, you didnt work hard enough. But, if your stats are the best that you could do, then…</p>
<p>GPA: 3.4 (3.5 after 1st semester)
Class rank: top 60% (competitive private school.)
SAT 1st try:–1770–(January 2013)
(CR-600) (M-580) (W-590)
SAT 2nd try:–1950–(October 2013)
(CR-630) (M-640) (W-680)</p>
<p>Your M+CR is a 1270
GPA 3.4</p>
<p>those aren’t high enough for merit at Fordham. </p>
<p>Maybe some here can suggest some schools where you can get significant merit. </p>
<p>Right now, you’re borrowing too much (11k per year). </p>
<p>Salve Regina
Fordham
Drexel
Loyola Maryland
RD:
Villanova</p>
<p>you need a new list…</p>
<p>Take off Drexel, Nova, Loyola, & Fordham UNLESS the Net Price Calculators show that you’d get a lot of aid. Add in some lesser known privates. Right now, you’re going to have too much uncovered costs.</p>
<p>If you worked during high school and saved for a car, that you could afford a good used car vs a Mercedes, does not mean it was a waste. Fordham does give merit/financial aid primarily for high test scores, but even working on those does not mean you make that cut. </p>
<p>Regardless of what your parents make, or are supposed to afford, what they will pay is what you have to work with, and it’s a good thing that they are making the numbers available, instead of later. If you live in NY you’ll have some good state options available.</p>
<p>You need to be realistic. Are you applying to West Chester? That should be on your list as a safety. According to one of your posts you can hear their marching band from your house. That is a school you might be able to afford if you lived at home and commuted, $9K tuition/fees. Your GPA is a bit below their average for enrolled freshmen, though if you get it up to a 3.5, you will be exactly average. You might qualify to try for their honors college. They take 40 freshmen. Your SAT is high enough, but you need something additional to be eligible to apply- either GPA 3.5, top 20% or taken lots of honor/AP courses. You could get a job summers and breaks and maybe during school year as well to avoid some of those loans.</p>
<p>Unless your parents’ income is low enough that you can get good FA from some private schools?? Have you run NPC at these places?</p>
<p>Are you applying to West Chester? That should be on your list as a safety. According to one of your posts you can hear their marching band from your house. That is a school you might be able to afford if you lived at home and commuted, $9K tuition/fees</p>
<p>this is a very good idea. When parents can’t pay much/anything towards college costs, but will let you live at home for free, that’s almost like a $10k per year contribution. </p>
<p>You may have dreams of “going away” to college, but the truth is MOST students don’t go away to college for the same reason…they don’t have the funding. </p>
<p>Many, many, many kids “work hard” during high school for “good grades”. Just that alone isn’t enough to produce colleges that are going to give you lots of money to attend their school.</p>
<p>I see your dad has a small business. That means the NPCs won’t give accurate numbers. Have to fill out FAFSA and CSS and hope for the best, fingers Xed. Has his business been hurt by the recession so that contributing to college would be a hardship? If you work at the business and have been saving, as you say, then that money is also available for college. In fact, colleges will expect it to be available and take it into account in their calculations of your need. You’ll be giving that info when you fill out FA forms.</p>
<p>It’s important for us to know whether your dad’s offer is 1° what he thinks is fine (lots of parents have not realized how much college costs and when the bill comes, they’re in shock = go online with him for a variety of schools) OR 2° your dad doesn’t make enough/is in financial trouble with his business and is already struggling to pay for your private school but won’t tell you out of pride (= you’d probably qualify for financial aid) OR 3° your dad doesn’t want to pay for your higher education (= happens more often than you’d think, so it’s good you found out now rather than after admissions are in.)</p>
<p>If your parents won’t pay their EFC or anything at all, it’ll be much harder for you. On your own, you only qualify for $5,500 in loans for your freshman year, and you’d probably get $2,000 for work study.
If you qualify for financial aid because your family doesn’t make enough money, you should be able to find affordable schools.</p>
<p>If you’re a PA resident, West Chester is a decent choice for your stats and I second the idea of the Honors College. If you’re a NYS resident, you have plenty of choices too.</p>
<p>Start looking into schools where you’d be within the top 25% applicants. You can’t just go with “good enough to get in I think”. I already mentioned DePaul: like Fordham, Catholic university in a big city but your stats make it more likely you’d get in with some financial aid. Their top 25% SAT threshold is 1270 CR+M for instance.</p>
<p>However if your parents won’t pay their EFC, then your only choices are the solutions outlined in previous messages: public university, preferably nearby, or th “automatic full tuition/full ride” thread. </p>
<p>For consolation, you can read <em>The Moon and More</em>.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, my situation I that my dad’s shares in his company got diluted bc his fellow partners are very wealthy and practically bought him out without him really getting money out of the deal. He lost his job and in one day went from making 120,000 to 65,000 & change which makes things very tight since he put a lot of his savings into the company that he (technically) no longer has any equity in. (It’s very complicated & there’s more info that I’m not really sure of.) also the higher income was received until February so idk if that will severely hurt my financial aid package.
I think I wrote wrong in my op but my dad said a couple weeks ago that very very tops he could contribute 10,000 but I will be very lucky to get 8,000 I think. From my grandparents I will be getting 3,000. And I read somewhere that I am only allowed to borrow 5,500 meaning I can only afford 19,000 tops. (Question): if I apply as independent meaning I can borrow 10,000 does that mean that I cannot take any money from my parents? Because if not a 25,000 cap puts many many more schools within reach. </p>
<p>As you saw mom2collegekids repost, my stats are
a 1950 SAT (and yes I had to work hard for this I actually was only scoring 1500’s up until the end of sophomore year.)
a 3.4 GPA which I worked for because I was living in another planet, a “fools paradise” up until midway through sophomore year. (Going into junior year I had a 3.1)
Meaning I can just barely get into Fordham, so I most likely won’t be getting merit aid. Don’t get me wrong though it is my dream school and I made a dramatic turnaround to make it reachable. I plan on taking your guys’ advice and to more safeties and I realize that I can do what I want to do starting out at other colleges. However if you read one of my other posts— How smart do you have to be to work for a hedge fund?
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1526458[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=1526458</a> — you see I want to one day go to work for a hedge fund. I know that sounds like a childish “I want to play in the nfl” dream, but I know I can do it and I feel like Fordham is a great school to make connections to make that dream more attainable. I have this “if there’s a will there’s a way” attitude right now that I’ve had a hard time shaking that off lately, and I’m really trying to make Fordham work. Do not worry your guys’ advice and time did not go in vain, but I’m gonna’ take this thing by year and go to far lengths to make my plan happen.
Thanks again myos, celesteroberts, mom2collegekids, cptofthehouse, younghos, vamom2015, kkmama, maffdad, msndis, & happymomof1. I really appreciate all of your guys’ insights, earnestness, and generosity in really helping out a complete stranger let alone via the web.</p>
<p>em, you can apply wherever you like so long as the cost of applying is not a hardship. The most important thing is to be sure of have a couple of safeties, both academic AND financial, so that come 5/1 you don’t find yourself with one pile of rejections and another pile of unworkable aid packages. That’s a worst case scenario, don’t mean to be bleak.It may be that the change in circumstances may bring you a great aid package somewhere. Devil in the details though. It sounds a very complicated situation. Are some of the schools you are applying for known for being generous with aid money? I don’t know anything about Fordham’s reputation in that. I just know that when we went through this last year. some of the privates gave lots of free grant aid, while others gave FA more weighted to loans and total packages also varied quite a bit. It isn’t random though. Some schools are more generous than others. I know many parents at my kids’ schools who spend a lot of time analyzing which schools are most likely to give them a lot of loan-free aid.</p>