Princeton Financial Aid Unavailable Upon Receiving Acceptance

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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Hi guys, so I’m a bit terrified. Don’t get me wrong, I am ECSTATIC that I’ve been granted admittance to one of the top schools in the nation, Princeton University, but I fear that I may have messed up.

So, I really was NOT expecting Princeton to accept me. That should not be an excuse, but as a result, I didn’t really pay much attention to the financial aid application deadline, and I submitted my application for financial aid on February 15th rather than before February 1st. After submitting that, I uploaded any of the additional documents that Princeton’s Financial Aid Portal asked for and I just… didn’t check the portal until Ivy Day.

Upon checking my decision on Ivy Day, I was thrilled to see that I had been accepted! I checked my financial aid portal and saw the message “Your financial aid award is unavailable at this time. Please contact the Financial Aid Office to speak with a financial aid counselor.” And then I scroll down to see that two additional documents have been requested by the school. I never received an email about this and I kinda panicked. I swiftly submitted the remaining required documents yesterday (it shows that both documents were received), and have since been anxiously worrying about whether I will even receive my financial aid offer at all.

I did some research and all I’ve been able to find is that submitting your financial aid application late will not lead to any penalties, but it just gives the admissions officers less time to consider you for financial aid BEFORE decisions release. I have other friends who were also accepted to Princeton this year, and they had their financial aid offers right from the start, so now I’m just worried that if I didn’t receive my financial aid offer when I was accepted… will I even GET one? Should I just wait like a week?

I absolutely would LOVE to attend Princeton but I do come from a low-income family and could REALLY use the help, and I don’t know what to do. Well, I plan to call the Princeton Financial Aid Office within the next couple of days if nothing changes.

Anyone else have any suggestions for this situation?

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Yes, if warranted.

Call the FA office. But if you submitted documents late, it stands to reason that your FA package would be late.

And congratulations

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Congratulations. If you qualify, you will still get FA.

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Ok, yeah, that makes sense. I will definitely call them.

And thank you to you both!

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You should be fine. It will take them a couple of days to process the forms but you should know well before your deadline to accept . And if for some reason it takes longer than you think, ask them what to do. They may grant you an extension to decide.

And congratulations!

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