<p>Okay so I've been given a decent aid package which my family can just about manage. It stretches our budget though, cause my brother's going to need college money in a few years and then I'll be doing my graduate degree afterwards, which all call for prudent spending. My dad wrote a letter to the Fin aid department at the concerned school with the aforementioned points and more and they're probably looking into it. Meanwhile, our FAFSA got corrected and upped our efc from 0 to around a 1000 dollars. While I'm aware that this will probably impact my aid, I'm afraid that it could decrease it by too much. This kinda stuff seems unpredictable and when we're limited by tight financial constraints, things getting more expensive is hardly ideal. Now I want to know if i could write a letter to the financial aid department from the student's (my) perspective. I need to try absolutely everything to ensure because if I can't, i have to find a cheaper alternative, cause huge loans are just a bad idea.
Can anyone tell me what I could do and how helpful it would be if I sent in an appeal on my behalf? Cause that's the only thing I've got.
Thanks in advance!</p>
<p>If you write a respectful appeal letter (and be sure to thank them for the aid they are providing already), and lay out your family’s financial information, it will at least not hurt you. I doubt it will help. Your father’s letter probably gave them the same information and if that didn’t result in more aid, then it probably won’t when you provide them with the same thing. So, no, I don’t think you’re likely to get more aid just because you write in addition to your father, but it won’t hurt either – so if you want to try, then go ahead. Stranger things have happened.</p>
<p>You can try…but have your dad look over your letter before you send it. Kids often don’t totally understand financials, so they can inadvertantly contradict what’s really going on and/or what the parent said in his letter. </p>
<p>BTW…the fact that you’ll be going to grad school is really irrelevant. And, if you do well in school, depending on your major, you may get a free ride to grad school.</p>
<p>When will your brother go to college? When you both are in college, your EFC will drop.</p>
<p>My dad’s letter hasn’t been responded to so I dunno if they look to change anything. And I’m aware that if i state financial info, i could inadvertently contradict fact, so I was trying to avoid that.
My brother’s going to start college in 3 years and paying a lot for my college is probably going to hurt the resources for paying for his.</p>
<p>Maybe your dad should phone the FA aid office to follow-up on his letter. You might find out more doing that then just firing another letter off into the blue. However, keep in mind that it’s not the college’s business to help pay for your brother’s college. They might look at it a little differently if he was currently also in college… but the future prospect of his college isn’t likely to carry much weight.</p>
<p>How can they predict whether he’ll even go to college, whether he’ll get a full-ride somewhere… or any of myriad scenarios.</p>
<p>Yeah, he’s done all that but we just don’t know the final decision as a result of it yet.</p>
<p>Okay. You may just have to wait for a bit. You can also go ahead and send your own letter, too, for whatever it’s worth.</p>
<p>If all else fails, I’ll try that. Thanks!</p>
<p>*My brother’s going to start college in 3 years and paying a lot for my college is probably going to hurt the resources for paying for his. *</p>
<p>Well, you probably need to make sure that your college costs don’t impact his ability to go to college. So, it’s not a good idea for your family to take out loans that they’ll be paying back when they need funds for your brother’s education.</p>
<p>That said, as mentioned above, colleges have no idea of what your brother ends up doing. </p>
<p>What are you most affordable choices for college?</p>
<p>I’ve been waitlisted at BU, WUSTL and I’ve been accepted by UMass Amherst. UConn just accepted me off the waitlist. The school i was talking about is UMass and that’s my best option right now.</p>