<p>I am so happy for you! :D :) :D</p>
<p>That's terrific news! Hope you do get the chance to go there!</p>
<p>thanks for all your support!
i'm doing a quick visit today- i hope this is the one- i've had that bubbly feeling of excitement iin my chest since i got the news and all i've wanted is a Laf sweatshirt= all my dreams are coming true!</p>
<p>congratulations on the scholarship!!!</p>
<p>I guess it is true that everytime a door closes (or seems to close) that a window opens.</p>
<p>I love happy endings! Have fun!</p>
<p>I am happy for you passionflower.</p>
<p>if anyone's still wondering after my long rants on this thread where i actually ended up getting in and where i'll probably go, here it is
accepted:
williams college
boston college honors
wellesley
smith
bryn mawr
rutgers
lafayette (with minimum 16k scholarship or full grant to need)
tufts</p>
<p>waitlisted:
amherst</p>
<p>rejected:
gtown</p>
<p>anyway, i will be going to lafayette as long as we are able to get the loans approved. i'm very excited about going to lafayette and feel it really is a great great school and i never would have looked twice at it had i not gotten the scholarship. now i'm so impressed and feel i've really been appreciated by the school and am in a perfect position to excel.
thanks again for your support. please continue to help me out as i continue to ask for your advice and goodwill.</p>
<p>Can you share more about your visit to Lafayette? I believe you had some of the same concerns as we did to the social/culture at the school. </p>
<p>Lafayette's financial package was very generous to us. As described, it did not include any loans. Are you saying that you need to borrow money to pay your EFC? Make sure that you do the numbers projecting for all 4 years and see where you stand.</p>
<p>uh, yeah, i will have to borrow significantly to meet my efc. sucks being middle to upper middle class, as i've already ranted on this thread, though i certainly wouldn't trade places iwth anyone who was really struggling.
as far as projecting how much debt i'll be in, it's less at laf than anywhere else besides rutgers, and I REALLY DO NOT want to go there- totally opposite of pretty much everythng i want in a college. that being said, my parents, despite making a significant amount of money, give a lot of help to relatives and we have a very high cost of living due to where we live. so it looks like a lot but it's not. that being said, my parents did appeal my financial aid award.
i am a marquis scholar, however i got the minimum 16k. I am supposed to get a full grant to meet need, and 16k is much more than i got anywhere else. they also gave us a HELP loan and an unsubsidized stafford loan. if we take all elements of their package- which i believe we will- that leaves us coming up with 19k. my parents say it will be a struggle to come up with 10k on their part and there is no way they will be able to pay that upfront. also, there is altogether about 7k saved for me however once that is gone, it will be gone. i told my parents i would not want to have more than 5k in loans a year and they felt that might be unrealistic.<br>
however, i love learning and i feel it would be worthwhile to me to go into debt for college even if it prevents me from having a nicer car or prettier place when i'm out of school. if i work even as a teacher in the area where i've grown up, i will be making about 40k a year, so according to the projected loan payments of 40k total in loans (what i hope is the worst case scenario) i'll be able to manage monthly payments. so hopefully, it should all work out and college is an investment for life. also, i feel at lafayette i'll be in a better position to shine academically and extra curricular wise than at other schools and i'll also have a better chance at grad schools, fellowships, undergrad research, etc. not to mention that if my financial circumstances change, i'm bound to get my need based totally in grants from lafayette.</p>
<p>hopefully this all works out. if i get just a couple thousand more in grants it will be much more workable.</p>
<p>also, the lady at the finaid office said that there are ways to offset tuition costs as you go through, such as departmental scholarships, being an RA, and different things like that. hopefully, all will be well.</p>
<p>as far as the culture of lafayette, the frats and sororities certainly don't overpower the atmosphere. during the marquis schoolar day, the frats were handing out flowers to passing females in honor of women's history month. also, the majority of students are independents.
also, as far as ebing politically conservative, i felt the constitutional law class i sat in on offered a very balanced perspective- the prof was explaining a conservative court's reasoning while sympathizing with a student who took a more moderate/liberal perspective.
as far as clothing, it seemed as though nearly everystudent had something lafayette on, it wasn't like stepping into an abercrombie ad or anything like that. i come from an affluent, white, town so your impressions could have been different than mine but i didn't think the school seemed ridiculously preppy.
regarding housing, it appeared very very nice. the campus in general is nice to look at.
overall, there was nothing i saw that i didn't like at lafayette over the two times i visited (one a brief jaunt to see the campus and buy a sweatshirt and more recently on marquis scholar day).
feel free to pm me if you'd like. i'd totally be open to answering whatever questions you have.</p>
<p>Congratulations on having what looks to be a workable option. You can definitely knock out a portion of that 9K with summer work. </p>
<p>I'm curious, if you don't mind sharing, how your other schools came in with financial aid. Were they all pretty close together in interpreting your EFC? Anyones stand out as loan heavy?</p>