<p>I'm interested in studying engineering and I already got into Northeastern EA, the only thing is that my financial package has not actually come in yet.</p>
<p>My safeties were originally going to be Drexel and RIT.
Although I haven't actually visited either schools, based on videos, reviews, and comments from people I know, I really like Northeastern and would probably prefer to go there than any of my safeties. </p>
<p>People are telling me now to save my money since I'm already at a better school and that I should drop my safeties. </p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Reasons to still apply to safeties/lower ranked schools:</p>
<ul>
<li>Financial. Are you confident Northeastern’s financial aid package is affordable?</li>
<li>Contingency. My D is still applying to a few of her schools in spite of getting into an EA that she really likes. Just in case something happens that (1) suddenly makes it less affordable for her to attend – eg, mom (pays her bills) gets hit by a truck and can’t work, or (2) someone in the family (her or a parent) comes down with a serious illness and she would rather be near home. Pretty unlikely, but we know she would rather keep options open along these lines until May 1. And even if it doesn’t happen by May 1, if something happened this summer and she changed her mind… if she had an admission in hand, she might be able to get them to allow her in anyway. Also might work in her favor later if she wants to transfer (the “I made a mistake, should have gone with you to start with” line).</li>
</ul>
<p>It depends on your financial situation. </p>
<p>How much can your family afford? Have you run the NPC and do you have an estimate of what NEU might give you? Does NEU give loans? etc.</p>
<p>Getting in is half the battle, the other half is being able to pay for college.</p>
<p>Also, sometimes students change their minds about what school they want to attend, so it would give you options in April to apply to a few other schools now.</p>
<p>x-posted w/intparent</p>
<p>for financial reasons you may as well.</p>
<p>Ditto what everyone else has said. One of the schools my son got into EA is his first choice, but he still submitted apps after he was accepted. The NPC for this particular school shows an EFC higher than any of the others (and more than we could afford). They do award merit aid and we’re hoping he gets some, but we don’t know yet. Without any merit aid, he won’t be able to go there, so those other apps are very important for us. If we could afford to pay any amount or the school in question was known for being generous with determining need, we’d probably be done, but that’s not the case.</p>
<p>Are Drexel and RIT financial safeties for you? Do you have reason to believe that you’ll be more likely to get substantial merit or need based aid from them? Or are you hoping that because you’ll have 3 schools to choose from that at least one will come through?</p>
<p>If Northeastern accepted you EA and it is affordable, then it is a safety for you.</p>
<p>But if it is not affordable, then that is as good as a rejection.</p>
<p>(Do you have any idea of the likelihood of Northeastern being affordable, based on the net price calculator?)</p>
<p>If you are uncertain, then continue to apply to safeties, which much be affordable.</p>
<p>I agree with ucbalumnus. Run the NPC for Northeastern and see what you come up with. If you can for sure afford it (ie, if the formula skews by a couple thousand each way in the final package), let it go. But if you are up for merit aid at your safeties and affordability is a question, apply to the safeties.</p>
<p>Drexel is free to apply and is a very easy app (no extra essays).</p>
<p>Unless you really don’t like the school I don’t see why wouldn’t still apply.</p>
<p>Yeah I would say that I’m currently uncertain in terms of financial situation. My parents had told me they were pretty open about it and they would rather have me compare later. </p>
<p>But if a financial safety is necessary, then instead of Drexel, should I just apply to a state school because I haven’t applied to any state schools yet, and the one near me is suppose to be only around $6,000 in tuition.
Personally, I originally dropped all state schools on my list because none of them were good fits for me. They were all huge and didn’t provide any good services or facilities. The only reason why I would choose to attend one is because there was no other place to go and because of the price.</p>
<p>I’m only getting a bit picky with money because I have already spent over $600 in just completing the applications and sending out financial aid forms and information. My parents seem to keep insisting me on applying to more and more colleges, yet I’m trying to save some money.</p>
<p>I also have some questions:
- In terms of need-based aid, Does your academic stats affect the amount of money you get?
- What are Grants and Loans? Is that basically like borrowing money?
- Is it possible that my aid from Northeastern and Drexel will be very different?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>No, need-based aid is based on exactly that-- student need based off of income. Academic stats have nothing to do with it. Schools will look at a combination of your family’s circumstances, income, and assets and determine how much they think you and your family should be able to afford towards your college education. For some people, that calculation matches what they think they should pay. However, for many families, this calculated ‘need’ is more than they are able to comfortably afford. Run the Net-Price Calculator for Northeastern. Do not settle for generalities from your parents. You need to have a talk with your parents about how much money they are willing to pay each year, run the calculators for each school, and see if that matches up at all.</p></li>
<li><p>Grants are ‘free money’ given by schools that you do not have to return. Student loans are used to borrow money for the purposes of education.</p></li>
<li><p>Yes, it is entirely possible, because each private school has the choice to caculate their aid however they like, and some schools will consider some types of assets differently than others. You need to run the net-price calculators. None of us can tell you if you should apply to another school. Maybe Northeastern is a financial safety because of your family’s circumstances, or maybe it is going to be wildly impossible, unfortunately, for you to attend.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Instead of continuously applying to more schools, please run the calculators with your parents and have a serious talk with them about finances instead of applications (that part’s taken care of).</p>
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</p>
<p>That seems like a risk of disaster when you get a bunch of acceptances and your parents tell you that none are affordable. In that case, you are off the community college, with a goal of transferring to a low cost state university as a junior (not necessarily a bad option, but could be a let-down if you had not consciously planned that as your safety).</p>
<p>Find out from your parents what the price limit is, and then find a safety that is within the price limit plus at most Stafford loans (use the net price calculator at a school’s web site to estimate net price after financial aid).</p>
<p>Ideally, you and your parents should have discussed the price limit before you made your application list, so that you can ensure that your application list includes affordable safeties. Net price calculators should have been run on all of the possible schools on the application list before finalizing the application list.</p>