Congrats. Did you get an email to update you that the financial aid info is ready? We didn’t get any update yet.
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Thank you. Much appreciated. No, we didn’t receive notification that it was ready. He recently went into the my.SMU.edu portal and the details were available under the Financial Aid tab. Our guess is the delay was because he didn’t submit a CSS profile until recently (several weeks after acceptance and after a reminder from the school).
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Thanks for the reply. We just checked that section, there is nothing there yet. My daughter didn’t receive any merit aid, so we are not very hopeful. I don’t have any idea how they calculate need based aid. My daughter’s FAFSA was selected for verification. I thought EFC is a constant number. Every time a college updates the financial aid package, we get an email that your child’s FAFSA was corrected by the financial aid department at your school. Every time it shows a different EFC number. We thought EFC is a number that remains the same. We are very confused about all this.
You’re welcome, best of luck and hope you get the information soon (and good news!). I agree it is very complicated, not all like what I remember when I was applying for financial aid back in the paper & pen days!
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@soniamaanu I believe the main driver of differences in EFCs is the use of CSS profile in addition to FAFSA. CSS considers home equity and non-retirement assets. Some EFCs, like SMU’s, also ask for test scores and GPA to roughly figure merit aid potential.
Here’s the USC EFC which gives some more explanation and uses CSS like SMU. The Baylor EFC doesn’t ask for assets, home equity or test scores and only goes up to $99K+ for household income.
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Thanks for the explanation. I didn’t know this! My husband and I haven’t done our college in US, so we are still learning as going through the admission process for our daughter.
I don’t know how to write a new post here so just writing this as a reply to you. We are not happy with the delay in financial aid package from them. My daughter was accepted under EA and didn’t receive any merit aid. We were told that by Jan. end, we will be notified about the aid. When I called the admission dept. a few days back, I was given the email address of the person who is handling the financial aid. My daughter wrote an email to her but didn’t receive any reply! We cannot afford the fee unless we get at least a decent need based aid from SMU. I am telling my daughter not to be very optimistic about it now. The admissions dept is good but not happy with the financial aid dept. regarding communication. Any idea why there is a delay?
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Hello. I am sorry they have been unresponsive. Maybe give it another try, as I had a very specific financial aid question and when I emailed, I received a response within an hour. Or maybe you can call. Hopefully, you can get the help, and the answers, you need/want.
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Is she checking her portal? I have to go back several times and upload additional information. I do know individuals who have received financial aid offers from SMU already. When we didn’t, that is when I discovered they needed an additional 5 documents.
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Yes, make sure that they don’t need any additional documents. We had to send several after EA decisions came out. We received financial package about 2 weeks ago in the mail.
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Yes, we have been checking the portal everyday. We had uploaded the additional documents on Jan 22nd. Nothing is appearing under the Financial Aid tab on MySmu portal.
I have already called twice and they asked us to wait for some more days. Let’s see what happens but we are not very hopeful now.
My son is waiting too. You can find your financial aid advisor at the following web site (they allocate people by last name). https://www.smu.edu/Admission/AcceptedStudents/FinancialAid/FinancialAidCounselors
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Why aren’t you hopeful? It does take time to put packages together. It has only been 2 weeks. Don’t stress over it, and keep other options open. It is out of your hands.
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Did you all get a decent financial aid package? The thing that worries me is that my daughter didn’t get any merit aid and we qualify for need based aid as our EFC is not too low but is much less than the cost of attendance. Do you think we will get any need based aid? Some colleges just put together a bunch of loans in the financial aid package. I don’t know if SMU will give us some kind of college grant as we are not eligible for State grants like Pell grant. I am worried as my daughter loves the college. I am leaning towards Baylor and other colleges that gave her some merit aid.
My daughter has already emailed her financial aid advisor but didn’t get any reply. Let’s hope for the best.
Thanks for the reply dear. I don’t understand the financial aid system very well. We cannot afford the college without some aid, but some colleges just put together some loans instead of a good grant in the package and call it financial aid. I would not have worried if she had got some merit aid. You are right, it is not in my hands. All we can do is wait.
Financial aid is a formula, used by the college. It is actually pretty standard. One of the people I know who received their financial aid package from SMU was pleasantly surprised and it made it affordable to them. But we are all different and have different thresholds for what is affordable. I heard Baylor gave out some fantastic merit this year. This is my third entering college. Everything will work out and they will land where they are supposed to be. Have faith and as my children remind me… trust the process. even though my son did not end up at his first-choice school, where my son landed was the absolute perfect school for him. He is graduating in May.
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You are absolutely right dear, they will end up finally where they are supposed to be. Thanks for the comforting words.
Below is for reference.
A boy who has an older brother who went to West Point wanted to join the West point as well. Due to a shoulder injury, he could not be qualified physically. He ended up with SMU with full-ride (Presidential Scholar). He is from a private small high school, GPA 4.0 (all A’s). ACT 35. captain of swim team and some other EC.
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