So do I even bother applying for aid?

Paying for College
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<p>My parents make ~110k. No other kids in college or anything like that.</p>

<p>But I know we have a huge amount of savings/stock money/other finance-y things. My parents don't throw money around - no extravagant cars or clothes or gadgets or whatever - and have invested well, and they say they can pay full tuition if they have to.</p>

<p>The thing is, I feel <em>terrible</em> draining all the family money in four years (and more, if I go on to grad school). The schools I really want to go to promise to meet "all demonstrated need" and offer no merit scholarships.</p>

<p>I don't know what to do. Is there any benefit to applying for aid when we can swing it if we have to? I'm assuming that the assets will negate the relatively modest income. Is it worth it to use all this money on college - i.e. should I just suck it up and go to a school that will give me merit aid?</p>

<p>Advice? Help?</p>

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<p>Yes, apply for aid. Sometimes a school needs an app even for merit money. Though you may not qualify for true need aid, you might get some scholarship where need is taken into account as there may be many applicants with higher family incomes than yours applying. Also, you need to fill out FAFSA if you want the option of taking out Staffords. Some schools even require FAFSA for PLUS. Even more importantly, at some colleges if you don’t apply for aid your first year, they will make you sit out a year without it even if circumstances change. It can be appealed but it’s just easier to have the record clear with the FAFSA on file.</p>

<p>Also, there is a chance with your parents income, depending on some detail factors that we cannot guess here, you could be eligible for some aid at the schools that are running in the $60K range in costs. </p>

<p>The thing is, you should vary the options. Yes, you should apply to some schools where merit aid is a possibility. Also some low cost schools. Definitely there should be at least one financial/admissions safety, maybe more. But as long as you understand that you may not be able to afford it, you can also see what pans out at some non merit aid schools as well.</p>

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<p>You can go ahead and apply, but your parents may not want to cooperate. Some parents with a lot of assets don’t like listing them on these forms. </p>

<p>however, if they will, you can get an unsub student loan - so over your 4 years you can “save” them about $27k that you’ll be responsible to pay back.</p>

<p>As for “draining their money,” you have to come to terms with the fact that they will have to pay about $200k anyway. So, if that is too difficult for you to handle, then you should apply to some schools that will give you some merit money. </p>

<p>There are some good schools that give merit money for high stats…for instance, USC. Vandy sometimes gives merit money.</p>

<p>I see that your stats are…</p>

<p>*general.
I’m white, female, live in rural PA
School is a medium public that rarely sends grads to prestigious places
I’m an only child; both parents are educated and have a combined income of ~110k</p>

<p>.academics.
GPA: 4.0uw
Rank: top 5%
APs: school offers 5; I have taken two (Calc AB/BC) so far and will take the rest (USH, Chem, Lit) next year, unless a scheduling conflict keeps me out of one of them</p>

<p>.tests.
SAT: 780CR/800M/800W=2380 superscore; highest composite=2260
(two sittings; one was 780/800/680 and the next was 750/700/800)</p>

<p>SAT II: Math II (800)
Literature (790)</p>

<p>Don’t know about NMF yet. My PSAT this year was above the cutoff last year for my state, but I don’t think we’re notified about semifinalist status or anything until the fall.</p>

<p>I’m also extremely lucky in that I have no ability-to-pay issues. I know my parent’s incomes aren’t exceptional, but between their savings and a good bit of money from deceased family members I can afford to go wherever. Still it’s good to keep an eye on price tags, so I will definitely keep that in mind about Carleton.*</p>

<p>I see that you want small to med schools. there are probably some in the midwest that will give you a merit scholarship.</p>

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<p>Schools that offer need based aid ONLY and no merit aid will not award you aid unless you have financial need. From what you are posting, you don’t believe your family has financial need…and that may be true.</p>

<p>I would suggest you discuss this completely with your family. Some colleges have online financial aid calculators…you can run your family “numbers” on one of those to get a guestimate of what your family contribution will be expected to be. If it’s at or higher than the cost of attendance, you will not receive need based aid.</p>

<p>NOW…re: other merit aid. You should consider adding schools with good merit aid options to your list. With the stats you have posted, you would likely be a good candidate for merit aid at many schools. There are tons of wonderful colleges that would be very happy to have you as a student and provide merit aid to support this. If you are willing to forgo one of the tippy top “meets full need” schools (no merit aid) for other schools, you will likely find some merit aid to support you.</p>

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<p>Thank you all so much. I know nothing about this and have only recently started to look things up and talk to my parents more, so this is EXTREMELY helpful.</p>

<p>cptofthehouse - I didn’t know about sitting out a year after applying for aid…good advice.</p>

<p>mom2collegekids - my parents are willing to do whatever is needed for FAFSA and such. I like the idea of unsub student loans; I’d never heard of them before, so good to know.</p>

<p>thumper1 - thanks. I’ve tried to discuss this, but I can’t really get concrete answers. I think this is partly because they don’t know exactly how much is tied up in stocks/bonds and partly because they’re not comfortable with me knowing.</p>

<p>Thanks again for all the comments. Anyone have any thoughts on whether it’s reasonable to actually pay full sticker price for a first-choice college? I just feel weird- we were all sort of counting on at least a bit of help due to the family income, but now it looks like that probably won’t be the case since we’ve been saving money for years.</p>

<p>You all have definitely helped me decide to not apply ED to my no merit school though, which is a big help.</p>

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<p>I agree with thumper1 that your stats will certainly qualify you for merit aid at very good colleges. There are dozens in PA alone that would be happy to admit you and give you merit money.</p>

<p>Congrats to your parents on being so wise with their savings, and to you for working so hard to get good grades and test scores.</p>

<p>As far as whether or not it’s reasonable to pay full sticker price for a first-choice college: that really depends on the college, its cost, and your family’s ability to pay. I’m very happy paying full price to my son’s first choice college, but it’s a public school and therefore the cost is much less than a private. Would I have been happy to pay full sticker price if his first choice college was a private? Not particularly; my son would have taken out loans and his summer earnings would have gone to tuition, not discretionary spending. That’s of course assuming we’d taken a hard look at the options and determined that First Choice U was head and shoulders above any less expensive alternative.</p>

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<p>thumper is right…you need to include some schools that give merit scholarships for stats.</p>

<p>There are 2 kinds of those schools…</p>

<p>1) those with competitive scholarships (like USC). Some of these will ask for a FAFSA, though. </p>

<p>2) those with assured scholarships… like those on this thread…</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Apply to a few of them so that you have them as financial safety schools. Since your parents income is good but not huge and their likely high EFC is due to assets, it’s good to have some financial safety schools in case their financial situation changes - such as loss of job or health concerns.</p>

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<p>When you talk with your parents, give them these two links and ask them to run their numbers through the calculators to find their estimated EFC. They can do it without sharing details with you:</p>

<p>[FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org%5DFinAid”>http://www.finaid.org)
[College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>Calculate Your Cost – BigFuture | College Board)</p>

<p>Then you can discuss possible plans for meeting your family EFC once they have a better idea about it.</p>

<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>

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<p>vballmom - thanks for sharing your experience. Hypothetically the summer job for tuition thing would probably be the route I’d go with as well :slight_smile: every small drop in the bucket counts.</p>

<p>mom2collegekids - Great link! I was excited to see Juniata on that thread. At the moment I’m planning on applying to Denison and UPitt; hopefully Denison pulls through for some merit aid, and I’m pretty sure that Pitt will?</p>

<p>happymomof1 - I’ll definitely use these; thank you.</p>

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<p>Don’t forget to apply to local scholarships – like those supported by a Rotary club or your high school foundation or other local groups. Many of those ask 1) who you are (clubs, etc) and 2) where you want to go – they may not ask, at all, what your financial situation is. </p>

<p>If they are going to give $1000 to a kid double majoring in kazoo and physical therapy and you happen to be the only kid applying who fits the criteria . . . well, why not? You can be pleased to win and contribute to your future, the group can be pleased to support a local kid and your parents can be pleased as well.</p>

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<p>It is only reasonable if your PARENTS feel they can make this financial commitment for four years.</p>