<p>Does anyone have experience appealing financial aid with BU? There is no way I can afford it with only $10,000 in grants. A similar (I guess?) school, Tulane, offered me $24,000 in merit money. Can I use that as an argument? Even that might not be enough aid…
BTW my SAT is 1500/2200 and my GPA is 95. I expected at least some merit $.</p>
<p>BU is stingy. I sympathize with those who deserved merit money and did not get any as well as anyone who could use financial aid. I also did not receive money and I had an EFC of $0.00. Fortunately I appealed and after the first semester grades came out I was awarded $12,000/semester. And will continue appealing until I graduate.</p>
<p>Ya my EFC is 13,000 and they offered my 16,000...DJ did you show them any other offers because Case Western is offering me over 36k and I was hoping that would help my case...also what do you do if they make a decision on your appeal after May 1? Are you screwed?</p>
<p>i don't think that BU is stingy, i think it's just a matter of whether you're lucky or not haha. my EFC is about $7500 and BU gave me $42,700, including loans and work study. i think that i just got really lucky, thank god lol.</p>
<p>You certainly can contact the financial aid office. Tell them that BU is by far your first choice but you can't afford it with the money they awarded you. Show the letter from a competing school and ask them how close they can come to that offer. Many schools are known to increase their offers a bit. It may only be a little bit more, but it can't hurt to try.</p>
<p>yeah definitely try everything you can. they most likely will make a decision after may 1 but that's kinda understandable this time of year. and yeah I meant stingy compared to schools with lofty tuitions but huge endowments where others in my situation could go for free no questions asked. definitely appeal and see what happens. I'm really not sure how BU awards financial aid. A girl from my highschool whose dad owns his own company and has a beautiful house with an inground pool and such received over half tuition in non-merit based grants and such while I received nothing and we both knew whose situation was worse to say the least. but good luck to all and just annoy the crap outta the financial aid office until they know your name.</p>
<p>I was surprised with my aid. I got 32k in grants and around 8k in work-study and loans. That leaves around 10k I have to come up with and I just can't afford that. =/ My parents want me to go to my safety because I wouldn't pay tuiton there and could live at home. I'm soooo confused. I really don't like my safety, but don't want to be in debt for grad school. I can't call either because their business hours are exactly my school hours. I e-mailed about a severe drop in my parent's income, but they said they won't take it into account in the fall and I'd have to wait until spring to file again for financial aid. That wasn't any help.</p>
<p>$10K doesn't seem like it would be that bad to take out in loans...</p>
<p>That would be 40k I'd be in debt when I went into grad school, though. =/</p>
<p>what kind of career are you looking into?
you can defer your loans if you're going to grad school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I really don't like my safety
[/quote]
A bit late for advice on this topic, but perhaps worth repeating for future years: choose a safety where you would be happy going if no one else took you. Make sure you have both an academic and financial safeties, make sure you like both of them not to be depressed if you have to go there.</p>
<p>Since Nickel is past that, perhaps we can offer some practical advice:</p>
<p>1) Yes, $10k per year in loans is completely manageable, except that you say the $8k is "work study AND loans". If the AND means $2k in work-study and $6k in loans, you start getting into danger territory, particularly with grad school on the horizon.</p>
<p>2) Seems that BU is covering all your tuition, and you will have to come up with what is essentially room and board. This varies family to family, but it seems only fair for children to expect some level of support from their families past the age of 18 if they are going to college. You ARE costing your parents money this year, perhaps you can work out some deal with them where they are contributing an equivalent to what you are costing them now for four more years. $5k would not be an unreasonable amount, this is about $400/month. If you can agree on that with them, this leaves you with a shortfall of only $5k. This can be covered through summer/break jobs and part-time employment through the year, which will bring your gap to just a few k$ per year, an amount that IMO is well worth spending in the name of happiness.</p>
<p>3) CALL the FA office as many times as you have to and ask to speak to someone higher up every time. Explain your situation, it is very surprising to hear that an FA office will not consider a material change in income, particularly if you have documentation. DO NOT USE 'LACK OF TIME' AS AN EXCUSE. Talk to your teacher at school, explain to them why you have to miss class, I am 99.9% sure that they will not have a problem with this, especially if you commit to making up any missed material. If they don't cut you some slack, talk to the principal. If the principal does not cut you some slack, SKIP SCHOOL. As a parent, I have never allowed D to miss school for stupid reasons, but this is important enough so that blowing off school is completely justified. Don't take "no" for an asnwer, both at school and at the FA office. Be polite but firm. If you do end up skipping school, make up the material.</p>
<p>4) If the FA would not budge and your parents refuse to contribute because of the drop in income, reach an agreement that they will start to contribute if the situation improves. Agree on a number, so you know what you are working with. Then call the FA office back and ask them to run a scenario what your package would look like in the spring. Figure out whether the shortfall is something you can work with.</p>
<p>5) Get an answer, in writing if possible, how summer employment will affect your aid package. The last thing you want is to figure you have a $5k shortfall, work your ass off during the summer to make it up, only to discover that your package went down by $5k in the fall.</p>
<p>6) Understand what strings are attached to your grants. GPA>3 is manageable for most bright students, GPA>3.5 can be a stretch. Find out if you have grace periods associated with below-expectations GPA to recover. You don't want to discover you are loosing you $32k grant unexpectedly.</p>
<p>7) Understand that unless the loans are subsidized, deferral = interest accrual. Particularly if you defer four more years interest can add up pretty fast.</p>
<p>8) You don't have to go to grad school straight out of undergrad. Particularly in the humanities it is not uncommon to work for a few years to save up some money before going back to school.</p>
<p>As I said earlier, IMO if you can cut your shortfall to $5k/year you have a real chance of reducing it to $1-2k with summer work, and this is an amount that is well worth going into college excited vs depressed.</p>
<p>They told me to re-apply for financial aid second semester because first semester they couldnt' take into account my parents were going from 76k to 54k in income. Also, my mother works for the University of Dallas and they have a tuition exchange program I think I might look into. It's supposed to cover tuition at certain schools and Boston U is one of those. We didn't know about it because she's a new employee and apparently the deadline is like October.</p>
<p>I must add to GroovyGreeks list: tuition and room and board cost increases from year to year can be substantial. The grants that my daughter got during her second year did not increase commisurately as was verbally promised during an appeal the year before. We did not get it in writing and it didn't happen.</p>