<p>What was Clark’s package?</p>
<p>Early College. I know you don’t plan to listen to ANY of the advice being given to you…but let me try…again.</p>
<p>The likelihood of you getting better financial aid packages than the Earlham package is a small likelihood. You said you can’t afford that.</p>
<p>Holy Cross is a reach…It’s fine to have one but you are hanging your hat onto THAT acceptance and financial aid package.</p>
<p>Right now…you do NOT have a college acceptance that you can afford to pay for…simply put.</p>
<p>The very WORST time to apply to any college is when you are feeling the huge disappointments from either rejections or insufficient financial aid.</p>
<p>Apply to your safety TODAY…as soon as you get home from school. Let me turn this around…you keep asking why you can’t wait? I’m goign to say…why WOULD you wait?</p>
<p>The application fee is a small price to pay to have an acceptance in hand that you know you can pay for. You THOUGHT your other in state school was a “safety”…turned out it was NOT. Get this application to VSU done…get it DONE. Make sure you really have it in the bag.</p>
<p>If none of these packages work out for you, what are you going to do? Could you take a gap year, retake the SATs (studying this time) and start over again, this time with more safeties in hand, and possibly with better scores to qualify for in-state options?</p>
<p>I think that thumper is really spot on and is giving you very important advice.</p>
<p>EC, I agree with other posters that most other packages will be similar. Don’t forget that in addition to the 7,000 in loans that you will most likely get at all schools, there is also the work study, which is generally $2,000 to $2,500. That money is expected to be used for personal expenses, travel, start up book money, etc. You should read threads from other CC’ers that couldn’t get work study jobs, or if they did they were not for the number of hours they needed. That takes your portion of the COA up to around $9,500 per year for Earlham (along with the $14,000 for your parents), and as others have said, you should expect other schools to be about the same. Please remember that you have to have finances to get up to school, all your move in expenses, money for 1st semester books and personal items all before you start making a paycheck from a work study job. </p>
<p>I agree with other posters that you should NOT wait to apply to other instate schools that will be more affordable.</p>
<p>early college–I am glad you are proud of your hard work and your GPA, however, the point you are missing is that you are going up against kids that take 5 AP classes a YEAR and have 3.8-4.0 GPA’s and ACT’s well into the 30’s. You are not coming in at the top end of the applicant pool at those schools which is why you won’t get the merit aid you are counting on. Quite honestly, around here, you wouldn’t even be in the top applicant pool at most kids’ academic safety schools.</p>
<p>Also, EVERY admissions counselor says nice things about the kids they meet with and that every kid they meet with would be “an asset” to their school. They are sales people for their colleges, keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Some friends of ours have a DD and she (and they) sound very much like you. She just “knew” she was going to get into all of the schools where she applied because she was a “top” student. She didn’t bother applying to any safety schools, financial or academic. She has spent the past 2 years at a local community college because she STILL can’t get into the colleges of her dreams and still won’t apply to a college that would be a fit for her.</p>
<p>EC…here is my “perspective” on this. </p>
<p>You are being penny wise and pound foolish with regard to the admission cost for applying to VSU NOW.</p>
<p>My guess is the reason you want to wait is because you KNOW your parents will be thrilled that you have gotten accepted to an AFFORDABLE instate option where you can avail yourself of the Hope money. You do not WANT that option to be on the table because that is not where YOU want to go.</p>
<p>Reality check…if these other schools come in “with the money”…it won’t be an issue, right? If they don’t come in with the money…you will have that application and acceptance all in hand to VSU instead of being in a position where you are picking up the pieces. Be PROACTIVE…not reactive.</p>
<p>If you cannot qualify for a scholarship like the ones suggested at Valdosta that is one thing, but to poo-poo it as “only” 1-2500k when you need every penny you can get is fool hearty and haughty. You have nothing to lose by applying. If the application says you " should" have a certain test score, that doesn’t mean you “must” have it. My DS applied as a sophomore for an internship that was supposedly only for juniors. Needless to say he got the internship. </p>
<p>Simply said, you do not have the luxury of assuming you won’t qualify if you truly need the money. Keep in mind too that if you choose to defer acceptances and reapply for aid next year the FA packages could be worse. They don’t promise to offer the same FA if you defer admission.</p>
<p>I agree with others here that the Earlham offer was very generous, and likely to be among the best he gets, if he is not accepted to his reach (Holy Cross) which meets need. So the OP may well end up having to attend his safeties. (And the point about work study is VERY important! Check on the college’s board here about how hard it is to actually <em>get</em> a WS job to fill out that part of your package, and what your options are if you don’t – this again varies by school. But mostly you are just left without any money for books, travel and other incidental expenses.)</p>
<p>However, I have to ask, why the urgency to get EC to apply to his safeties now? I don’t know the schools or their policies, but EC claims he is guaranteed admission and that deadlines aren’t until June. I looked up Valdosta and their COA is under $15K. His guaranteed 5.5K in federal loans brings that into his parents’ affordable category. He seems to suggest that he will be entitled to another state-based grant as well. </p>
<p>So, what is the worst thing that could happen if he waits until his other options are eliminated to apply?</p>
<p>I personally think it is VERY hard to apply to ANY college when it is because every other option in the application process didn’t work out. Having an affordable acceptance is something this student should WANT to have. Better to do it now, than view it as a consolation prize.</p>
<p>EC, another question. Do you have any money in the bank right now? It is extremely helpful if you have $1000+ in the bank to pay your expenses to get to school, purchase things you need for the dorm, and pay for your first semester’s books. If you don’t, can you get a job locally now to help build yourself up a little cushion?</p>
<p>mathmomvt-the issue for waiting is that housing at those colleges is not guaranteed and is on a first come, first serve basis and EC may very well end up living off campus freshman year because of such a late application.</p>
<p>SteveMA, you are correct in that EC will be shut out of on campus housing. He has stated he has a vehicle, but personally I think it is socially smart to live on campus Freshman year. I looked up VSU COA and in addition to the Hope scholarship (which only covers 90% of tuition now, not 100%) it would cost him about $11,300. Very doable with a Stafford and the $6,000 that he says the parents can pay. </p>
<p>EC, I understand you say you don’t want to go to an instate school here in GA. Really, I understand as my daughter didn’t want to either. But she did know that if she HAD to, she would go and make the best of it. Fortunately, she was in a position academically that she had other options. </p>
<p>Part of growing up is making lemonade out of lemons.</p>
<p>Here’s a take on the lemonade idea emailed to me by my DS15 - he didn’t write it, but does a very funn riff on the theme. It’s good to have one stand up comedian in the family.</p>
<p>“All right, I’ve been thinking. When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back. GET MAD! I DON’T WANT YOUR DAMN LEMONS! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THESE?! DEMAND TO SEE LIFE’S MANAGER! Make life RUE the day it thought it could give CAVE JOHNSON LEMONS! DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?! I’M THE MAN WHO’S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN! WITH THE LEMONS! I’m gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that’s gonna BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN!”</p>
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<p>Valdosta does say that housing is first come first served, and usually full by April. But even with an acceptance in hand, EC is not going to be able to send in his housing application until April because he won’t know until then whether or not he will have other options. That said, it does seem like having the acceptance in hand may allow him to squeak into on campus housing, whereas if he is just applying for admission in April, and it takes them a few weeks to review his application, it will probably be too late. </p>
<p>But I don’t think he knows yet which he prefers of his two safeties, and he’d have to figure that out as well. </p>
<p>So, yes, if you want to live on campus (and I do recommend it), I’d definitely either figuring out somehow which you’d prefer and applying tho that school now, or applying to both, with a plan to figure out which you prefer during your school vacation if your other options don’t come through.</p>
<p>It is a mistake to think that just because you applied to a large number of schools one of them is sure to come through with an acceptable package for you. If you don’t get accepted anywhere that meets need, your packages are all going to be like Earlham’s, or worse, most likely. You could get lucky, either with acceptance to HC or with a great package somewhere else, but you shouldn’t be banking on those things. </p>
<p>So, why delay your application to your safeties until you’re locked out of their housing, making what you already fear will be an unhappy match even worse?</p>
<p>In regards to $, when you are selecting a school make sure you check out the surrounding area’s job market. I know students who work both a work study & an outside job because many colleges have had to stretch the WS program very thin in order to accommodate the financial dissonance the middle class families are currently experiencing. </p>
<p>I am SO glad that I chose a school in a growing & prosperous area (that also offers affordable off campus housing). Don’t underestimate this.</p>
<p>EC, you may not be able to take your car to college. I would expect the policy varies by campus, so check with any school you’re considering. When I was in college back in the dark ages, at my school students on FA effectively could not have a car at school. All campus parking required a permit, so a car had to be registered with the school. If the student received FA, the value of the car was deducted from the package, starting with grants. So, if your beater was worth $1,000, that was $1,000 more you would have to pay for tuition. Moving off campus could eliminate this as a problem due to having a parking space at your apartment and not requiring a campus parking permit, but most freshmen will want to live on-campus. Also, some schools do not allow freshmen to have cars on campus regardless of FA status – they simply don’t have enough parking. How much will you be able to contribute to the cost of attendance if you sell your car?</p>
<p>I commend you for diligently researching and thinking about your college choices. My son couldn’t even be bothered to open the mail he received from colleges. </p>
<p>Still, I wish you already had an acceptance in hand from a financial safety. Every year in my town there are graduating seniors crying at their friends’ Open House parties because parents have recently told them the dream school is financially unworkable and first year, maybe second, will be at the local CC. A good friend of one of my neighbors had that happen to her and, incidentally, the school she had been planning to attend was a CTCL college. Other kids have had their dreams dashed even at schools that claimed to meet full need. This is why I insisted my son’s very first application be to an affordable in-state public where he qualified for a few thousand in automatic merit aid. He doesn’t want to go there, but it’s such a relief to know it’s in the bag if the 6 others he’s waiting to hear from don’t work out.</p>
<p>Even if you’re reluctant to spend the application fee, could you at least get your financial safety application ready to go while you wait to hear from the others’ FA offices?</p>
<p>I’ll address everyone’s questions soon, but just called VSU and talked to housing. I explained my situation and he said housing will not be full if I apply in April. I just wouldn’t have a wide variety of dorms to choose from, but I would be able to get housing. And I’m shocked it costs 11k per year for Valdosta! I thought it was much cheaper, but I think I was looking at the semester costs instead of the year costs by mistake. If VSU is going to cost the same as out of state schools without loans then I don’t see why I would go there since it would cost about the same. I wouldn’t take out loans to stay in-state.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.valdosta.edu/finadmin/financial/documents/Fall2011-AllOther-updated_001.pdf[/url]”>http://www.valdosta.edu/finadmin/financial/documents/Fall2011-AllOther-updated_001.pdf</a>
^estimated in-state academic year total cost for 15 credits/semester=$14,694 (if you plan on living on campus)</p>
<p>Just want to chime in on applying for the financial safety now vs. later. One good reason to do it now is so that you will have a good place in line for financial aid from them too. If you wait too long, that money can run out. Then it’s not the safety you hoped it would be.</p>