<p>Is this plausible? Do students normally negotiate fin. aid, and if so, by how much do finaid coms change the aid? Is it by a few hundred, or is more like by a few thousand?</p>
<p>After a major change in our income situation (from middle income to near zero) we negotiated financial aid. We received only a few hundred dollars more. </p>
<p>Wishing you better luck!</p>
<p>!!!!</p>
<p>I'm really sorry to hear about that. =( I'm starting to think more and more that Stanford isn't very generous with finaid. Does anyone have any similar (or perhaps better/worse) experiences?</p>
<p>Jasmine--The original offer was pretty good and doable so don't lose hope. What happened in our situation would be considered rare, I think. Best of luck to you!</p>
<p>Most private schools are up for negotiating. Fill up the FAFSA, CSS Profile, and see what happens (and send tax forms & what not). Public schools (or at least California pubic universities) are not as generous in negotiating.</p>
<p>Just a side note sparked by eiffelguy87's comment about California public universities being pretty stingy--</p>
<p>Yeah. California schools are jerks with money, and it's like trying to sell an arm and a leg to get into a public California university from out-of-state. Just today our AP Gov't teacher was telling us about about how, about back iuntil '99, '00, schools used to get bonuses for improving their API scores from state tests (e.g. STAR, etc), but so many schools qualified (although there was some scamming going on... there were schools in Santa Ana that refused to adminster the test to some students because they were so desperate to improve their APIs) that they discovered they didn't have enough money to follow through with their promise. So now, there aren't really any tangible rewards for schools doing well on these tests except the API score that colleges may or may not see, but of course that means virtually nothing to 90% of the students. My school's made desperate attempts to get kids to take the tests more seriously (including the infamous "Bubblefest 2004"), but to little avail. We still haven't broken 800.</p>
<p>I'm sure no one really cared to hear any of that, but it's just something that came to mind I felt compelled to share. </p>
<p>Good luck with financial aid, collegebound123 and everyone else :)</p>
<p>My son was offered approx. $1000. financial aid last year however after we filled out the FAFSA it dropped to zero. Yep, thats right...nothing. We called the financial aid office and he even made a visit to plead his point and still...zip, zero, zilch. He was offered a free ride to another university and tried that as bargaining power, nope. Stanford can have whoever they want, they don't have to negotiate anything. To make a long story short...he is there anyway, paying full price and loving every minute of it.</p>
<p>hmm, okay see wen it cums to international students, they ask on the form to specify how much u can pay... my dad can basically pay, well nothing...but i still rote a fairly decent amount...i figured tht wen they looked at my finaid forms theyd see i was poor and wud gv me a good amount of aid... well, wat they did was, they said fine, since u said u can pay x amount, ure parent contribution is x, student contribution $1700, n the rest is aid...
the problems r a) i dont hv 1700 dollars b) my dad cant pay tht x amount
now im too scared to rite to them n say, helloooo?? did u guy not look at my dads tax return forms (i shall ofcourse phrase wit very politely) i cant pay soo much..
reading bahamamas post has really scared me tht they wudnt even gv 1000dollars cuz theyv given me a lot of oney already
i dont no wat to do, i mean i hv 2 pay for my ticket to the us n bak every yr too...</p>
<p>Since you are an international, you should probably try to renegotiate the amount of aid. Maybe talk about exchange rates and how that impacts upon what your family can afford and the cost of living in your home country. The Fin Aid office may not be aware of these factors that make thier current offer impossible for you to meet. </p>
<p>That is what I was told. I don't think trying to renegotiate is going to give you a bad name or make them pull their whole offer on you. Afterall the Fin Aid officers are people not heartless robots and hence may sympathise with your case.</p>
<p>for every student who got sucky fin. aid there's some rich student the school knows can pay the full price. It's the cruel world of need-based aid.</p>
<p>celebrian25, i didnt get suky finaid, i actually got a hole lota aid..its jus not enuff still</p>
<p>the_aussie, thanx so much for the help...ill rite to them, but not now...i guess in feb or sumthin..im waitin 2 see how much aid oxford gives me, stanford is the only us college iv applied to n so dont wanna screw up things wit it :)</p>