Not true for many. SSS has both its own judgment on how much they think you would objectively need and your own contribution estimation. I know of many, many families who put down far greater figures as the latter item than the SSS estimation.
When I asked one parent why he did so and how he is gonna cope with the consequence of over-reporting of possible contribution, he shrugged and said "It is not like I do not know the consequences of asking for a big FA. But I am asking because it is the only way to send my kid, as evidenced by my SSS that says we need almost a full ride. But I also heard there is a degree difference in consequences between asking for a full ride and a half ride, and I had to put a compromised figure of half ride - to mitigate the chance at my kidās rejection from, say, 80% to 50%. How will I get the money? I donāt know and I will ask around for loans, once a schools accepts my kid with half pay. But this is still happenable and doable than BOTH having almost no chance of acceptance as a full ride ORM AND not being able to send the kid after acceptance due to inability to obtain full tuition amount.
In other words, some families (especially ORM) take a compromise between the need (sure inability) and the chance (sure rejection). Consider your case lucky if you did not feel the need to ponder this compromise. Many, if not most, ORMs and Internationals know what asking for FA would mean to their application. Yet they apply not to spend more on vacations but they have no means to get the full 60k - just like you - especially if they have multiple smart kids attending boarding.
I suppose this option would be available only in the special case where the school officially informed the reason for the waitlist to the family as FA. In most cases at this stage, however, the reason for the wait would have rarely been communicated, I would imagine. Also the coachās assuring a sure acceptance with FA before the decision date would not count as communication of reason for wait. In light of this, would contacting the FA officer to reduce FA request still be appropriate? He may tell you to come back after hearing from them first on off-wait status, as discussing FA before acceptance may look admitting the first as a condition for the second.
What is an ORM?
I really have no idea how any of this works. I just found this forum. Boarding school was never even on our radar. We had no idea until recently that they even have FA. After finding this board I am so glad I had no idea it existed or I would have seriously stressed about the whole thing! I see now how incredibly lucky we were to get the offer, with the FA, especially as a repeat Junior. But if we hadnāt, then we would have just continued at the local public school.
It does seem as though, if you truly can find other ways to pay, and you want a better chance to move off the waitlist, that notifying the school and removing the FA requirement would help. I really do think that because of our need, that is why our other two schools were flat out rejections rather than WL. We were told by both of those schools that they do not admit you if you cannot pay and they donāt have the FA.
ORM = Over Represented Minority (Chinese, Koreans, etc.).
The fact of the matter is that, no matter how smart and fantastic your kid may be, no boarding has a duty to educate him. A boarding education is simply another luxury commodity, like a yacht or a country club membership. Meritocracy is a wrong argument for this; in the end, it is whatever the school decides to buy, as they alone bear the full hit from any quality drop, if it ever indeed happens. Nor is it relevant that the US government is failing to give the kind of public education smart kids deserve. A 60k per-year high school education is not something that must be justified on grounds of meritocracy; it is simply a private transaction of quid-pro-quo nature, involving a tiny percentage of education population.
@enpassant2019 , the OP had indicated that they are in dialog with FA director, so this may be a viable option for them. But agree that most folks on WL may not have this option.
No one here would argue that, including the schools. When you apply for FA, you lay your financials bare. The school financial aid office is quite experienced at evaluating the PFS/EFC and finding money in your sock drawer. We had nothing to give up, not cars or vacations or memberships or even cable. What they found for us, like many, was cash flow + home equity + aborted savings + ability to borrow. Because we would not borrow, our living situation was more draconian those four years than it needed to be, but that was our choice. We certainly werenāt looking for sympathy for being able to eke out those funds, but the 24 hours we were given to make this decision were agonizing. We are grateful to the schools that decided we were on the cusp and helped us consider the FP possibility other than reject our son outright (although one school asked if we preferred a WL decision knowing no funds would be forthcoming if that would be easier on our son).
I am reading a lot about making sacrifices and upping the parent contribution but, reality is this is a much longer term issue. You are right back at square one for college/university. You really have to think 7-8 years down the road.
In our sonās case, our projected parental contribution per our application (we were able to see the report) was pretty darn close to what we applied for. My son is on two WL and he is in a very niche groupā¦entering Grade 11, high level sports etcā¦
Now, my experience iin applying for Canadian schools is crazily different and much less transparent. You have no access to the report submitted by the schools on financial aid and in Canada they really take a harder look at your asset position and are much more āsubjectiveā.
In the U.S. they were much more understanding of the need to build up a retirement pool and support other dependents etcā¦ In Canada, there is more of an expectation of taking on debt and not caring about your long term savings objectives AND the schoolās are much more aggressive in the negotiation part.
Agree about the longer term issue. SSS basically divided my sonās 529 Plan by 8 and said that number should go towards each year of high school. I am a single parent doing this alone and have a decent income, but certainly no second home, country club membership or fancy car to give up. Iāve been working so hard to fund his plan a little bit at a time since he was born, and Iām just not sure I want to dive into it now. I guess it comes down to where you see the value. Is it worth cutting the 529 savings in half and ceasing to contribute to my retirement plan for four years. I am certainly willing to make sacrifices and up my contribution, but at what cost. I donāt want him to have a ton of college debt. As Canuckdad stated, where does this leave me in four years when we are on the cusp of college?
I was told by the FA officer that our financial need was the reason for the waitlist. When I mentioned digging deeper to make more of a contribution (working more, decreasing retirement contribution and/or some access to 529 Plan funds) he said that would help his chance of getting off the waitlist if he matched an opening.
Itās tough being the middle part of the barbell (not enough to comfortably afford, yet not truly poverty stricken enough to qualify for FA). As FP parents, weāve had to cut back on retirement savings (the wisdom of this is debatable, but itās our familyās choice), where and in what kind of housing we chose to live in, etc. Iām also grateful that my kids have found a community they call home, so we donate small amounts. For those on the WL, Iām sorry you are grappling with this, but as someone who has sacrificed and gives a little back, I would expect that the school would expect that of all FA recipients. If you choose to fund your IRA instead, which is understandably prudent, then there are repercussions and I would be upset to learn my schools had given out FA to families that choose to put their funds to their IRAs and wanted the school, and those that donate to the Annual Funds/FA Funds, to pick up the balance. Honestly, I see FA reserved for those kids who just cannot turn to their public school system to get a reasonably good education and at the level where they donāt even know what an IRA is, or havenāt the funds to even start one. Those families truly need FA. @ChoatieMom description of the lean 4 years their family went through is what is expected. Private school is a luxury and should be thought of as such.
ātās tough being the middle part of the barbell (not enough to comfortably afford, yet not truly poverty stricken enough to qualify for FAā
Ouch! I get your point and totally agree about schools being careful where they give their money, but calling FA recipients poverty stricken is a bit harsh and I hope that if we send our kid (on large FA) that the other kids donāt think that way. If you look at the FA calculators on some school web sites they give details of income ranges and numbers of families in that range and average aid they receive. Most are nowhere near āpoverty strickenā, but maybe to people who are full pay we are? This is my biggest concern in sending my kid, that there is discrimination or segregation between the haves and the have nots.
I definitely agree that college needs to be taken into consideration as well. Here in the U.S., we have a college savings instrument called a 529. Many parents start these when their children are born/very young. When our son was applying, the rules did not allow those funds to be used for secondary education. Per @MAschools post, I believe that is no longer the case. We knew weād have to stop contributing to the 529 and did not figure that flow into our FA need amount but, of course, ALL current and future disposable income is considered available for paying for BS, including retirement contributions. Because we were in our late 50ās when our son was applying, a $$$$ hole in that portfolio gave us serious pause. Also, accepting FP without loans would take every single disposable cent from us. Both schools agreed that a no-loan scenario might be untenable, but no FA was forthcoming because the no-loan scenario was a choice.
This is absolutely true. BS is a luxury and every BS expects sacrificial contribution. Each family who cannot easily write those checks needs to decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to make BS happen for their child/ren, and sacrificing for BS is what those tiny violins are made for.
There is a ton of great discussion in the archives about paying for BS that covers a lot of ground between starting the application and ending up WLād for FA. Though itās too late for this round, Iāll post a few links for those considering BS next year:
What are some top private school in Toronto area? Like upper Canada college? Do you have to fill out any standardized system application (like sss in USA) for financial aid?
I think the college admission in Canada is based on the grades from grade 12 without any standardized test needed right.
Universities/college pricing are very affordable in Canada. They have some top schools like university of Waterloo and the Canadian Harvard (I.e McGill). Great value for the money.
All points very well taken, and I appreciate the perspective. I feel like I already live a pretty lean lifestyle, and certainly would not expect the majority to be paid by aid. I am very much willing to make additional sacrifices, but agree that the school websites are almost encouraging you to apply for aid when they show the breakdown of present families income levels and what they receive for aid. Of course, there are so many other factors involved. I think if I knew this outcome in advance I would have approached the financial aid application differently, and would have extended myself further financially from the start, rather than being waitlisted and now coming to the realization that the elimination of retirement contributions and tapping into the 529 Plan was going to be a necessity. It would have been better to show that intent from the start. It would have reflected better on our commitment level. Itās also hard to not know the amount of the financial divide. It certainly has been a learning experience and maybe the best piece of wisdom that I could share with a prospective family in the future would be the management of the financial aid piece of the puzzle. Thanks again for everyoneās thoughts.
I apologize because I think my post came across as judgmental or harsh. It definitely wasnāt directed towards you, just the presentation of financial aid to applicants (as you rightly point out). The cynical part of me knows the system is geared for schools to garner as many applications as possible, so as to seem ādesirableā. What it actually produces is a system where families and students compete with each other (for what goalā¦the ābest/most desirableā school?) to get a spot at a limited number of schools that can point to a number that shows - āoh, you can be one of the chosen ones to be part of this select groupā. They are looking to pad that denominator to the greatest extent possible. The schools totally soften the picture of what to expect for FA because they donāt want to scare away any numbers that might pad that denominator, and who wouldnāt be shocked by the cost of these experiences. Iām sorry also for my rantā¦itās adult beverage hour where I am and of course, my family is part of this system. Iāve just finished reading a book recommended by the college counseling office of one kid called āWho Gets in and Why?ā. Part of the book talk about the applicant gaining control of the process by analyzing the whole ecosystem. Optimistically, the book also noted that kids these days are a lot more savvy than parents are bc they have the tools of the internet and social media and have so many more benchmarks to compare schools than we did when we were younger. I truly hope your child gets off the WL at the school they want to go to as BS can be a positive, life changing experience and as parents, we all only want the best for them.
@AnonMomof2 - I have said this before here, this is my kidās take on the issue of how wealth plays out:
20% of the kids are super wealthy and show it, and they cluster together. 20% of the kids want to hang out with them. Everyone else is normal.
Truth is, more than 20% are wealthy, but many of those wealthy kids are super nice and down to earth, and you would never know it. Same with their parents.
There are some great equalizers in boarding school, as opposed to day school. Everyone sleeps in the same dorms. Eats the same food. No one drives. Follows the same schedule. There is nothing to spend money on.
The thing that sets kids apart can be clothes and eating off campus/delivery. And what they post on Instagram about their fabulous vacations.
Not saying that there arenāt divisions- probably at some schools more than others. But there are plenty of normal kids.
No apology needed! I truly value the wisdom of those who have been through this. This forum has allowed me to examine things from different perspectives. I only wish that I had come across it sooner. Definitely not harsh, and I wish I could join you in your adult beverage hour!