<p>After reading some informative posts in my thread from the other day, I did some research and found that most transfer applicants that applied for aid were denied admission. Further, it seems that the FA packages offered to transfer students, who do apply for and receive aid, aren’t great anyway. Brown is my dream school and I’ll do almost anything to get in, including amassing semi-extensive debt. I’m considering changing my application to indicate that I will not apply for financial aid. Will this significantly increase my chances of admission? I’m fairly certain it will, I’m just curious as to what extent.</p>
<p>“I did some research and found that most transfer applicants that applied for aid were denied admission”</p>
<p>Causation is not correlation. Most transfer applicants are denied. Extensive debt, even for Brown, would not be anything I would advise my own kids. If you’re truly a Brown-caliber student, you’ll be immensely successful practically wherever you attend. I would not change it nor advise anyone to not apply to FinAid unless you truly can afford it – and accumulating “extensive debt” screams that you can’t.</p>
<p>Any more opinions on this? I did change my financial aid indicator to not applying, by the way. I will be about $50,000 in debt (down from $110,000) at graduation, but plan to make $75,000-100,000 when I’m employed. Is $50,000 in debt too much for me or is this manageable/a common number for students attending private universities on no financial aid? What I’m most interested in is how this will increase my chances of acceptance. I know I won’t get in just because I’m not applying for financial aid, but could it tip the scale if I’m an already competitive applicant? How much would my chances improve. Thank you to T26E4 and anyone else who can help me out.</p>