<p>I just received my financial aid package from harvard today. They gave me 700 dollars for travel but I was hoping for at least 1500 dollars. Do you think it's appropriate for me to ask them to raise my cost of attendance so I can get more FA to travel with every year? I live far away so it will cost me about 250 every time I want to go visit my family. I really don't want to visit just 3 times a year. </p>
<p>Also, I'm hoping to get a computer for college and I was thinking of using some of my outside scholarship money to get a laptop. I'm also planning to ask the FA office to raise my COA so the scholarship money can go towards the laptop. </p>
<p>I received their harvard faculty scholarship, which I guess is their way of just filling whatever that my parents couldn't afford. If I do happen to get outside scholarships and they exceed my unmet need, will harvard lower this scholarship amount? </p>
<p>I would love to hear from anyone who has had experience with asking harvard to modify their financial aid package/cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Hamman - By all means, ask if they would reconsider your travel budget. FA will also allow you to use up to $2500 of outside scholarships to purchase a laptop, one time, at the start of your freshman year. If you get a greater amount of outside scholarships than that, H will first use them to replace the annual amount that students are asked to contribute from their own earnings (I think it's something like $2750 a year). After that they would reduce your unmet need, and therefore lower your faculty scholarship. But if you can talk the provider of the scholarship into deferring the funds to a later year, FA is fine with that. My D deferred some scholarship funds that way, then did a study-abroad program offered by Boston Univ. over last summer, and the outside scholarship provider agreed to send the money to BU to cover the study abroad. We've had nothing but great cooperation and great service from FA officers there.</p>
<p>There are international students that only go home a couple times during all 4 years because it is so expensive. Going home three times a year is not the worst.</p>
<p>I understand that, but I'm deciding between harvard and stanford and stanford offered me a lot more money to travel. I just think that harvard could match what stanford's offering. I don't mean to be greedy at all but it's almost impossible for me personally to visit only 3 times</p>
<p>I think somewhere in all those brochures is a section regarding travel where it mentions approximately two trips home per year are included in the COA package.</p>
<p>Hamman: You should understand that Harvard is not giving you the money to travel. When they created your financial aid package, they included an estimated amount of money as part of a travel budget. They do the same thing for books. They DO NOT give you the money for books or travel. This is not an uncommon way to design a financial aid package.</p>
<p>In other words, if they budgeted $1000 for books and you only spent $800, you would not get a $200 credit. It works the same way for travel, whether you're over or under.</p>
<p>The financial aid officers at Harvard are wonderful. Call to go over your package with an officer. Feel free to nicely let them know if you have a better financial aid (not merit aid) package from a peer institution. They will likely work with you.</p>
<p>If I want to go home during the year it will cost me around $3000 for return flights. You should be happy with Harvard giving you enough money to go home 3 times during the year</p>
<p>When do you think you'll be going home during the year? Christmas and summer, all other breaks are too short to travel a long distance. Sounds to me like you got more than enough money.</p>
<p>Harvard budgets fro two return trips freshman years, and one return trip every year after that. Stanford does something similar. Perhaps why Stanford’s package looks better is because tickets to the west are generally more expensive? Factor in actual airfare and you might find that they are fairly similar. </p>
<p>Unless you want to take out a loan, Harvard will NOT give you money for more than 2 trips freshman year.</p>
<p>I was just wondering… on the financial aid letter when they are calculating the total cost to attend Harvard, what are they including under “personal expenses?” My family and I are just trying to estimate whether these expenses will be accurate for us (or perhaps more or less).</p>
<p>(A) If, accounting for the price of air travel from both schools to your home, S’s offer really is more substantial, call H’s finaid office.</p>
<p>(B) At most top schools, where the student body is comprised of a geographically diverse student body, it’s not uncommon only to go home at Christmas and maybe one other time. Honestly, you’ll probably quickly find you don’t want to leave every time school is out.</p>