<p>You can reach me at <a href=“mailto:mamic@sas.upenn.edu”>mamic@sas.upenn.edu</a></p>
<p>cruxclaire: my flagship uni offered you an admit but w/o enough FinAid. I get it. But you’re sitting on two full scholarships from Fordham and Tulane. I don’t know what your flagship public schools are but your entitled attitude stinks, to be blunt. </p>
<p>My taxes pay for the education of students at UMich. If my kid applies and attends, we get an in-state tuition break. She won’t get one at your state flagship nor should she expect to. The fact is UMich can ask a lot of OOS applicants. And many do come in and pay.</p>
<p>If your middle finger doesnt’ get chafed in the wind by its exposure, maybe use your hand to assist your fellow, non-full ride students wherever you attend next year, crux. Slagging UMich or whatever other school doesn’t bow down to your needs is noisome.</p>
<p>Yeah, you make a good point about the taxes and whatnot. I know Michigan is a great institution. But am I not allowed to be upset at the general costs of college? For years and years people’s college advice to me has made it seem like admission was the major hurdle, without mentioning the unfairness of FAFSA or how cost in general is a big problem. I don’t take any issue with in state residents getting a tuition break, but asking anyone, out of state or not, to drop $40,000 a year plus room and board and books, seems kind of outrageous. I know it’s not a problem unique to UMich - I won’t be able to afford Georgetown, which was my first choice. Or UIUC, my state flagship, although I pay taxes myself. </p>
<p>The general problem is that in many cases, the middle class is ignored when it comes to affording college tuition; we can’t afford to spend $60,000/year for the most prestigious universities, but we also won’t get much in the way of federal or need-based aid through FAFSA or the CSS Profile. I’m lucky to have received the scholarships I did, and I’m grateful for them, because I don’t know that I’d be able to go to college without them, at least not without taking out a bunch of loans that would follow me into adult life. But you know, a lot of people in the same financial situation as I am don’t have scholarships anywhere, and I’m upset on their behalf as well because it’s a legitimate problem. We all put in a good amount of hard work to have the grades and ECs to get accepted to some of these schools, only to be told we can’t go because it’s simply too expensive. </p>
<p>You say my sense of entitlement is immature, and sure, it probably is, but you know, it’s hard not to feel like I don’t deserve to go to these schools I got into because of the financial situation of my parents, which I have no control over, and the costs of these schools. The acceptances weren’t handed to me on a silver platter (neither were the scholarships - I worked for those as well), and applications have made this year one of the most stressful of my life. So why am I not allowed to be angry that it’s too expensive for me to go? An admittance without financial aid to any school that costs over $40,000 in tuition is a slap in the face to most people, myself included; it’s like dangling a carrot in front of a rabbit’s nose, always keeping it slightly out of reach.</p>
<p>@cruxclaire Preach it!! I’m struggling with this now, too!! The rabbit and carrot is the best analogy to use.</p>
<p>any deferred ED applicants who did not receive an email telling you that decisions are released march 28th? I didn’t get such email so I’m wondering whether this means anything.</p>
<p>^ It takes a while to get all of those emails sent. They have to send out 27,000 or so, and they have to do it in waves, so yours should arrive any time now. And the order in which they’re sent doesn’t mean anything.</p>
<p>so did any other likely recipients receive a heavily postaged package in the mail today? …with a HARDCOVER BOOK coauthored by Penn’s president? haha it was sooo random and not at all what I expected!</p>
<p>At least for DD, the likely didn’t say what College she was accepted into. She only applied to Wharton so we are waiting until the 28th to actually get excited about this.</p>
<p>
If she only applied to Wharton, she will be accepted to Wharton. An applicant won’t be accepted to a school at Penn to which she didn’t apply. So if that’s the only thing keeping you from getting excited, start getting excited. That’s the specific purpose of likely letters: to get a select few accepted applicants excited about attending Penn a few weeks before they’re formally accepted. :)</p>
<p>For all of you non-likely letter recipients (like me), Penn just sent the emails announcing that decision notification date is 28th. </p>
<p>Excited.
More importantly, fingers crossed.</p>
<p>I did not get an email, but I did see this update on the web-site</p>
<p>Upcoming deadlines & notifications</p>
<p>Transfer Decision Deadline: March 15, 2013</p>
<p>Regular Decision Release: March 28, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. EDT</p>
<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I’m a Penn CAS RD applicant, and I applied to the BBB major. anyone know what the acceptance rate for that is like? I didn’t get a likely letter (not that I was expecting one) but I’m so nervous about my admission decision. I don’t want to get my hopes up at all, but right now I feel like I have no chance. Too many great students apply to these schools, even if you’ve excelled all throughout high school, you don’t really stand out in these schools…</p>
<p>@cruxclaire Spot on about the middle class. If you’re super rich, you can afford top tier universities. If you’re super poor, the top tier universities usually give you close to 100% of the costs as financial aid. For us - we make too much to get significant aid and too little to pay for it ourselves. My EFC is $30,000, which we canNOT pay despite what the FAFSA says. And for all of the Ivies, NESCACS, etc; any merit scholarships I get from outside sources are simply gobbled up by the university and taken out of their financial assistance as opposed to my family’s contribution. That’s one huge point that truly irks me. I don’t think you sound privileged. You sound angry and logical - like me.</p>
<p>Completely on point about the middle class, I don’t know what the condescending rant was about. It’s not having a sense of entitlement, it’s simply that after having worked hard enough to gain to admission to schools and then being held back by lacking FA is frustrating. Sure Michigan students get reduced tuition there and wouldn’t get the same price at (in my case) a SUNY school but Binghamton is $31,297 for OOS instead of $51,976.</p>
<p>My family’s EFC is ~$65,000, and my parents don’t even want to help me pay for room and board at Tulane, so despite the scholarship, I might be graduating $60,000 in debt. :(</p>
<p>No, of course not. I’m just disappointed that my parents don’t want to help me at all. I think I’ll probably have go to straight to grad school, though, since I’m planning to double major in German and either Economics or Political Economy, and none of those fields have a ton of great jobs for candidates with only a Bachelor’s and no experience in the field. </p>
<p>I’m trying to form a basic idea of future plans for grad school, though, and I’m thinking I’ll probably try to do my Master’s in Germany, where tuition at public universities never exceeds about €500 per semester, even for international students. I would like to work in Germany and perhaps eventually become a permanent resident, so I’m not so worried that the German degree wouldn’t have as great of a weight within the States. </p>
<p>I guess the ultimate dream for the future is the living/working in Germany part - I’m not all that concerned about loving my job. Just hearing German spoke around me makes me happier than almost anything else. I was actually considering applying to German unis for undergrad, but I’m not sure that I’m qualified enough for acceptance, since the only standardized German exam I’ve passed so far was the AP German exam last year, and that’s only recognized as sufficient proof of German skills by unis in certain regions of Germany. </p>
<p>This is a general question to everyone: how long do you get before you have to start paying off loans/how are the interest rates with loans other than Stafford loans? I think I can get another $2,000/year from Tulane with the NMSF scholarship they have, and they’re also offering a $5,500 yearly Stafford loan. That leaves about $7,500 per year, which I don’t have money to pay for, so I presume I’ll have to go through some banking/finance company and have my parents cosign. Will the interest rates be significantly higher for approximately $30,000 I’ll have in private loans?</p>
<p>Just checking in here, as an international applicant, should I have had to submit anything other than a midyear report since applying? I found out yesterday that another university’s mails were arriving in my mailbox and so I wasn’t considered for application because I hadn’t filled out a form because I never saw the mail.</p>
<p>Now I’m worried this is the case for the universities I actually care about (especially Penn). So anyone have the answer to my question?</p>
<p>No. The mid-year was all you needed to submit :)</p>
<p>I don’t think middle class gets that screwed over, but upper middle class definitely does. My family makes $85k and our EFC is 15000. We’re in the 74th percentile for family income, which is upper middle class.</p>
<p>For those of you with really high EFCs, you guys are not “middle class.” Look at your percentile here: [What</a> Income Percentile Are You [Interactive]? | Tax Break: The TurboTax Blog](<a href=“http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2012/07/11/what-income-percentile-are-you-interactive/]What”>http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2012/07/11/what-income-percentile-are-you-interactive/) if you don’t believe me.</p>
<p>Not trying to start a class war or anything here, I’m just clarifying what middle class is. Yes, I agree 100% that you guys are being screwed over. Actually, we are being screwed over because there’s no way my family’s paying 15000. ;(</p>
<p>50th percentile is around 46,000 in the US. EFC for them would probably be quite low.</p>
<p>I also agree that outside scholarships not being allowed to reduce EFC is ridiculous.</p>