<p>Greetings,
Given the unlikely possibility that my daughter decides to stay on a wait-list and gets off, does anyone have experience with FA offers in this situation? One school states specifically that they reserve FA for reg. acceptance. Another says they will give FA. Some don't mention it. We need FA. Unfortunately, one of D's top choices is the one that states it is unlikely. (Yes, has several great offers elsewhere. Will probably move on, yet there is the wondering....). BTW, I would have considered the WL schools all "matches," not reaches, per se, although I clearly I was wrong!
thanks for any experience off the WL. These are all highly competitive New England LAC's.</p>
<p>Moon, can you tell us the names of the LAC’s?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>Bates: no aid (wording is a bit softer, but that is the idea )
Colby: states will give FA
Not stated by a few schools. I just don’t know enough about this. If the FA policy is different for WL, it won’t be enough–i.e., a little aid won’t be worth staying on.
I know we can call each school. Just wondering if any have experience with actual packages from WL. Thanks for any tips!</p>
<p>If they are not need-blind and you considered them matches, that they be why you got WL unfortunately as I think it is becoming a greater factor in admissions.</p>
<p>My D did not apply to LACs but for her 1 WL gave her a FA package with the WL which I thought was interesting and 1 says they will evaluate after acceptance which I took to mean it was based on which students who they had awarded funds turned them down and also that we’d get less than we would with a straight acceptance. For both we figured they would not be financially viable.</p>
<p>Sometimes WLs are “need aware” - which means that those who need little to no aid can get chosen to come off the WL first.</p>
<p>Do you need a lot of FA?</p>
<p>Well, “a lot” is relative. </p>
<p>From my perspective, D has 3 solid choices with either merit aid, or a solid package, aiming at about half or a bit more for the typical 50 grand LAC, and obviously less for in-state univ… We can’t afford a small grant, but we are willing to pay about what the EFC should be for a real income formula.</p>
<p>Actually, I am rethinking everything anyway. I believe we will go in the direction of embracing the current choice–less prestigious, but the school wants her, and that may be a smarter choice. “You can’t always get what you want/But you get what you need…” All good.</p>
<p>Admissions off of waitlists is generally NOT need-blind, no matter what the school’s policy is for regular admissions – and availability of financial aid may depend on the financial aid budget. The ad com will have a report from the financial aid department before they start making calls. (It’s the only fair way to do it – if they are out of money then it makes no sense to admit someone who can’t afford to attend – if they only have enough money to fund 3 needy students and they are going to take 25 from the wait list, then they are going to have to select 22 who can come without extra aid).</p>
<p>So it comes down to money and budgets and this is a bad year in a bad economy – the likelihood of any financial aid department having extra funds to distribute is pretty slim, except possibly for a few elite colleges with particularly healthy endowments.</p>
<p>My hope is that many of the students who decline RD admission will have had great FA packages that can now be available for my kids.</p>
<p>That’s called “wishful thinking”. It might work that way, but money is tight these days, and financial aid departments typically allocate more money than they have simply because they are aware of their own yield. That is – if an RD kid walks away from a $20,000 grant, it doesn’t mean that the $20K is lying around to be given to a kid on the waitlist. More likely the for every $20K grant reflected in a financial aid packet, the college has probably offered $50K in aid dollars to various applicants, hoping that their predicted yield works to their advantage. </p>
<p>Similarly, the students who get really great financial aid packages are the least likely to walk away from the offers-- unless they have even better offers elsewhere. While the students who expected substantially more aid than they were offered are the ones most likely to turn down the spots.</p>
<p>I’d note that even if the student is offered need based aid, they are highly unlikely to be offered merit aid or a preferred financial aid package at that point. If they were in contention for merit aid (at colleges that offer it), they would probably have been admitted. (There may be an exception at schools with “Tufts Syndrome” – that is, if the school has waitlisted a high-stat applicant in the mistaken belief that the student was merely using them as a safety – so if the kid is waitlisted at a school they thought was a match or safety, then at least in theory it might be worthwhile to let the admissions department know that the student would attend if admitted and offered financial aid).</p>
<p>My hope is that many of the students who decline RD admission will have had great FA packages that can now be available for my kids.</p>
<p>money is tight these days, and financial aid departments typically allocate more money than they have simply because they are aware of their own yield. That is – if an RD kid walks away from a $20,000 grant, it doesn’t mean that the $20K is lying around to be given to a kid on the waitlist.</p>
<p>Very true. Schools have software models that tell them that if they offer X number of grants for Y dollars, that a certain percentage will likely accept. So, they “over offer” to get that expected acceptance.</p>
<p>Also, many schools do what is called “preferential packaging.” Which means that they give better FA packages to kids with higher stats. If such kids turn down their packages, a school isn’t going to give that money to a student on the waitlist (who likely has lower stats). Plus, as mentioned above, schools over-award $, knowing a certain % are going to decline. </p>
<p>If there is any extra money, it’s likely going into some reserve account to take care of mistakes or to take care of a future year when perhaps more kids with big FA packages accept.</p>
<p>Bumping since the WL are opening up.</p>
<p>S got off the WL but there is NO MONEY. He’s still going but it’s going to hurt.</p>
<p>Daughter got off wait list at Bard and package is same/better than RD schools. Now she has a hard choice because she had decided that she liked her safety.</p>
<p>You can never tell. The way to approach the wait list is to get on it if you think you might want to go there, commit to your best firm offer and forget about the wait listed school. If you clear the list with enough aid to afford it, then life is good. Otherwise, you are all set to go.</p>
<p>It is true that schools tend to have a model as to who is going to decline and how much total aid they can give out so they do give out more than they truly have. But the model can be off either way in any given year. So though it is a gamble that you get a good financial aid package from a school that does not guarantee to meet full aid for wait list student, it is possible. I remember telling a parent that the chances that his daughter would get aid from a prep school here in NY were very small as she was on the wait list, and lo, and behold she did. Enough kids with aid offers declined so that she was able to be offered a nice package. This is not something you can count on happening, however. Go with what you have for now, and take each new development as it arises.</p>