<p>I plan on attending Wake Forest University. Although I have not been officially accepted, I am almost certain that I have been accepted. The issue I care about more is the financial aid. Does anyone know if Wake offers lots of loans in its package? I know that it will meet my full need, but will this include lots of loans?</p>
<p>My FAFSA EFC: $4,500
My institutional methodology EFC: $0</p>
<p>Wake uses IM as its primary method of awarding grant aid, and uses the federal EFC to determine things like Pell grants. Does this mean that, based on a low IM EFC, my parents may not have pay anything for my Wake Forest education? Does this also mean that I will get lots of grants and low amounts of loans? I'm seriously freaking out, because I know that I'm willing to go into debt for a fantastic school such as Wake, but I don't want to be 30,000+ in loans by graduation, althoug 30,000 would be fine. Opinions? Comments? Help PLEASE!</p>
<p>Wake offers both need-based and merit aid. If they really want you, they’ll throw some merit money your way. OTOH, Wake is not generous with need-based aid. They include private loans on top of the standard federal loans and work study. Before the economic meltdown, WF was trying to boost its aid packages, but dunno if they have found the funds to do so.</p>
<p>EFC stands for Expected Family Contribution. At the least, your parents will need to contribute the $4500 unless you can get it waived.</p>
<p>Wake meets 100% of need, but they do so with a combination of grants, institutional money and loans. Even with your low EFC, I would be prepared for some debt.</p>
<p>I’m absolutely prepared for debt, I accept that I’lll have at least 20,000 by graduation, but I heard that Wake Forest makes families pay much more than either of the EFCs, and I thought that this sounded incorrect. From my understanding, it sounds like based on my numbers, my parents will pay their EFC, which should be between $0 and $4500, I will get a large part of it paid by Wake Forest, a small government amount paid, and some loans between $5000-$10000 a year. But does this sound accurate? This is just what I got from my surface-level research, but does it hold validity?</p>
<p>My son is a freshman at wake and absolutely loves it. We were extremely pleased with the finanical aid pkg we received last year - it was the best one we received. I felt they did meet full need. The pkg was a combination of a large (in my opinion) grant, a Perkins loan, a Stafford loan, a CitiAssist loan and work study. We chose to decline the 2nd and 3rd loans. So, because of that, the amount we paid was a bit higher than our EFC, but that was our choice. had we taken everything they offered, the amount we paid would have matched our EFC very closely. I realize different people have different expectations, but I thought they were very generous and that pkg was the tipping point for why he chose Wake Forest.</p>
<p>A Perkins loan and a Stafford loan and a citi assist loan? That sounds like a fair bit in loans?</p>
<p>rockvillemom - if you are offered the same this years look closely as you may want to change things. The interest rate for subsidized Staffords will be lower for the 2010-2011 school year than for Perkins loans (4.5% for Sub Staffords and 5% for Perkins). Also I have heard that Perkins may be changing to unsub loans (not sure if that is this year though). So the order of best federal student loans for 2010-2011 is probably subsidized Staffords, Perkins, Unsub Staffords. (Prior to this year Perkins was better than sub Stafford).</p>
<p>Obviously, a college PR machine can spin what they want. But including a private loan in the ‘meets 100% of need’ criteria is not typical for school ranked similarly. Indeed, other schools that do the same do not claim to meet 100% of need. Moreover, the instructions for the Common Data set make it clear that private loans are to be excluded in that reporting. </p>
<p>Rather disappointing, IMO, particularly for a college with such a strong honor code…hmmmmmmm</p>
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<p>Glad it worked out for you r-mom (l lived in Rockville in a former life). But, last year on cc, there were many students who had to go elsewhere bcos the $$ was much better, even tho they preferred WF.</p>