Hi, I was accepted into Wellesley, which is my top choice school, but with zero financial aid. I would be over 100k in debt if I accept, and I just can’t in good conscious do that to myself or my family. But equally, I feel like Wellesley is the best place for me to be, both academically and socially, not to mention the job opportunities it would eventually open up. I have a meeting set with the financial aid department tomorrow, and I’m wondering what the likelihood is of them agreeing to give me money. I would need about 15k to consider it seriously - I was offered 22k from Fordham and 14k from American University respectively. Has anyone found any success in financial aid appeals to Wellesley? The financial situation that my FAFSA was based on (from 2014) is very different from where my family is at now. My dad has switched jobs twice since then, in one case being forced to resign without severance, despite 22 faithful years with the company. We were also living abroad at the time and the company paid for our rent, my private schooling, and our car. Are there any tips or advice you can share for making successful appeals to Wellesley?
Get your new FAFSA in with the updated numbers as soon as possible. Fordham and American are in a different category from Wellesley and I doubt they will care what you got from these other schools, but they will care what your current financials are and make adjustments accordingly. In my D’s case, they took into consideration what we expected to make in the upcoming year when deciding her award and it helped us immensely. They can only assess based on the info you gave them–so if you gave them old outdated info, let them know so they can correct it.
@redpoodles thank you for your advice. I agree, Fordham isn’t ranked close to Wellesley, so that offer likely won’t help me in negotiations. However, the RD acceptance rate for American was 23% this year, with an overall of 25%. I’m not sure if this will help me, as unfortunately American’s reputation hasn’t caught up with its lower numbers yet.