Haverford was my absolute top school. I interviewed, I visited, and I did the works from essays to talking to coaches. Flash forward to decision and I’m pretty nervous, but I’ve gotten into some other schools so I keep it calm and collected, I’m a real cool customer. Inbox notification pops up, I pause, pray for the first time in a decade, and open it. Cue a scream that probably scared the neighbors when the email says I got in.
Now for me that’s only half the battle. With the middle-class family, not poor enough but not rich enough to make financing easy, I was still nervous about aid. I’m sure that some of you are aware of the fact that Haverford doesn’t send out financial aid concurrently with your decision email, but rather it comes in the mail about a week later. I was excited that I got in, but other similar liberal arts college had offered me virtually no money (Hamilton literally said I didn’t qualify for aid), so I wasn’t expecting a ton.
Letter comes in and it’s about par for the course. A few thousand dollars that might as well be 0 when looking at a 70K plus price tag. I move on with my life and get ready to accept my cheaper/ more affordable schools. Admittedly some of these schools were very good, they just weren’t my top choices.
Due to the discrepancy with how much my family makes and all of our aid offers being so low, we decided to talk to a consultant about our next moves. She advised that I call every college that offered me aid, or didn’t, and ask them why they offered me what they did.
First up, obviously, were the Squirrels. I call and get put on hold, then transferred, and eventually leave a message with someone. Not a promising start, but hey. A few hours later I get a call back from an admissions counselor, and I ask why I didn’t get much aid. I explicitly mention how the aid sheet says my family falls tens of thousands of dollars short in expected contribution, and how it surprised me that they came to that conclusion yet college grant I received was peanuts (relatively speaking). At first the counselor offered me some valid explanations and explained how there wasn’t an appeal process, and how every offer made by Haverford tends to meet full need. She pulls up my file and, because good ol’ persistence is all you need sometimes, realizes that they sent me the wrong letter.
I was actually awarded over 20,000 in need based aid, not the few thousand the letter in the mail said. Haverford, in the space of 20 minutes, became a school I could actually feasibly attend.
Just felt like sharing that positivity, and letting everyone know that of course colleges make mistakes sometimes, and it never hurts to just reach out and ask.
Peace.