<p>Let say my EFC is 10000$. Lets say a need aware school wants me, but they can only give me 30000$, which leaves me with paying 20000$. what happens? do they simply reject me? I'm asking because if the difference is 10000$ a year I can find a way to come up with that..</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>The admissions decision is separate from the financial aid decision. A need aware school will admit students who need financial aid, but they will consider that need as a factor in admission. If they are sure they want the student, no problem – they will admit the student. If they aren’t sure they want the student – then the fact that the student needs financial aid will probably mean that the student will be rejected or waitlisted. </p>
<p>I think in practice “need aware” probably works more often in a positive way for full-pay students, than in a negative way for those needing aid. That is, I think that the fact that a student is full pay will be a big plus on their application and a boost for those students who are borderline for admission. </p>
<p>A lot also depends on the schools financial aid policies. If they commit to meeting 100% of need for all admitted students, but are need aware – then they are likely to reject borderline students who need financial aid. They will know roughly how many “needy” students they can afford to admit, and will stick within those numbers. They may get reports back from their financial aid department from time to time – the reports won’t be based on individual students but rather will give running totals. That is, they might get a report back that says that 80% of the financial aid budget has been used up with the students already admitted, an that there are 200 admitted students who have sought and qualified for aid. If 200 students use up 80% of the budget, that would imply that the college could admit 50 more students needing aid. They wouldn’t look at how much aid each individual student needs – but maybe after admitting 35 more students, they’d ask for another report from financial aid, and see if they are still on track.</p>
<p>If the college does not promise to meet full need of all its students, the ad com might also have some sort of scoring system that communicates to the financial aid department, or enrollment management department, how much the ad com wants a particular student. So they might admit a particular financially needy student, but signal that they aren’t all that enthusiastic — and then that person might be given a very skimpy financial aid award, such as one that is only loans.</p>