<p>ugh...
GW founded - 1821
AU founded - 1893</p>
<p>reiterating my point in post 18...when i tell my friends that i applied to american they think its some international school in egypt...and when i tell them i applied to george washington they get it confused with georgetown....and are like"wow"....they get the real g-town confused with georgetown college in KY, which is a 4th tier LBA school that was ironically founded several years before g-town in dc</p>
<p>i do have one story worth sharing.....a friend of mine who graduated last year had decent grades, mixed heritage, great essay, lousy SAT's 1100 on the button, got into GW plus other good schools and is not attending GW. Do you think his acceptance had to do with his parents being able to foot that tremendous tuition bill without any aid? Just curious!</p>
<p>Yeah, there are obviously students like that at GW and any other tier 2 / lower tier 1 school... But they do not make up the majority.</p>
<p>American is basically to GW as GW is to Georgetown. Neither school likes to admit it, but it's pretty obvious.</p>
<p>I am surprised that you all had such bad financial aid packages. My mom is a schoolteacher too and my dad is unemployed too (what a coincidence!), and I received over $30,000 in grants from GW and then another $8000 in loans/work study. We appealed and they added another $2000 of grants to my package.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that there are ways to minimize the costs. For example, my sophomore year, my roommate and I moved to Dupont Circle where we paid only $500/month (per person) in rent and utilities. We bought all our groceries at Safeway; we didn't eat on campus.</p>
<p>Well,
I went to the fin aid office and they HOOKED me big time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got over 45000 dollars in grants/work study and scholarship. I'm really happy with my package.</p>
<p>Hellobaby, did you get this financial aid as a freshman? Do you feel going in to the office in person made a difference? When did you go into the office? My son's package was okay, but he was still not the best when you consider the cost, nor did it meet the difference between our EFC and total cost of GW. Do you have any thoughts as to how to increase financial aid packages for students?
You ended up with only a $6,000 deficit. That is amazing!! Perhaps you had a very low EFC.
Thanks!</p>
<p>Well, finanicial aid tends to decrease as your D or S contiunes at GW, but for some reason, this is the best package I've gotten since I've been at G-Dub. And yeah, my EFC is really low, I'm from a single parent family and I have two sisters in college and brother who attends a private all-boys school.</p>
<p>PS
DEFINITELY make a trip to the fin aid office!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>Some of the posts on this thread are so ridiculous! "I know someone who knows someone who is really 'rich'....blah...blah ..blah" Nobody knows what someone else's financial situation is. You can't always tell by external appearances. So coming your situation to someone else's or trying to figure out why someone was accepted is pure speculation and really not a good use of time.</p>