<p>i'm trying to stab to death all hope these financial aid notices bring...</p>
<p>I just have to keep reminding myself that the state schools I applied to like to consider me "already enrolled," and remember that all schools do that all the time so if you happen to be one of the people to get in, they've already started trying to win you over.</p>
<p>i got that email too about not applying for financial aid....do you think its a good sign or just a generic email?</p>
<p>Concerning relationship of letters from financial aid office and acceptance, hope some of you can shed more light on this. . .we have heard nothing from financialid, though we submitted facsa. We doubt that we will get financial aid as we most probably will not qualify for need and, it seems, Barnard does not give merit alone. Did those of you who heard from financial aid think you might qualify for need based aid? Did most people applying rd for september 2006 hear from financial aid?</p>
<p>Current students, what was your experience with the relationship of financial aid office inquiries and acceptance?. Did financial aid only contact those who seemed to have a good chance of qualifying for need based or did those with expected family contributions equal to the cost of attending for a year also hear from financial aid.</p>
<p>Do any of you have more data on this correlation. Also, we have not been receiving catalogs or any literature from them. My daughter seems to be a solid candidate vis a vis stats. Please clarify especially those of you already students at B. </p>
<p>This is all very discouraging if true. Thanks </p>
<p>Kinkosmom</p>
<p>Just to shed some light on the whole financial aid thing:</p>
<p>I used to work at the financial aid office of a liberal arts college. The process was to create a file for every student who had applied for financial aid. There was absolutely no communication with the admissions office in the early stages. So, regardless of whether a candidate was likely to be offered admission or not, every student had a file and was required to submit all necessary documents.</p>
<p>The financial aid officers would use the information to calculate somewhat rough estimates of how much aid they could offer a certain student, and what types of aid might be included in the package. Of course, nothing is finalized, and often the amount and types are estimates, educated guesses, or ranges. Often this early stage would only require documentation from the previous year (not current year tax returns).</p>
<p>Admissions would contact Financial Aid periodically about students they had rejected early on in the process (I would go ahead and clean out the students' files and shred the documents). They would also let us know of which students they had admitted early. These students' files would get moved to an "Accepted" bin and the officers would get to work on specifying and calculating all award packages for these students to the exact dollar and cents amounts.</p>
<p>The big crunch would happen towards the end of the admissions process, when the adcomm would make most of its decisions in one big rush (well, it seemed that way to us but I'm sure it only seemed that way to us because they contacted us about large batches of students in such short time). Get on the wrong side of a aid officer then, and you might hear some nasty stuff.</p>
<p>If you submitted FAFSA, the CSS PROFILE, Barnard's financial aid application, and all supporting documents correctly, you might not even hear anything back from the office. They will often contact students who they feel they need more information from, or those who did not submit required documents. Your D should've gotten an e-mail with a password with which she can check the status of her financial aid application, however. My D got one in late February.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for that full explanation.</p>
<p>It sounds as if if we sent in all correct docs, we might not hear even if she did get in. Also, it sounds as if she was rejected early in the process, we also might not hear from financial aid, asking for stuff. That seems to be what you are suggesting?</p>
<p>I am not sure if she got word from her financial aid on line tracking system. but do you think it would be helpful to call them and ask the status of her financial aid appliction or do you think that would make them angry?</p>
<p>Did you mean to suggest that bothering financial aid people could influence outcome of decision or were you just suggesting (humorously a word outof my vocab. during these stressful weeks) that it is a stressful period for financial aid workers? </p>
<p>Thanks.Again, thanks for taking the time to respond.</p>
<p>Kinkosmom, My D has not heard from the FA office regarding specifics of her application though she did get the online PIN ID sometime in February. She has gotten EE likely letter from Wellesley so I assume she's strong candidate for Barnard too--so I wouldn't worry too much about lack of communication, though I understand your anxiety. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>If you're curious of the status of your D's financial aid application, by all means do call the office. They won't get mad or anything! :) If your daughter hasn't received a PIN number for checking the app. status, you could ask for it over the phone.</p>
<p>I was just trying to be humorous in my previous post. People at the office are very professional and helpful, esp. at LACs. I think that's a big reason why students want to go to these small colleges: the faculty and staff are helpful and friendly...always willing to go out on a limb to help students and their families.</p>
<p>Of course, the student workers at Admissions and FinAid sometimes grumble about the high volume of work during crunch periods, but it's all in good humor. ;)</p>
<p>kinkosmom,
i'm really not sure about the connection between financial aid and acceptance (and i feel a little weird about asking my barnard friends if they got finaid letters) but my family was definitely expecting aid, and we got such letters. however, there were some discrepancies in our paperwork and that seemed to be why they contacted us. my mother insisted that they meant i was accepted (i got angry at her for this because i didnt want her getting my hopes up) but, come march 28, i was.
dont get discouraged though!</p>
<p>Thanks scarfmadness and-mom-. for your kind reassurances.</p>
<p>I did call fin. aid and they assured me there is absolutely no correlation between contact from their office and acceptance. They very kindly and clearly explained that if, based on your profile and your facsa, it seemed that your numbers indicated you might qualify for financial aid, then they may contact you to either ask for further info. or to ask if you are sure you do not want to apply because your profile or fafsa suggest you may qualify for need based. </p>
<p>If however, your profile and fafsa clearly suggest you would not qualify for aid, then they do not contact you.</p>
<p>THEY PROMISED THAT THEY DO NOT TALK WITH ADMISSIONS AND DO NOT KNOW WHO HAS BEEN ACCEpTED OR WHERE PEOPLE ARE IN THE PROCESS.</p>
<p>So that was a great relief for me.</p>
<p>Are we sure that the letters are being sent out on the 23rd?</p>
<p>has there been any indication of that? based on when letters were received last year and the year before, it seems like they're usually sent out a couple days later. i got mine on the 28th.</p>
<p>"I was told by the admissions office that they will be sending out all the decision letters on March 23rd this year."</p>
<p>by victorial on the page before. Has anyone else heard this? Or is it more likely the 28th??</p>
<p>well, i guess you'll just have to wait.</p>
<p>The application status check link is now missing from the admissions website. Think it means anything?</p>
<p>What link? Give the site here</p>
<p>the old site to track your app (the one that you got a pin for on your email)...on the admission page. It's no longer there.</p>
<p>Yeah, you can't check your application status any more. Maybe they've finished reaching decisions...must be waiting to send out the letters in the next week or so. At least, that's my guess as to why they took it down.</p>
<p>I can't wait.....!!! I found out about Smith today, so I really want to find out about all my other women's schools. Ahhhhhh</p>
<p>wait what, you found out from smith already?</p>
<p>why am i so late... and why don't i get any e-mails?</p>
<p>I just telephoned Admissions and they told me that decisions will be mailed on this coming Friday and that no email will be sent. The person who spoke with me was very nice and seemed to know what she was talking about. We're all a bit crazed waiting to hear on this end!</p>