<p>NYU (Stern) gave me 0.
Let me repeat: 0!?!
and EFC is extremely low.</p>
<p>It was after that day that I lost most of my respect for the school. What good is getting into a school if you can't afford to go there?
Yeah.</p>
<p>UCSD gave me $0. Yes, no grant money at all.
Even Berkeley gave me more! $600 in grants :|</p>
<p>I think people need to understand that colleges tend to give overqualified students less FA because the chances of that student actually going to their school is relativly low, either in the form of more loans and less merit or grants or just overall less FA. Example. Our vale from 2006 applied to Upenn Wharton as a reach and I believe it was Umich or MSU as a safety. He got half scholorship at Wharton and 600, i repeat 600 in FA from his safety. My school talked about this for the whole year and even the admin's were in the joking and gossiping....lol =]</p>
<p>Unless that student is in-state for MSU or UM, this result doesn't surprise me. Using an OOS public as a financial safety is never a good idea. Most public school FA policies are about keeping their own best in state first before looking for someone else's. </p>
<p>However, if those publics are in-state, I would say that the grants were a bit disappointing.</p>
<p>Fuzzy:</p>
<p>Those numbers make a lot of sense in-state. In the first place, Penn does not offer 'scholarships', only need-based financial aid. And, at $50k, Penn is at least two times as costly as UMich or MSU in-state. For example, a family with an efc of $25k would make UMich and MSU full pay, i.e, zero need-based aid. But, that efc would earn a lot of need-based aid at Penn.</p>
<p>sambino: sry that NYU didn't work out for you. But, after reading cc for awhile, NYU is one of those colleges that continues to show up in the list of good finaid if they really want you, i.e., higher in the app pool, but lotsa loans if you are lower in the app pool. GW is another one that plays this game.</p>
<p>I am sorry, Sambino, that it did not work out for you with NYU. But if you look at the financial aid profile that NYU has, you can see that it gaps a lot. Yes, you can get a generous award if you fall into a category where they really want you; we know some kids who got their best package from NYU (one quite questionable, in my opinion, as the big hook for this kid was athletic prowess and being on a NYU team with NYU being a D-3 school that is not supposed to be giving preferential packaging to athletes, but something I see alot) but we have seen more get their worst offer from there. Friends of ours got their best offers from GW whereas NYU and BU gave them essentially zip.</p>
<p>I have been trying to suppress the urge to post on this thread for awhile, but I am only human and I am now giving in to temptation...</p>
<p>Wake Forest gave my D the worst FA out of the schools where she applied. With a COA of approx $49,000, we would have been saddled with $30,000 in loans (they even included the Plus loan as a part of the package!?). She had great stats that would have placed in her in Wake's top 25 percentile. So of course, I found it quite amusing when they announced the decision to do away with the SAT requirement. I see that approach as a smoke screen to accept applicants that have mediocre SAT's and/or grades, but have parents with deep pockets. If Wake gave better FA, they probably wouldn't have to resort such measures!</p>
<p>is it possible/common for a college to give great FA for the first year to kind of lure you in, and in the future give poor FA?</p>
<p>Tealover, I have wondered about that as well. Even with those schools that meet 100% demonstrated need, they get to determine the amount of the need. Even when your general income doesn't increase too much, there's the portion of scholarships that must be claimed as income. Which, in itself, could possibly put a family into another FA income bracket.</p>
<p>If colleges were trying to lower their graduation percentages, they might play such games with FA, but it seems that most schools want to attract applicants, and those that don't need to have lots of money (i.e., Ivies).</p>
<p>How can a school look a student in the eye and say it is meeting full need while budgeting loans in the package.
The government or somebody should be on top of this one, although the education business pretty well has the government in its pocket.
I'd love to see a college or university say "We are sorry we can't meet your full need, but if you borrow X dollars, you can cover the freight."</p>
<p>The loans are not hidden; there is no deceit. The wealthiest schools seem to be in the process of eliminating loans. If schools with limited endowments eliminated loans, they would be able to support fewer students; it's a zero-sum game. We (well, maybe not you) generally agree that loans are part of FA, and whether or not a school utters the words "meeting full need" when including loans is immaterial. In most cases, loans are present, and we all know it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The government or somebody should be on top of this one, although the education business pretty well has the government in its pocket.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Charles Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee sent out questionnaires to all of the high-endowment colleges asking about their financial aid practices, in great detail, and I expect the Senate report based on those questionnaires will be very interesting reading.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So of course, I found it quite amusing when they announced the decision to do away with the SAT requirement. I see that approach as a smoke screen to accept applicants that have mediocre SAT's and/or grades, but have parents with deep pockets.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That may be the real story behind several SAT-optional colleges. Being test-score-optional hides the ball about which applicants are really favored applicants: rich applicants.</p>
<p>well I have heard of FA lowering for schools like USC and UCs...so I was just wondering if it is common</p>
<p>Re: post #343 ... I am sorry that your administrators are so ignorant, Fuzzy. As BlueBayou noted, UPenn has a much higher COA than UM or MSU. Their financial aid, although called "scholarship," is 100% based on need. That is, any student who is admitted & who has a need will receive a "scholarship." It has nothing to do with merit whatsoever ... just financial need. UM and MSU cost much less ... UM instate is less than 1/2 the cost of UPenn. Obviously, the need would not be the same. If you are talking OOS, the cost of UM goes way up ... but the aid does not ... because it is a PUBLIC school & does not have the endowment to give grants the way UPenn does.</p>
<p>With administrators who are clueless about the financial aid system, it's no wonder students & parents don't get it.</p>
<p>kelsmom's analysis of that story is correct.</p>
<p>Yup. Our GCs were still talking this spring about how there are lots of scholarships, FA will work with families, etc. and made it sound like paying for it would be the least of one's worries. They also asked me to offer a parent's perspective on the admissions process, and I focused entirely on the need to identify financial safeties, that EFC doesn't equal what a family <em>thinks</em> it can pay, the differences between FAFSA and PROFILE methodologies, etc. A lot of parents came up to me afterwards and were asking how many kids from the program attend the state flagship (which is very generous with merit money), and were those kids challenged and happy. </p>
<p>And a P.S. to kelsmom's excellent post -- in the past Penn has done preferential FA packaging to top candidates.</p>
<p>CountingDown, my D went to a very good parochial high school. When I went to the junior parent meeting in the spring of her junior year, I was amazed by the head gc's ignorance. She gave some erroneous info, and I ended up spending quite a bit of time talking to parents after the meeting ... explaining how things <em>really</em> are. For example, the gc told parents that our state merit award could not be used OOS ... at the time (no longer, unfortunately), students could take $1000 OOS. It wasn't the full $2500, but it was better than nothing. I didn't raise my hand during the meeting to correct her, because I wanted to be certain I was correct. I called the state scholarship office the next day & got confirmation, then I called the counseling office & left a message with the secretary. She told me that she was sure parents would be happy to know that ... yet the info was never communicated to parents. I wonder how many students missed out on $1000? That's just the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p>I happened to be perusing PR's Best xx colleges and noticed that NYU topped their list of colleges with disappointing financial aid....</p>