<p>@gibby I know many of my classmates who have chosen to go to Pomona even though they have gotten into HYPS. Don’t just assume that kids who get into one of the HYPS choose to go to them instead of going to a school like Pomona, Williams or Amherst. </p>
<p>^^ Not sure how accurate this is, but 75% of students admitted to Harvard and Pomona, choose Harvard: <a href=“Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.”>Compare Colleges: Side-by-side college comparisons | Parchment - College admissions predictions.;
<p>Classof2018app, that’s right! Small is better than big to many students. Pomona has one of the biggest endowments among LACs in the US and is need blind even with international students who demonstrate need. BldrDad, you’re right that many schools see international students as an income source and do not give much FA, but if you’re from an impoverished underrepresented country and your family demonstrates need, plenty of schools will meet your full need. How do you know which ones? One clue, though not ironclad, is to see if the admissions office has an admissions person specifically assigned to recruit from your part of the world. That’s sometimes an indication that the college is prepared to give FA. The advice is to apply and see what happens. And request Common App fee waivers at each college you’re applying to if you need to. </p>
<p>FWIW: Four years ago, my son applied to 12 colleges and was lucky enough to be accepted to 11 of them, including Pomona. Our family earns about $150k per year with average savings. We had a second child already enrolled in college (at Harvard). I still have the spreadsheet I used to compare our yearly Cost of Attendance (COA) at each school after financial aid. For our family, Yale’s COA came out ahead of every college including Harvard; Pomona’s financial aid was in the high-middle range, behind our flagship state college, SUNY Binghamton, which offered no aid.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, these numbers are from 4 years ago; since then tuition has risen, and so has the financial aid offered. Everyone’s financial situation is different, but family’s should use a college’s net-price calculator, which was not available at the time my son or daughter applied to college, to get a handle on the COA of college’s on your list.
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<p>Theoretically, what’s the best financial aid offer one could get from HYPS? Can it get better than $0 EFC (i.e. parents pay nothing but the student is still expected to work throughout the year)? </p>
<p>Part of every college’s financial aid package contains a portion of “self-help” which includes income from summer employment and a term time job. That’s true for all students, even those on full scholarship. </p>
<p>When a college awards financial aid, they expect students to earn that self-help money over the course of a year, so that money is not awarded. So, in theory, while a parent’s EFC could be $0, a student’s EFC will never be $0. Look at Yale’s examples of financial aid: <a href=“http://www.yale.edu/tuba/finaid/finaid-information/how-need-based-aid-works.html”>http://www.yale.edu/tuba/finaid/finaid-information/how-need-based-aid-works.html</a></p>
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In the above example, a student would owe the university $1,425 per semester. In return, the university expects the student to earn that money over the course of year from summer employment and a term time job. Some students, in lieu of doing those things, opt to take out a loan instead.</p>
<p>For international students, who cannot work by law during the school year in the US, the lowest EFC probably be equal to summer employment, which I believe at Harvard is somewhere around $2,000 to $2,500 per year. </p>
<p>In addition, if a student receives a scholarship that includes room and board, in addition to tuition, the room and board portion is taxable by the IRS: <a href=“Should I Claim Scholarships & Other Awards on My Taxes? | Fastweb”>Should I Claim Scholarships & Other Awards on My Taxes? | Fastweb;
<p>Would I be correct in assuming that Harvard would NOT match the term-time work expectation portion of the financial aid package (i.e. if another of YPS were to expect me to work for $1000 during the term for example, Harvard would not accordingly reduce their expectation from me as they possibly would with parents’ contribution)?</p>
<p>Having seen HYP’s financial aid packages, all of them pretty much have the exact same “self help” expectations – the dollar difference between HYP student contributions was maybe $100-$150. So, if you really pushed it, you might get one of them to match a competing college’s student EFC by that amount. </p>
<p>FWIW: College financial aid offices treat parent contributions separately than student contributions – they don’t mix and match from one to the other. So, when asking a college to reevaluate a financial aid package based upon another peer school’s offer, you need to ask them to reexamine the parent contribution portion, as usually the student contribution will pretty much be the same.</p>
<p>@go4cornell. I really don’t understand all this unnecessary mental ********tion about what theoretically S or H or Y or P would offer…until you get the “golden winning lotto ticket(s)” from the other school(s) in March or April…this is all hogwash! Getting in during the regular round to any of these schools especially S is going to be even more daunting than in the early round…</p>
<p>I’m sorry @gravitas2 I didn’t mean to sound forward/arrogant. I was actually using this to decide whether to apply to other schools or not for the regular decision round (I’m not just assuming that I am going to apply to all these schools for RD and get in to all of them). So I sincerely apologize if I have offended or upset you in any way.</p>
<p>@go4cornell: I agree with @gravitas2. If your family needs financial aid, you should apply to colleges based on which will supply the most aid. But, trying to determine which colleges would match aid is a purely academic discussion until you have those offers in hand. I can tell you from experience that very few students find themselves blessed with a wealth of choices, like my son did. Ninety-six to ninety-seven percent of students in the RD round are rejected by HYPS and will never have the luxury of comparing aid packages at one of those schools versus a handful of small liberal arts college like Pomona, Williams etc. So, at this juncture, it’s a waste of your brain time trying to figure out which colleges might match HYPS’s aid and what portions of their aid would they match. It’s all theory until you have a fat envelope in hand.</p>
<p>@go4cornell. No offense taken. Just be realistic…the odds of you having a “choice” among these school(s) in April is pretty much limited by where you get accepted…our kids were fortunate enough to “have” a choice to pick among those schools for “fit”…but, the vast majority do not as @gibby has noted…</p>
<p>…come back in April with your option(s) and we will talk then ;)… </p>
<p>I dont believe any of them care to match for an international. There will be an international ready to take their place if one drops.</p>
<p>OTOH, If your name is Malala, they will give you an entire dorm to accommodate your entourage.</p>
<p>How about Cooper Union? They charge tuition now, but it’s still a remarkable deal. </p>
<p>My vote is Deep Springs: “Every student accepted to Deep Springs receives a scholarship covering tuition, room, and board valued at over $50,000. Students need only pay for travel, books, and incidentals, which we estimate to be less than $2,800 per year.”</p>
<p>It seems as though this discussion has somewhat veered away from what my original intent was. So please allow me to pose a new question for clarification purposes: Will Harvard reduce it’s student term-time work expectation from $3000 (especially if another college offers you less than this)? Or is it a standard amount that cannot and will not be changed once one is on financial aid (according to Harvard’s NPC, this figure remains at $3000 regardless of the amount of aid one receives)?</p>
<p>As I said in a previous post, HYPSM, the rest of the ivies, the little ivies, and pretty much the top 20 colleges in the US, include a “self-help” portion in their financial aid package – meaning a student is supposed to contribute to their own education through summer employment and a term time job totaling about $3,000. If presented with another college’s self-help offer, Harvard might (there’s no guarantee) reduce your self-help portion of aid to match another school’s offer. But, as the self-help portion doesn’t vary that greatly between school’s – no more than several hundred dollars between any two schools – it’s going to have a negligible effect. You might go from $3,000 down to $2,750, but, it will never go down to $1,000 or $0. You can petition Harvard (or another college) on a year-by-year basis to reduce your self-help portion due to extraordinary circumstances. For example, if you were to get a summer job as an intern that didn’t pay any money, you could ask Harvard to reduce your summer earnings to zero. But that would be a one-time occurrence.</p>
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On reflection, I would like to amend that statement. Your self-help portion of a financial aid package can go down to $0 if you receive outside awards:<a href=“Types of Aid”>https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/types-aid/outside-awards</a></p>
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<p>The Gates Scholarship will cover a students work study.</p>
The general rule I have read is that each student goes to 60% of the original EFC, so that the EFC would be 120% of the EFC for one student. Still more, but not anywhere near double.
However, both schools must be on board with that principle, it is wise to check.
Is what was said earlier true (i.e. that schools tend to not match offers for international students)?