What I think you need to know:
-Student’s parents are divorced
-Mother does not work at the moment and is currently going to nursing school
-Father makes under $60k per year
What do you think the chances of receiving financial aid are? Also, if aid is rewarded, how much should be expected?
*Also, we own another house that is currently being rented out
*in addition, there is some money set aside for each child for college
There are two questions here. The first - do you qualify for financial aid is a pretty straight forward one. You can enter those figures to get a general idea of what your family can afford.
The second one - will you receive it - is much more difficult, and won’t be known until the end of the admissions process when you get notified of acceptance and/or financial aid availability.
The short answer is yes. If your student is admitted by a school with a good need-based FA program, they will be receiving aid because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to attend, period. How muc could you get? If you are in a school that meets 100% of financial need (there are a dozen out there I think), then you will receive significant aid. If not for your rental property, I’d say probably full or close to full aid. For other schools, it’d be a hit or miss. Some may reject you because of the heavy need but some may even offer your merit based scholarship if they have such a program. Still others will “gap” you so you have to come up with the at least some of the fund on your own.
I have a question about receiving or not receiving financial aid. I have heard on the financial aid form they have a box for how much you think you can afford. Any truth to that and if so how does someone get full FA? What schools have merit scholarships? My D is a niche position athlete and plays 2 other sports.
I just wrote a whole paragraph that didn’t post (only the first sentence did). I’ll try again another time.
@blue77skidoo: 1. Use the FA estimator on websites of some schools to get an idea how much you are eligible; 2. If you are making less than 75K with no significant assets, you will likely get a full ride in the “usual suspects” for generous FA programs; 3. On the SSS, enter 0 if that’s how much you feel you can contribute. 4. Look up a recent thread about merit based scholarships in BS. 6. if the kid is recruit worthy, chances of getting FA will increase.
Example of FA estimator:
It’s important to answer the estimator correctly, so you do not have any major changes when financial aid is actually rewarded. Also in the college calculators, it’s particular to each school, not sure if that’s true for boarding schools?
Although my husband wanted me to say we couldn’t afford anything, I was very straightforward about what we could afford (and “afford” means old cars, old falling-apart house not getting attention, no vacations, etc.). The amount of aid we receive corresponds closely to the amount I said we needed, but the school has all our financial information and thus knows that I gave an accurate, perhaps even generous, estimate. I doubt that what you say you can afford matters much except as it corresponds to the numbers.
If your DS is a niche position athlete that is needed will the coach have any influence on FA awarded or a possible mwrit scholarship?