Williams vs. Brown vs. Bowdoin

<p>My daughter is trying to choose between Brown/Williams/Bowdoin. She is an athlete and is planning on studying premed. She is a very hard worker, not your typical genious. So, she will be juggling athletics/classes/work study. My problem is the money that these colleges charge. Will one of these schools be able to give a better financial aid package than the other; I've heard that Williams gives more grant money. We are a middle income family, she is the youngest of 3, our oldest daughter graduated, the middle daughter is graduating in May and going on to grad school in the Fall, and we have student loans out that we are helping pay back for them. We have found that getting a loan is much harder than it was 6 years ago. Our EFC on the FAFSA is of coarse more than we could possible come up with. So, what to do. One school wants her to sign a "likely letter". So, in her heart if she signed this letter she feels that it would be binding. And she is so excited about going to this school. Is it worth it to take try to take out the loans for undergrad? She has a few other schools which might give her more money and she has applied for a lot of scholarships. Do you have any suggestions??? I would love some help here. Thanks for listening and hopefully helping,</p>

<p>lalowe – you might want to post this on the Financial Aid and College Admissions/Specialty/Recruited Athletes forums, too, for some helpful responses.</p>

<p>I’ll give you what little information I have based on my son’s experience this year. He is a recruited DIII athlete, interested primarily in top Northeast LAC’s. Because financial aid would be important to us, we resisted coaches’ urgings to apply ED. We knew it would be important to compare aid packages. Besides schools like Bowdoin, Williams, Wesleyan and some others with only need-based aid, he applied to other decent, but not top-20, LACs at which he was likely to be admitted and to receive 15,000 or so in merit aid. These were all $50,000/yr. + schools. He also got some attractive scholarships from some publics.</p>

<p>S ended up applying ED II(Jan. 1 date) to Bowdoin, a school whose coach had guaranteed him a roster spot if he got in. We let S go ED II after we had a better idea of our finances/taxes than we had in early Nov. and after getting some estimates of our EFC from various calculators. Bowdoin’s aid packages still are loan-free.Williams still is for this year, but has announced loans will be back in packages starting with admits in 2011 (I believe the 2010 aid recipients will be grandfathered though, so this change would not be a concern for you.)</p>

<p>S was admitted and will attend. The grants from Bowdoin were less than we hoped, but just slightly lower than the EFC we’d calculated, so we weren’t shocked. We’re hoping the aid may be adjusted slightly upward based on our updated data now that tax returns have been filed, but their web site refers only to downward adjustments, so we’re not holding our breath.</p>

<p>So, at least with Bowdoin, you probably should assume the aid will be pretty close to what you’ve seen as an EFC. I have the impression that will be the same at the others. We intentionally had S apply to schools that meet 100% of need and if, possible, were loan-free.</p>

<p>One other thing I’ve realized is that because S had his heart set on Bowdoin, if he had not let him apply ED and we had waited for RD decisions from the other schools at which he could play his sport and was certain of merit aid, it would have been very tough to tell him he had to attend a school that was at a lower level academically and athletically for financial reasons. I realize many families do that, but that’s why we tried to steer him toward schools we thought were going to turn out to have good aid packages.</p>

<p>Good luck! Great schools. Tough decisions.</p>

<p>I can only speak to our experience with Williams. My daughter’s aid was very close to the estimate provided by the calculator on the Williams website. The FA experience was very smooth, we had a couple of questions which were answered clearly and quickly. She’s in a no-loan class but I wouldn’t hesitate to ask if they can tell you what to expect in terms of loans in the future. If your daughter is entering this fall than that is not an issue.</p>

<p>The loan thing may be bit of a ruse. Schools get to define how much money they are giving, loans or no loans. I’ve been running calculators for my next child and I noticed one school which is giving less in grants while remaining “loan-free”. You have to compare the bottom line. It doesn’t really matter if a school is “no-loan” if they expect more money from you to begin with. As an example, school ‘A’ wants 20K, school ‘W’ wants 15K, and meets the balance with a package with contains a 2K loan to be paid back. The second is still the better option.</p>

<p>We did well with Williams’ FA. Was the best package we received, excepting one. However, generalizations don’t work because the aid formulas are so complicated that one can only judge after they have been awarded.</p>

<p>We didn’t find our packages differing enough that it would have been a deal breaker. We told the kids as long as we could afford it, they could choose their school.</p>

<p>My D did not choose the school with the best package, but the difference was under $2K so we didn’t make “the bottom line” the decider.</p>

<p>All the aid packages were within the ball park.</p>

<p>I will say that the more selective schools gave better packages, even taking the merit money some of the lesser schools gave into account.</p>

<p>However, that is not true for everyone either.</p>

<p>I would advise against “early commits” as well. if she’s that good, why get rid of all those choices now? I would wait on the LL til Fall.</p>

<p>My D3 athlete went ED to the school he liked the best. My husband (College prof, economist) figured out that the aid package would be very close wherever, and that the loans were up to our S to pay back, if that’s where he really wanted to go.</p>

<p>Considering the state of the economic challenges facing our nation, and thus our family, I would consider finances first and foremost. You need to consider your viability along with your interests. I was fortunate to have been given consideration at the time of my acceptance. </p>

<p>Please consider Williams within the parameters of your financial abilities as this is a fine and great institution.</p>

<p>My best for your daughter as I had from my father.</p>

<p>Cheers!</p>