<p>Is it just me or is the financial aid office bull. I email them after trying to call and having no one answer for 30 minutes or more (so I have no other alternative but to hang up because I do have other things to do) and then when I finally do email them I get the most vague replies EVER. Is anyone else going through this?</p>
<p>No, you definitely are not. After failing to get a hold of them on several calls during my free time over the past week, I decided to send them an email asking everything I wanted to know. There were several questions in the email that anyone working in a financial aid office should know, but in response I got a very vague response that answered virtually none of my questions. It felt like an automated message.</p>
<p>Anyway, the times that I have spoken with them, they were helpful and nice, but still...</p>
<p>I feel like I have to force it out of them,with the emails, by emailing them back. I got the rudest answers that basically said "sorry." I mean, my education is on the line and all he could say was "sorry?"</p>
<p>it takes over 45 minutes for them to pick up.</p>
<p>what i do is call about 20 minutes before my break and just let it play the music while i do other stuff. when i'm on break, i pick up the phone and wait for them to pick up.</p>
<p>call like 5 minutes before they open and keep calling until they are open. good luck!</p>
<p>I wrote a formal complaint and I actually got a reply from one of the directors there who asked me for my phone number in order to assist me personally. Complaining works!</p>
<p>I experienced several long waits (greater than 20 min) for FA and always I gave up. My D got through once early in the morning in less time and FA was gracious on the phone</p>
<p>We were very disappointed in the FA package. It was no where near the 91% published by the college board, however that may be for freshman and D would have been transferring in as a junior. The human-being FA counsellor she spoke with left some hope in appealing the aid, but we did not try. We can barely cover our EFC, so any significant gap (like $10-11K) was unreachable.</p>
<p>If you are trying to obtain a better package as a Transfer IN - please post and let others know how you make out. The routine FA packages for transfers may not be as generous as those posted for other admission offers.</p>
<p>Well, I never actually got a formal package in the mail, as ineverything was online. This could be due to the fact that I filled out my CSS profile AFTER the deadline (I had no idea we were required to do so) but I still got enough to cover tuition, for the most part. I still have to come up with about 8k, and not to mention I already have a loan and a work-grant (single-family household and my mom doesn't make any money). But, I'm also a transfer student. Does that help answer your question?</p>
<p>MM: if you only need 8K, I guess you did better than we did. We needed 18K (8K EFC + 10K gap) and we are also a single parent family, we also filled out the CSS profile AFTER the deadline (same thing - didnt know that transfers needed it) </p>
<p>I have no way to know if the larger "gap" is because of the late CSS profile? or that transfers are not as generously funded.</p>
<p>I believe the FA office is still packaging poorer students - hoping that the family can somehow come up with gap money from somewhere - which I believe is a degree of equality - there are other GW families who are stretching their fianances and sacrificing with 2nd mortgages and private loans etc.to cover "the gap". The fact that we can't - no credit/no assets/no financially stable relatives....well, we get the "sorry" email. Nevertheles - Keep trying, maybe the FA people can find something.</p>
<p>Good luck - I hope if it's your dream, that you can find a way to go.</p>