With any business, there is a company that is providing a product and the customer who is wanting to purchase and use this product. This is also true of colleges. There are over 1,400 four year colleges in the Unites States and they each need to convince high school seniors (and current students) to attend their school year after year for them to be successful businesses. As the customer or buyer (if you relate it to buying a home) in the college application process, there are important tasks you should take advantage of before you choose where to go to college. This is especially true from the financial perspective.
1. Ask for a Pre-Read from the Office of Financial Aid.
By law, every college must have a net price calculator on their website. Some colleges have invested a good amount of money to make sure theirs is accurate. Some colleges just have the basic one they have to put on their website to fulfill the government’s requirement. Something I learned this past fall, however, was that many colleges will do an independent pre-read of your financial information and give you as accurate of a number as possible to let you know what you could expect to pay. If you are expecting some financial aid from the college you are applying to (this means you expect to complete the FAFSA), then ask each college your senior is applying to if they would do a pre-read of your finances and let you know what you could expect to pay. If they don’t do a pre-read, ask why. Colleges need to be more transparent about what you should expect to pay before you commit to apply and attend their school.
2. Never take the first scholarship offer as the final offer.
If I’m a college and many decisions come down to the almighty dollar, would I throw out more money the first time I give a scholarship offer than I have to? NO! I’m going to offer a lower scholarship amount and see if an applicant comes back to me and asks if there are any opportunities for more money. If you think about it, most seniors the college gives scholarship offers to, don’t even end up attending anyway. If a senior contacts a college after being accepted and is looking for additional merit or need-based aid, then we know they are more interested in attending our school (which is something they are looking for) and now the college can pay more attention to them and possibly see how they can work with them. However, I am going to put an asterisk on this point. This isn’t true for every college. The more applicants a college gets and the more they can deny, the less financial aid you are going to get. If you want to know what some of these colleges are that probably won’t offer additional aid because they don’t have to, go to the Buyers and Sellers List of Colleges in your SCOIR Drive that was put together by Jeff Selingo. The “Seller” colleges are the ones that won’t offer any or very little merit-based scholarship money and the “Buyer” colleges are the ones that will. These “Buyer” colleges typically need to pull in as many strong applicants as they can and they do this by providing you with merit-based scholarship money.
3. Ask “nicely” for additional financial aid
I get the question, “how do I go about asking for more financial aid/scholarship money?”, a lot, which is great. My answer to this question is always, “imagine yourself on the other side with the money”. If you have money to give and a friend comes up to you and asks for it, how would you like them to ask? Would you like them to say, “hey, you have plenty of money and I need more, please give me some”. How about, “my friend and my uncle gave me this much money and you could to, so please give me more money”. If I’m the one with the money, I’m thinking, “who do they think they are? They’re acting like they just deserve our money after we already gave them some”.
First, it’s great to recognize the scholarship money you already received and be grateful for what they have given you. “Dear ____, I am really excited that I was accepted to _____ and so grateful that you have awarded me a scholarship for _____.”
Second, the reason you are writing them is because you have a definite interest in attending their school than some of the other schools on your list. Make them aware of this. “At this time, _____ is one of my top choice schools (if it’s your top choice let them know) and I am really excited to possibly attend. I would love to (enter here a few things you are looking forward to contributing to or participating in on campus).” This is showing great demonstrated interest which is very important to many colleges.
Third, ask if there are any other additional merit-based scholarship opportunities that you could apply or are eligible for. Then you will need to wait for a response. Please give it a week but you probably will here back sooner.
Fourth, and this depends on their response. You may hear back from them and they will say, “thanks for asking, but unfortunately the scholarship offer you received is our final offer”. If this is the case, I would politely write back and say thank you and that you will continue to consider attending their school along with the other college options you are considering”. If you receive a response back that let’s you know there are other scholarship opportunities to consider or that they can offer you ______ more of merit-based scholarship money, then write back to them and be very thankful.
4. BE PATIENT
I know it can be difficult to see other seniors making decisions to attend a certain college. You can think that you are behind or you just want to be done with the whole college application process. Nevertheless, being patient can pay off! You don’t have to make a decision until May 1st! I have even seen seniors get a little bit more merit scholarship money from colleges who were told earlier there wasn’t any additional money because the yield (how many are accepted compared to how many commit to attend) numbers are always changing until May 1st (and sometimes even after). You may have been in the “middle of the pack” when they were determining scholarship amounts in February, but in April, based on numbers they weren’t expecting, you have moved to the top 25% of accepted applicants and therefore, would be in line for more merit scholarship money. You never know, but if you’re patient, at least you let the process take its course. If you commit earlier, they really have no reason to offer you any more merit scholarship money. Why would they? You’re already coming.
