What To Do With Your College Financial Aid Letter
So it’s April and you’ve already filled out the financial aid forms and now what should happen next?
First if you don’t know what I’m talking about, make a phone call as soon as possible. You should have received it by now. Maybe check your spam folder or ask your child if they’ve forgot to forward it to you. I’m sure that’s never happened before:)
In case no one has never told you what the award letter is. You may have heard it referred to as the Student Aid Report. Basically, this is the letter you’ve been waiting for all year. It outlines all the awards you will receive from the college, state, or federal government.
Now that we know what the award letter is the first thing to do is to look if the award is fair. You should compare to make sure it contains a fair mix of college scholarships and grants. Colleges have a historical amount of aid they give. However, lets not forget that college is a business so it’s possible that they could short you.
For each award letter summarize each next to each other. I will list total grants, student loans, etc. This way its very easy to see which college has the best financial package. Unfortunately, the best financial package is not always the top pick for your child:( However, now that we have summaries of the award packages, we can approach the other colleges to ask for more money.
How do you ask for more money….very carefully and with reason. First I would suggest you call and speak with somebody at the college. Get their name and contact information. You want to talk to them about why you should get more money. Just because you want more is not a reason…sorry. You should tell them why your child wants to go to their school, what attracted them there. Was it the education, program, alumni network. For myself I went to the University of Detroit, mainly because my dad went there but also because they have a great internship program.
Also, you should let the school know what your child brings to the university. Maybe they have tutored a lot of children, or have held leadership roles in different groups. It could even be they have a minority. Schools are still looking for both economically and ethnic diverse student bodies. So do your research about the college and what they want to deliver. Most of the time you can find this out from their website, but remember earlier I said to talk to a live person. Ask them what the school is looking for in a student. You might be surprised what they will tell you.
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