How to Get Better Financial Aid Results: A Closer Look at Acceptance and Award Letters 

This week’s post is dedicated to helping you learn how to get better financial aid results. We’ll do this by taking a closer look at those acceptance and award letters. We hope these strategies help you better prepare for and avoid the traps laid out before you.

1. Do not send any non-refundable checks to ANY colleges to “reserve your student’s room.” This is a trap. You do not need to send a check. 

We have covered this specific point in other blog posts, but it’s worth repeating here in order to get better financial aid results.

Let’s take a look at a standard timeline to better understand why this is a trap and how the colleges are setting you up for failure. 

September – December: Application process. 

December – January: Students begin to receive acceptance letters. 

January – April: Students/families receive the award letters (aka the bill) for each college the student was accepted into. 

May 1st: Decision deadline. 

Now that you can see the basic timeline laid out above, ask yourself this: why do the colleges want you to send in a nonrefundable check before you have seen how much money it will cost for your student to attend?

The answer: They want to get your commitment before you can request any additional aid. Once the check is sent (to allegedly “reserve” your student’s room), you no longer have any leverage to negotiate the award and the overall cost. 

Your student will still have a room if you don’t send the check. It is truly a tactic to trap you into the costs and awards they initially offer you. 

 2. Fully analyze and understand what your award letters mean before making any commitments. There is no set standard for the colleges to present award letters to you. The result? A lot of confusion.

Below are some examples of what you will need to search for in order to fully understand each award: 

• What are the direct costs? These are the costs that go directly to the college. Examples: tuition, room & board, fees.  
• What are the indirect costs? There are the costs that do not go to the college. Examples: books, transportation, and personal expenses. 
• Is the tuition cost listed going to be locked in for each year your student attends? On average, college tuition costs increase by 5% each year. If the college does not explicitly tell you that the tuition price is locked in, chances are you will be paying an increased price each year. 
• What are the renewal criteria for each scholarship listed on the award letter? Each scholarship your student receives will have very specific renewal criteria. 

For example: Below is a quote from the College of Charleston Scholarship Renewal Page.

“Recipients of the Access to Excellence Scholarship will be required to submit a FAFSA each academic year prior to March 1^st in order to renew that scholarship. Non-resident students must maintain a 3.0 cumulative GPA and earn 24 credit hours per academic year. SC resident students must earn 24 credit hours per academic year and maintain a 2.0 cumulative CofC GPA.”

Knowing and fully understanding the strings that are attached to your scholarship is extremely important.

3. Don’t automatically consider an award letter as the final offer. 

After you come to a full understanding of what each college is offering you through their award letters, then you can compare between colleges. You can also compare what each college is offering, compared to your overall Need (which is determined by taking the Cost of Attendance and subtracting the Expected Family Contribution). 

Through these comparisons, you can see which colleges are properly awarding your student and which ones are under awarding. If there is a college that is under awarding, based on this comparison, then you can request additional aid from that college in the form of an appeal letter. 

This appeal process can increase your student’s award for each year, saving you thousands (even tens of thousands) of dollars throughout your student’s college years.

The financial aid process is a tricky one and the road is filled with traps along the way. Learning how to properly compare your award letters and write appeals is an important part of the process that can save you BIG money. To learn more about how we can help, visit our DIY College Planning Course page.

Be sure to check back here next week for some additional college planning advice from your friends at CollegeStrategy!