[quote=cvmom][quote=bearishgurl]If you already know filing a FAFSA won’t do you or your student any good, then don’t file one.[/quote]
Does anyone else have a perspective on this? With our income in the junior/senior year >$400K there is zero chance for aid from Ivy or any other school, I would think. So why go through all the time/energy to fill it out? Any reason? Or can we skip it?[/quote]
cvmom, I do believe not filing the FAFSA “helped” our kids get into their 1st/2nd choice CSU campuses with low/mid B average (marginal) qualifications from HS (due to focusing too much on time-consuming extra-curriculars – wasn’t my idea but couldn’t stop it/fix it). I believe this feat is really only realistically possible for a FAFSA filer if your kid resides in the “service area” of a CSU which they applied to and is only partially impacted, especially now! (SDSU is COMPLETELY impacted.) “Service area” applicants (those from public school districts and private HS’s surrounding the campus) are held to lower admission standards than applicants from the rest of the state, then OOS applicants and last OOC applicants, who are held to the highest admission standards.
Believe it or not, it’s not that easy to get admitted to ANY CSU campus today, especially for a first/second-choice major and even moreso if that major is impacted. That’s why I advocated applying to six or more campuses at once through CSU mentor. Another trick is … the earlier applicants are given highest priority for consideration, so best to file applications as soon on or after October 1 as possible. The freshman application deadline for the following fall admission is November 30.
If you find all this incredible, just look on a college forum such as collegeconfidential.com in the admission threads for each campus and you will see both freshman AND CC transfer applicants posting in APRIL with high 3’s GPA and multiple AP credits (freshman applicants) who haven’t even been admitted yet for the following fall and are becoming worried. Some applied to multiple campuses and still haven’t yet been admitted anywhere.
We always brought in our OWN aid ….. after the fact (after my kid had already accepted their admission offer). My kids were/are eligible for CalVet waivers (tuition portion of fees only) and another scholarship which currently pays out a maximum of $8025 year (if attending classes FT all year-round) as long as they maintain at least a 2.0 GPA at university. The scholarship pays the rest of the fees, parking and books (totaling $2974 for this academic year). I process all the scholarship paperwork myself in a timely manner and the checks get sent to the Financial Aid office where they immediately forward them to the bursar/cashier. The FA office doesn’t do any work on behalf of my student except receive and forward checks.
My youngest is staying for this summer and the CalVet waiver only waives a very small portion of CSU tuition for summer because the “extension universities” provide the instructors for summer classes (at an additional cost to the CSU) due to the vast majority of the regular university teaching staff taking the summer off. So this summer will cost $2209 and there is enough scholarship money left to cover it AND help a little with room and board expenses.
At a CC, my understanding is that CalVet waives tuition fees (only) for eligible students year-round.
CSU on-campus housing expenses have increased greatly over the past decade due to new construction and modernizing older dorms to provide more security and wifi, etc. And the CSU is raising their housing costs another 6-10% (depending on campus) for Academic Year 2015-16. Not all campuses have resident housing requirements for freshmen but most do, as most now have enough on-campus housing to accommodate all freshmen who need it. I believe the residency parameters for freshmen (to be required to live in on-campus housing) are about 38 miles from an urban-area campus and 50 miles from a semi-rural or rural campus.
38 miles can actually prove to be a very long commute in a highly-congested urban area.
At the conclusion of this summer’s term, my youngest will likely move off campus.
Sorry for the length. It feels like I’ve spent a l-o-o-ong time dealing with the CSU and I’ve got a little over 3 years left and then I’m fre-e-e-e! (My kids are far apart in age.)
