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psycdoc

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Jan 18, 2019
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My Son was awarded a 3 year scholarship and the schools on his list have a 55K per year price tag (he is out of state). I cannot afford to pay the 55K out of pocket so I will have to wait and see what financial aid he is offered from the schools. I have two questions:

1. If my Son chooses his top choice and they don't offer us a financial aid package to help offset the 55k tuition, how difficult is it to change his choice of school? (His first choice is VMI, second is Citadel and third is North Georgia).

2. Can he transfer after his freshmen year to his top choice?

Thanks
 
psycdoc said:
My Son was awarded a 3 year scholarship and the schools on his list have a 55K per year price tag (he is out of state). I cannot afford to pay the 55K out of pocket so I will have to wait and see what financial aid he is offered from the schools. I have two questions:

1. If my Son chooses his top choice and they don't offer us a financial aid package to help offset the 55k tuition, how difficult is it to change his choice of school? (His first choice is VMI, second is Citadel and third is North Georgia).
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Waiting until April (assuming that's when you will know) it should be possible but not guaranteed. In the meantime he should accept the scholarship to his first choice and worry about transferring it later.

2. Can he transfer after his freshmen year to his top choice?
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There is a fair chance he would lose the scholarship if he does so.

I assume you've filled out or are about to fill out the FAFSA? Also, there is certainly no reason why the kid shouldn't have skin in the game via loans etc. I made mine get loans to cover the difference between his #1 out-of-state school and what it would cost for in-state. It wasn't a real lot of debt because of non-ROTC scholarships he had at the time, but it was enough to make him say "ouch" each semester he had to do it.

I hope plenty of financial aid is forthcoming to cover that first year.
 
aCGAhopeful said:
I got a 4 year yet my dad is refusing to help with room and board...
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I hope you guys can work this out, but if not and you want to avoid loans there are SO many options.

Several schools to ROTC winners will completely pay for room & board (I've gotten two offers already within a day) and I'm sure there will be more, keep your email updated friend and be expecting calls! You can always transfer to another school with little no issue if it is needed financially, good luck!
 
MythyLW said:
aCGAhopeful said:
I got a 4 year yet my dad is refusing to help with room and board...
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I hope you guys can work this out, but if not and you want to avoid loans there are SO many options.

Several schools to ROTC winners will completely pay for room & board (I've gotten two offers already within a day) and I'm sure there will be more, keep your email updated friend and be expecting calls! You can always transfer to another school with little no issue if it is needed financially, good luck!
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That's certainly true, but perhaps only if one applied to the school being transferred to.
 
kinnem said:
psycdoc said:
My Son was awarded a 3 year scholarship and the schools on his list have a 55K per year price tag (he is out of state). I cannot afford to pay the 55K out of pocket so I will have to wait and see what financial aid he is offered from the schools. I have two questions:

1. If my Son chooses his top choice and they don't offer us a financial aid package to help offset the 55k tuition, how difficult is it to change his choice of school? (His first choice is VMI, second is Citadel and third is North Georgia).
Click to expand...
Waiting until April (assuming that's when you will know) it should be possible but not guaranteed. In the meantime he should accept the scholarship to his first choice and worry about transferring it later.

2. Can he transfer after his freshmen year to his top choice?
Click to expand...
There is a fair chance he would lose the scholarship if he does so.

I assume you've filled out or are about to fill out the FAFSA? Also, there is certainly no reason why the kid shouldn't have skin in the game via loans etc. I made mine get loans to cover the difference between his #1 out-of-state school and what it would cost for in-state. It wasn't a real lot of debt because of non-ROTC scholarships he had at the time, but it was enough to make him say "ouch" each semester he had to do it.

I hope plenty of financial aid is forthcoming to cover that first year.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your response, and yes we did do the FAFSA, but he was only given $5,500 loan for the year, which is not much help. I did call VMI today and asked them about any way to work with us with other scholarships, but the response I got was essentially "if you can't pay for it there is nothing we can do". Considering VMI is his first option, are you recommending we accept for that school? If we can't fill the gap can we transfer is to the Citadel or North Georgia? North Georgia is his safety school as they offer in-state tuition to anyone in their cadet program, which is like 20K. My fear was that if we accepted to VMI and could not fill the gap they would not allow us to transfer to North Georgia, so my thinking was we accept the North Georgia and then if VMI or the Citadel come back with an offer that works for us we would request the transfer and if it was denied he would just go to North Georgia..

Thanks in advance for any advise on this.
 
psycdoc said:
Thank you for your response, and yes we did do the FAFSA, but he was only given $5,500 loan for the year, which is not much help. I did call VMI today and asked them about any way to work with us with other scholarships, but the response I got was essentially "if you can't pay for it there is nothing we can do". Considering VMI is his first option, are you recommending we accept for that school? If we can't fill the gap can we transfer is to the Citadel or North Georgia? North Georgia is his safety school as they offer in-state tuition to anyone in their cadet program, which is like 20K. My fear was that if we accepted to VMI and could not fill the gap they would not allow us to transfer to North Georgia, so my thinking was we accept the North Georgia and then if VMI or the Citadel come back with an offer that works for us we would request the transfer and if it was denied he would just go to North Georgia..

Thanks in advance for any advise on this.
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These are risks that you have to assess. He needs to accept the scholarship to SOME school. That being said, I would accept to North Georgia if it were me. I would also go all in on it myself, and forget about the other schools but that's just me. Although N. Georgia doesn't have the same cachet, perhaps, as VMI, I don't think his experience there will be all that different. I assume DS understands all these financial ins and outs and knows what the smart play is here. After all, they are all SMCs and affordability is important.
 
psycdoc said:
My Son was awarded a 3 year scholarship and the schools on his list have a 55K per year price tag (he is out of state). I cannot afford to pay the 55K out of pocket so I will have to wait and see what financial aid he is offered from the schools. I have two questions:

1. If my Son chooses his top choice and they don't offer us a financial aid package to help offset the 55k tuition, how difficult is it to change his choice of school? (His first choice is VMI, second is Citadel and third is North Georgia).

2. Can he transfer after his freshmen year to his top choice?

Thanks
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Not sure if you saw on some other threads, but Montana State was saying that they will "turn your 3 year into a 4 year", so in other words, the school will pick up the extra year. I don't know anything about your son, or the program there, but it might be worth looking into? And other schools may do the same? At the very least, it may not hurt to call some schools and let them know that those offers exist, but your sons DREAM is to attend their school. Can't hurt! (That being said, this is my first rodeo with both college admissions and scholarships, so please chime in if you have more personal experience!)
 
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