College Admissions Counseling!

[Enviroman]

I've noticed a lot of high school students frequent this forum. I do a lot of college admissions counseling for high school kids and I'd be more than happy to answer any/all questions about college admissions (particularly the "top" schools that are extremely selective...i.e. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc.).

For many students, especially public school students, guidance counselors tend to be extremely busy, not-too-well versed in the policies of many schools, and those students don't get into the schools they could otherwise get into.

I'm not sure if anyone will actually want my help, but I figured I'd throw it out there!

[isshinryu5toforever]

Hey, since you do admissions counselling do you know about educational grants? I am attending New York University, but their financial aid is terrible. Difficult to understand considering they make a lot of money through their alum. Anyways, any websites or sources for grants government or otherwise would be great. I am of sophomore standing as of right now. Thanks for any help you can give me.

[Enviroman]

NYU actually has a pretty poor endowment. It is about 1.2 billion...not great for such a huge school. For example, my school (Penn) has an endowment of about 4.4 billion and they have roughly 1/3 of the students that NYU has. And my aid still is pretty bad!

You have a few options for grant monies. Realize that most state grants are income-based. Are you from NY state? If so, here are a few grants to look into:

New York State Tuition Assistance Program Grant (TAP) - it offers $100 to $5000 in grants for people making less than $80,000/year.

Pell Grant (I have one of these!) - Offers up to $4,050/year. Call 1.800.4.Fed.Aid to see if you are eligible for a Pell Grant (you usually have to be pretty poor to get one, unfortunately).

Do you do a federal work study? If so, that can offset some cost...even though, knowing NYU's FinAid practices, you're probably already entrenched in the library or something.

[isshinryu5toforever]

I'm from Wisconsin. I don't think we quite qualified for the pell grant just because I was working a lot at the time. It added quite a bit to my parent's income, so we missed qualifying. Any other grant programs you know of. Whether I have to pay to access applications or not, it would still be helpful, because I need the financial aid. I can try to loan my way through school, but it's going to end up being expensive.

[Enviroman]

Sorry for the delay!

Here are some Wisconsin opportunities (run them through google and you'll get all of the info you need):

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG)

Wisconsin Higher Education Grants (WHEG)

Talent Incentive Program (TIP)

Plus your standard federal loans...

I checked out the grant programs and they seem to require a pretty low income-level. If you didn't qualify for a Pell you might not qualify for any of these, but try and apply!

NYU has absurdly bad finaid. Have you considered transferring? I'm not sure how you feel about UW-Madison, but UW will have as good, if not better programs in nearly every area (save Tisch Fine Arts and Stern's Finance) for way, way, way less money. Many other schools have very good aid programs with as good, if not better, academic reputations. But, on the other hand, if you absolutely love NYU you can just ignore that advice!

[isshinryu5toforever]

Thanks for the help. Madison doesn't have a strong East Asian Studies department, I'm not even sure they have one. I know Michigan does, but I don't like Michigan. I do like NYU a ton, so it would be tough for me to decide to transfer, thanks again for the help though.