Ivy League/Patriot League

The Ivy's do not offer athletic $$ and everything is need/academic based. Each school is different and have their own quirks about how they do things. If they are really serious they will help you through the process.

I don't believe the Patriot League offers athletic $$ but I am not sure on this one.

BOF,

Your correct. No athletic money for Patriot League baseball. "Quirks" indeed. BTW....it just seems like yesterday that my son hosted your son for an OV last Fall. Time flies. I'm looking forward to hearing about your son's experience as a freshmen "Tiger"

BB4me,

Best of luck Bb4me on your sons OVs. If an Ivy is interested in your son, you need to get ready to submit some Financial Aid (FA) info as well as academic transcipt, SAT information for what is called a pre-read. The pre-read tells the coach that Admisisons is likely to admit your son based upon his academics. The FA submission is for you to determine what (if any) need based FA you will receive from the school. The pre-read is not an official admission, but it is a starting point to the process.

My best advice would be to read up on this stuff quickly if your son is interested in an Ivy because the process and timeline is very different from traditional D1.

Again, best of luck.

Thanks BOF& Fenwaysouth,
Schools have asked for sat/act/transcript and financial info as well. Pre-reads very positive. Financial aid does not look promising per coaches so was hoping for some academic $$. Thanks again for your input, very helpful! OV's coming in next few weeks.

Go to Princeton's admissions site and take the time to use their financial aid calculator. Users have said that it is very accurate to what aid can be expected.

Other schools were developing these calculators also, but I don't know if they exist yet.

The ivy league doesn't really give what other schools call "academic" money or merit money. That group already has the highest quality academic student body and they don't have to award discounts to get the upper tier students. They're already there.

On the other hand, if you're admitted for whatever reason, they'll make it affordable for you based on their financial aid formulas. use the calculators (they're anonymous) and you'll get a pretty good idea.

Edit: There are some differences among the schools. PRinceton's aid probably lines up best with Harvards and Yales. The others are probably a little less generous, but check their sites and see what they have for the calculators. The calculator is a little tedious to use, but gives fairly reliable answers.

Thanks pedropere

It will all be clear after the official visits. Make sure your OV's end with you and your son sitting down with a financial aid officer. Their job is to help you figure out a way to "make it work." This doesn't mean you will get academic money, it means they will be very frank about what merit money is out there and what you will be expected to pay. But they will try very hard to make it work.

BTW - as a Patriot League alum, the continuation of no baseball money is increasingly controversial as Army and Navy are essentially 100% scholarship and have been dominating the conference.

Congrats to your son's interest by the ivy's ,patriot,and other D1's. The ivy's go to a different beat of the drum in the admission process.
Our son's experience was a roller coaster ride through the admission process however it worked out in the end and he is starting his first semester at Brown. He was not a canidate for academic money considering the pool of applicants. But one of the things that was brought to our attention the appeal to the financial aid decision which we did. Everthing finally came together but patience through the ivy process of admission is advice that I would give any recruit coming in. By the fenwaysouth is a great resource for helping people out through the ivy admission process.

I second the congrats on your son's recruitment. There's another great website that may be helpful to you about recruiting and everything else you and your son may want to know about all the colleges that a recruiting him.

The website is college confidential.com and it is full of knowledgable posters like Fenway.

talk.collegeconfidential.com.
Scroll down to College admissions
And then
"specialty college admission topics"
That will take you to athletic admissions. Great advice from many people that have been recruited by the schools looking at your son.

Good luck!

I want to give a big Thanks to all of you! The information provided is very valuable and will make the OV's much more valuable for my son. He heads out weekend with a goal of completing all visits by end of oct and a decision soon after.
Thanks Again!

I accompanied my son on his visit. If you travel with your son, you will probably be split from him during the visit by the coach & team. They are recruiting him, not you. While son was taking in the baseball tour I visited the Financial Aid office, I walked the campus, I visited department of his expected major (that changed), I spoke with faculty members, and I spoke with some students. I asked lots of questions. This is a big investment. Make a good decision together.

Students are easy to find. There are always bored kids assigned to a work study job in the library or in the student union sitting through their hours and finishing some homework. You can learn a lot about the school talking to the kids who attend.

I'd like to say that the FA office was helpful. My experience was that they were least helpful of all. Maybe it would have been better to make an appointment in advance.

The faculty members I met were just hanging in the office on a Saturday. They saw me wandering through the department and asked about my interests. I was looking for an endorsement as to why my son should shell out huge $ to go to this school. The faculty I met were engaging and open to questions.

This is about IVY Fin Aid, thought it might be helpful on this thread.

I just wanted to share FA info based on my visit (not baseball related) to an Ivy League admissions office yesterday. I won't say which one because I don't want to directly quote someone ...but this policy is comparable at Harvard Printeton Yale and possibly Penn; I am not sure about other Ivies.

To folks getting ready for OVs to Ivies, I think it is helpful to come armed with some of this knowledge, and to know exactly what the CSS Profile Form as well as the FAFSA looks for , when you meet with FA. The conversation can be much more specific if you bring that info with you.

At this particular Ivy, their own institutional methodology (IM) for calculating need based aid is very generous to 'middle class' families.

If family income is below 65K, the student will not have to pay anything.
Between 65 - 130, the EFC will be approximately 10% of family income.
Above 130, the family contribution will be approx. 15% of family income.

I tried to get a feel for where the 'cap' was on all of this, and the answer was 'it depends' but when really pressed for a high end of the scale where one shouldn't bother applying for need based aid, the answer was 'well, probably don't bother if its around 250.' That's a pretty high number.

Obviously if family assets are VERY high, at the 130 and above mark it is unlikely they would get as much.

BUT ---know that your 1st 200K in assets are 'protected' from consideration in need calculation.

Also, another tidbit, the Profile schools can (and do) take into consideration things like cost of living in your region, the age of the primary wage earner (Old Moms and Dads are an asset!! who knew!?!). I also think it is a very good idea for families to be ready to show the decline in your home value since you bought it ....a familiar story.... and how that impacts your assets.


If any of this is inaccurate, blame me and not my anonymous Ivy financial aid officer!

BbmomandCEP,

Looks about right. You've been doing your homework!

quote:

Originally posted by fenwaysouth:
BbmomandCEP,

Looks about right. You've been doing your homework!

Yes, indeed! It was a case where my personal (ie, son) and professional research goals overlapped nicely! Serendipity... and I get to write off the trip also

So if your annual income is $200K you only pay $30K?

doesn't sound right if the top line is $50k-$55k...

If you have a w-2 of 200k and 0 in assets (not including your home) you will receive that amount.

But ask yourself this question: how many people have that w-2 and 0 assets? Probably not too many.

The Ivy's love to throw that big income number out there -- but, for the most part its all PR BS. The realility of IVY FA is much more complex. While better than any other schools, if you are earning 200k, and have saved a little over the years, you will receive much less in FA as you deplete those years of savings!

You are right, it is more complicated.

But, the Ivies can afford this, and, to use Mad Dogs example and Goosegg's additional comment, a family with 200K income, with home still having some equity but less than (or not-much-more-than) 200,000 in equity (because the 1st 200 is protected), and only say 50-75K set aside for college (and retirement investments are protected), then yes that family would get a decent am't of aid. A 'tuition discount' of 20 K for a family like that is worthwhile on several levels for the college who can afford to do this. One of the goals they hope it will accomplish is to keep the middle class on their campuses.

I think the main message is, don't shut out an expensive private school from the get go due to sticker price.

For those not motivated to look, here is an example using the Princeton Calculator. It probably works for Harvard or Yale, and not so much for the other ivies.

AGI 150,000 *100K dad, 50K mom*

55K student budget including 4k of books and travel.
32K grant, with 3k from an on campus job. Parents contribution of 18.5 with student summer job of 1.5.

I assumed parents liquid assets of 100k. They don't count your house in this.

Drop family income to 100k with only the father working, same assets, and the grant goes to 43K and parents contribution drops to about 7.5K per year, with the same work expectations of the student.

If you have a kid who can get in (the hard part) the actual cost can look a lot different than the sticker price for higher income guys. And even if you take the dads income to 200k, you still get a 14.5k grant.

A couple of observations: it is very difficult to work, attend school, and be a baseball player. Also, summer work may be problematical if your son plays summer ball away from home (and then there may even be a cost associated with summer ball). So, add in the 4.5k which will not be earned. We appealed the work study and summer earnings portion - pointed out the "internship" nature of pursuing summer ball and the hours during the school year devoted to a school event (i.e., baseball). The appeal was denied. Also, the assets looked at are everything except retirement and your home. That includes your cars, stocks, partnerships (but not your small business), life insurance, etc., etc - essentially everything you would put on a financial statement submitted to a bank - liquid and illliquid..

Not to assume that there a lot of people on this site in the 200K bracket whose kids play baseball at an ivy or patriot school - but if there IS anyone in that situation, I'd love to know if we're in the ballpark on these FA numbers. In speaking with NESCAC schools we were told directly, that once you are at the 200K number, you can pretty much assume you are full pay.

gamefan,

quote:

In speaking with NESCAC schools we were told directly, that once you are at the 200K number, you can pretty much assume you are full pay.

gamefan - we were told the same in so many words by a Ivy/NESCAC school FA office. I used the excuse with FA officer that my income varies from year to year (which it does), and I needed to know the various levels of contribution. BbmomandCEP's EFC numbers above are spot-on. BTW...I've never come close to "that number", and I'm not sure I want to until son graduates.

The bottom line.....if your son is an excellent student and very good baseball player the Ivy conference has 8 very different schools that may be a fit for you financially, academically and athletically. Everybodys financial situation is different, so you really need to run through one of the website calculators...they are very, very good. Ivys will match Ivys in terms of FA but it is up to you to initiate. As BbmomandCEP suggested, fill in the CSS Profile and FAFSA and meet with FA officers when you visit the school. In addition, find a FA officer that will work with you. Just as in any profession, some FA officers are good and some are not. Seek out a FA Officer that is helpful. Get to know him or her. It can make a huge difference.

In our case, the private D1 baseball scholarships and the private D1/D3 merit scholarships that were offered were in the same ballpark (some more, some less) as what we (currently) receive in FA from an Ivy. Getting into the Ivy school is the challenge with acceptance rates between 6-18% depending on the specific college within the Ivy University you are applying. Likely Letters and Early Decision/Early Action give a potential baseball recruit a huge advantage in the Ivy Admissions process. If your son has has excellent grades, excellent board scores, very good baseball skills (that's the "hook") it is worth the effort to look into financially to crunch the numbers and make a few phone calls to FA. I'm not saying it is for everybody, but I think some people cross it off the list without doing their due diligence.