Negotiating Aide

If the coach gave an offer, he'll go to bat with FA. On the same figures, we got a range of over 30k/yr from peer schools. Lay it out for the coach,  if he can't get the offer raised,  he can't. (If you have a higher financial aid offer from a peer school, show coach the other offers; some leagues allow peer schools to match offers.)

I am going through this now as my kid has an offer with a HA D3. I asked the coach if there were additonal based aid as I have another kid so I would like to reduce the burden. He directed me to FA. Wife is calling them today and I hope they will tell us there is room to drop our costs and not to pound sand. Was anyone successful in squeezing more juice from a HA D3? He is on hold with another HA D1 but the D3 is a better fit overall.

I had two kids overlap in college for one year, both HA privates.  The financial aid offers were different between the two schools, the EFCs differed by 15%, although both did acknowledge that two kids in college meant we only had to pay half of what they would have calculated for one.  I contacted the one that was offering less and pointed out the disparity; they gave us a very small amount more, and basically said that they do things their way and that's just how it is.  There were no athletics involved with that school.

Ultimately, what you're getting now are estimates; they won't do the final aid offer until you've submitted the FAFSA and CSS, next spring.

FAFSA is the same for everyone, but CSS for private schools asks different things from school to school.  Some wanted to know value of your house.  One wanted to know how many cars, and which was your primary car (do we say the 2004 minivan?).  Some asked other things.  They have formulas (I was told their "proprietary algorithm," and "Institutional Methodology") that determine aid based on all the information they choose to collect.  They also all have different resources.

2022NYC,

Yes, however our approach was a little different.  I got in front of FA offices while my son was visiting campus for colleges I knew he was serious about (top engineering programs)...I made a friend in each FA office.  When we were ready to move forward I contacted that friend in FA.   My son had it whittled down to two Ivys and one D3 HA NESCAC.   The Ivys had a policy (at the time...not sure about now) that they would match each others FA package.   Ivy 2 (his 3rd choice) was more generous than Ivy 1, but Ivy 1 was his first choice.   We brought that up in our discussion and they did match it, plus give him a $4K merit scholarship per year...I honestly don't know why they threw that on top but we didn't ask questions.   So, we were happy as clams with the Ivy 1 FA package.   The Ivy FA package was very close to a 50% scholly offer he got earlier from D1 private mid-major.   The D3 HA Nescac school was his second choice and it was right in line with the others, and I was able to move the needle there as well mentioning that he had two Ivy offers in front of him.  If I was in your position, I think I would get that competing D1 offer and make it sound like it is too good to pass up and see what they say...just shake their "money tree" a little bit.

Good luck!

I'm generalizing but at most HA D3's the coaches have little to no pull with the Financial Aid office.  We get hosed because sons school also looks at the equity in our home...totally screws our numbers up.  We were able to get a little extra by appealing the award his Frosh year.  Soph year was COVID and they reduced the amount significantly.  This year the cost has gone up substantially and it doesn't appear they are going to budge.  In our case though its basically a wash between last year and this year.

Basically, work directly with FA.  And if you can find a way to add some easy debt, that helps.  There are also creative ways to remove equity from your home.

Thank you all for your input and advice. The FA advisor was very nice and informed the wife there is merit awards and it could cover up to 100%, I nearly crashed when wife told me that over the phone. Of course the rub was he needs a great essay, extra curriculars, LORs and all the purty window dressing to showcase why he is such a great fit to get the merit, plus the coach needs to endorse it. We are going to meet with the admissions advisor who serves our area next week to go over what the FA advisor discussed. I admit I am very impressed with their response and if this is any indicator of what the kid will ge from the school, I totally see why he loves it. I also want to slow roll this a bit to see if the HA D1 offers him as a possible chip to play as per Fenway. Unfortunately another injury will put him on the bench at WWBA, at least he had a good showing couple hits and a HR, but he is going to miss the game at East Cobb. His absences from injuries has resulted in great team success, HS team won the league chip, and his travel team is undefeated in the last tourney and in wwba, I suspect his teammates may injure to keep the mojo going, heck I am thinking about it too.

@SoCal OG posted:

I'm generalizing but at most HA D3's the coaches have little to no pull with the Financial Aid office.  We get hosed because sons school also looks at the equity in our home...totally screws our numbers up.  We were able to get a little extra by appealing the award his Frosh year.  Soph year was COVID and they reduced the amount significantly.  This year the cost has gone up substantially and it doesn't appear they are going to budge.  In our case though its basically a wash between last year and this year.

Basically, work directly with FA.  And if you can find a way to add some easy debt, that helps.  There are also creative ways to remove equity from your home.

My relative is an example that if a few cases it can be done.  Parents and son met with HC at a HA D3 and explained he would love to go there but the FA wasn't enough.  HC asked them to wait 48 hours before making a final decision and within that time more FA were "awarded" to better the other offer.  It boils down to how bad the HC wanted the player for his team and if he saw a future.

This is the area where you can get an idea of the “go where you are loved” factor, in dealing with HA D3’s

Ah yes, the CSS - the colonoscopy of your finances ;-)...  Be careful to assume each school takes some percentage off, but it is usually close to half for two. I can also say it got better when #3 overlapped because he went to a school with a $20+K less in tuition/fees (hard to believe it was almost 10 years ago).

When my first two boys overlapped at two different D3 HA schools, I got a fairly crappy "offer" from one school. I did a bit a research and found on their website an article from my others son's school as a guide for how aid "should be done". Since I of course had numbers from the other school I pointed it out to the FA office. Essentially the article noted that research the school had done was finding kids were leaving with higher and unmanageable debt, so to help they had altered their formula removing money from other budgets such as new buildings. When I pointed all this out to the first school of course they weren't happy, the officer even said something to the effect of this is why they rarely "engage with parents" over the matter.  In the long run, they gave me like $1k more which really didn't help all that much, but when you're a year or so in it's kind of hard to go back to square 1. FWIW, my response to him about engaging with us was to remind him to take us and our son off any future give back to your school campaigns. What comes around goes around, if you're as smart as you think you are you'll actually read the advice from the first school.

It works the other way, too.  Son was awarded grant money (not loans) since I had two in college at the time (FAFSA/CSS related?).   After the athletic scholarship was applied, the other grant money "disappeared".  Sigh.  (Instate D1)

As a post-script, we spoke to FA and Admissions folks, and as expected gave vague answers on merit, were non-committal on the range and would not provide any COA estimates for us based on the net price calculator that was submitted...I didn't expect any great answers but I would sleep better knowing I tried. The kid committed, closing the door on the other opportunities. I personally wanted him to wait it out but I get why he did it as the fit was perfect for him. At the end it's only money and I lived with loans most of my life....and there is still time to smarten up and mold his younger brother for a service academy to balance things financially.

Congratulations!  Exciting to have it settled.  I hope that the ultimate financial aid decision will be better than you expect.