Daniel Barkowitz | October 28, 2005
"October really is the cruelest month..."
Forget April. It's really October that is the cruelest month...
I had great intentions at the start of the month. I had planned on continuing the series of Myths/Realities, starting to update you on the status of the EFC Calculation formulas for 06/07, and beginning to talk about how to apply for this year, but somehow the time ran away from me...
Why?
Well, let's see. Between:
- Reporting on your aid. It seems that everyone (and their "big brother") wants to know about how we award financial aid these days. October is survey month and during this month we provide the data to many outside agencies which you will see reflected in the news reports and surveys which make up the news cycle for the rest of the year. Who do we give data to? Everyone from the NCAA (for information about our awarding of aid to athletes), to the Massachusetts State Scholarship office (for information on all Massachusetts residents), to the General Accounting Office (GAO) (for information about our participation in the Consensus Approach methodology), has their own data formats, data needs, and definitions. As a result, much of my October has been spent preparing this data.
- Hiring a new financial aid officer. One of our financial aid officers (now Assistant Directors of Financial Aid) left us to pursue other opportunities and we have been in the middle of a hiring process. You can read the description of the job here and see exactly what it is that a financial aid officer does. Between reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates, this has taken up much of my time (but soon, I hope, you will see the announcement and introduction of a new Assistant Director of Financial Aid).
- Training neophyte financial aid staff. As part of giving back to the financial aid community, I am involved in MASFAA, our state professional association for financial aid administrators. This year, I am co-chairing the Just the FACTS committee, a group which runs a 5 day training session for new financial aid administrators at Massachusetts colleges and universities, training them on all they need to know about Federal regulations and programs. The training is spread over five weeks, and is run in two different sites in the state, so coordinating this has been an investment of time, but definitely worthwhile.
- Planning for next year's cycle. We have been very busy getting ready for next year, between testing the new version of our software, working on the new processes and forms for next year, and setting our internal time frames and procedures, it has been a little busy!
- And those crazy Jewish holidays. And then I've had to deal with all of the Fall holidays, so I have been out attending to these. Needless to say, October has been busy.
But enough whining. On to more important things: your questions and my answers!
Carla asked "hello I am an international student from Venezuela, and today I was checking the cal-tech page and they said that they consider financial aid need when admitting international students and that sort of worried me because I want to attend MIT, but I am pretty sure I'll need quite a big amount of Financial aid, so my question is: are you also need-blind when it comes to international students?? please say yes!!! thanks!"
Very easy answer... "Yes". Well, I really can't just leave it at that. We are need-blind for all students regardless of their citizenship status, although I do know that Admissions has a quota on the number of international students they can admit (see Matt's post here for more information on this.
Amandy asked "Please when and how can I start applying for financial aid at MIT?"
The when and how will be part of my next post, but Amandy, don't worry... You are right on time!!
Ashutosh asked "I am an international student from India and wish to apply to MIT to study for my masters .I dont have the means to study at MIT,should I make an application?And do you take into account the money spent by students in living expenses?"
Remember that my job is financial aid, so for Admissions information, I would suggest asking Matt or Ben to comment... As for the means, don't let financial concerns prevent you from applying. As I have stated before, MIT awards significant financial assistance to students and meets the full need (living expenses included) of its students.
On a similar theme, VdX asked "Im an Indian, my family cannot fully afford to pay for the education at MIT ($45,000) will Financial Aid pay for more than $40,000 for my education here? Another question is how does MIT judge if the student is eligible for Financial Aid or not? What is the percentage of Indians studying at MIT under the Undergraduate Programme? Thank you,VdX"
While I do not know the percentage of Indians studying at MIT, we do evaluate each International admit individually. As for financial aid, we use a formula which I will discuss in the next several posts. This formula relies upon student and parent income and assets. We use the same formula for international and domestic students, and we do fund up to the full cost if that is appropriate (remember that part of your financial aid may include self-help [defined as work or loan awards], but we limit the self-help to $5500 currently).
Mike W. asked the following "Here's a hypothetical situation. Let's say the person represented by the barrel above somehow found $45,000 in outside scholarships for freshmen year. That would knock out the $5,500 Self-Help portion and the $31,500 in MIT Need-Based Scholarships for one year. The remaining $8,000 in outsides scholarships could knock out the $8,000 EFC for that year, but could it be possible to make arrangements to have MIT give a $2,000 reduction in the EFC for each of the four years instead of knocking out the entire $8,000 EFC for only one year?"
Unfortunately, it would not be possible to treat the large outside scholarship as you suggested, Mike. You could speak to the provider of the scholarship to reduce the amount awarded in any year to maximize your financial aid (example, $5500 each of the first three years and then the remainder the last year). If you did this, only the years in which the outside scholarship exceeded the self-help would be affected.
Punit asked "What is the minimum score that a foreign student needs in tests like TOEFL,SAT etc?"
I don't believe there is a minimum score, but Matt or Ben would be better prepared to answer this... Eric actually provided a link to one of Matt's entries on this subject (see here for this entry).
Christopher Chaney commented: "I'm terribly sorry for doing this, but I would like to change the subject for something. I was wondering if there was any way to get in contact with someone who would know about the types of things MIT looks for in an application. I am a sophmore in North Carolina and have a great desire to attend MIT. I am currently in the Boy Scouts of America program which I have been told would help but I want to know if there is anything I could be doing to better my chances of being considered for this school. I apologize for the subject change. Thank you."
Again Eric came to the rescue, commenting "Christopher, you might want to browse around the MyMIT website to get the information that you wanted. The website's usefuly for answering most of your questions, likely. After that, keep posted to these blogs, coz they provide lots and lots and lots of information about MIT, the admissions process, and financial aid (that's this blog)."
Eric, I couldn't agree more...
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The author has filed this entry in the "Financial Aid" section; check it out for further reading on this topic. |
Responses To This Entry:
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Thanks for answering all of these questions.
Posted by: Victoria Wong on October 28, 2005 09:25 PM
Argh! its so hard to make it to the 12 pm writer's club meetings! hmph. Next friday, for sure. See you there! :)
Posted by: Laila on October 29, 2005 02:22 AM
Daniel, I have a very specific question relating to one of the things you mentioned here. Do you have an e-mail address at which I can contact you?
Posted by: Timur Sahin on November 1, 2005 07:41 PM
Sure, Timor. My email is moneyman@mit.edu... Feel free to contact me...
Posted by: Daniel Barkowitz on November 2, 2005 12:39 AM
I am interested in attending MIT and I have heard the sleep pattern is very different, and that many people get very little sleep. I was wondering how these students manage that, and how I could build up a solid sleeping pattern that only has about 5 hours. I have tried in the past, but I always end up becoming too tired to continue throughout the day. What should I do.
Posted by: stephen on November 29, 2005 10:33 PM
