In at Columbia 2015: Blue Pride__Poll better than nyu's ha Forum

[Tiago Splitter]

wow so to apply for merit aid you need to fill out fafsa, need access and the cls financial questionairre?

sorry to repeat, just admitted today!

It gets better. You and your parents both have to submit tax returns as well.

But congrats!

[salamanders]

For those of us just being admitted after being held, do we think there's any chance of merit money?

[likemike]

Has anyone here successfully negotiated a scholarship using money received from a peer school who hadn't submitted Need Access and FAFSA to CLS?

[StrictlyBusiness]

For those of us just being admitted after being held, do we think there's any chance of merit money?

I certainly hope so. As more money withdraws I'm sure they can give a percentage of it back out to recently admitted people.

I was never held but accepted late and just submitted all my tax forms along with a Chicago offer. I also mentioned that I'm currently planning on U Chi and they're the only other school in the race at the moment, so hopefully that compels them to steal me with some $$.

[Elliott_Smith]

No money

[KevinP]

Checking in. 100% sure will be attending.

[Bronck]

Checking in. 100% sure will be attending.

See ya in 4 months

[KevinP]

Checking in. 100% sure will be attending.

See ya in 4 months

Thank you! Likewise .

[Elliott_Smith]

For those of you deposited at Columbia -can I throw this on a credit card or do I have to send in a check?

[ahnhub]

For those of you deposited at Columbia -can I throw this on a credit card or do I have to send in a check?

credit card is fine.

[Elliott_Smith]

We eat tonight!

[icedflames]

we gotta get the class of 2015 thread moving

[Elliott_Smith]

Anyone else going to be in NYC this Monday? I'm a little bit excited.

[Boston_NYG2245]

Anyone else going to be in NYC this Monday? I'm a little bit excited.

I'll be there. Deciding to make this final and send in my deposit.

[kwais]

Show some love for your future alma mater!

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/law-revu ... finalists/

[gloriouscause]

Admitted very recently. Has anyone else admitted int he last few weeks received financial aid offers yet? how long should we expect to wait? Sorry if this has already been brought up, I just found this thread.

[ahnhub]

Show some love for your future alma mater!

http://abovethelaw.com/2012/04/law-revu ... finalists/

It's like less than 10 votes separating CLS and GW. I voted CLS (law students=sexy?!), but that GW one was pretty dope, too. And oh my god the Stanford one was atrocious.

[Corrupty]

Admitted very recently. Has anyone else admitted int he last few weeks received financial aid offers yet? how long should we expect to wait? Sorry if this has already been brought up, I just found this thread.

I was admitted in the middle of last month and I'm still waiting on my financial aid offer.

[Elliott_Smith]

I've watched that an embarrassing number of times.

I make a living as a musician - that was really well done.

Admitted very recently. Has anyone else admitted int he last few weeks received financial aid offers yet? how long should we expect to wait? Sorry if this has already been brought up, I just found this thread.

Took a couple weeks for them to get back to me

[Tiago Splitter]

I submitted my fin aid stuff a few days after the initial March 1 deadline but haven't heard anything.

[Bronck]

My dad just filled out his 2011 taxes, so I'm going to update CLS with those later this week.

The "Dates to Remember" section says that we need to send "loan applications to FAO (Stafford MPN, Graduate PLUS MPN...)" by May 15. What exactly does this mean?

From what I can gather:
1) We go to studentloans.gov, (a) do entrance counseling and (b) sign the MPN for both Stafford and Grad PLUS... (I'm assuming we re-sign Stafford even if we signed it for u/g?)
2) We send page 3 of this (https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/defa ... nnaire.pdf) to CLS as well.
(a) We have to determine an amount we would like to take out (obviously the max Stafford [20,500] before Grad PLUS). If so, the budget total for 2012-2013 is 79,950. ****
(b) If this is the case, I'm guessing we don't request loans through the studentloans.gov website because the form is doing that for us.

Does this look right to everyone?

****Columbia seems to highball the budget estimate. Let's assume a roughly 21k budget for room, board, and personal expenses... -9k for rent (avg of 1k a month -- the PI funding for 1L summer ought to, at the very least, cover rent) = 12k leftover. This means we have 1k a month for food / personal expenses. Even if you eat out every night at roughly 10 dollars a meal, that's only $300. You can get a lot of free lunches on campus + breakfast is cheap. I'll say $400 for food every month. Add in subway usage and you're at maybe $450 ($4.50 round trip; assumes 11 round trips, or using the subway 2-3 times every week).

I feel like you could take out $300-400 less than they budget and still be comfortable. That would still give 1800 to 3000 for the year to upgrade your wardrobe, travel back home for winter break, fly out to a secondary market for any interviews, etc.

Or is it more reasonable to just take out the full loan amounts the first year? If you end up using 5000 less than the loan amount, take out around 10,000 less the following year.

[BaseballT]

My dad just filled out his 2011 taxes, so I'm going to update CLS with those later this week.

The "Dates to Remember" section says that we need to send "loan applications to FAO (Stafford MPN, Graduate PLUS MPN...)" by May 15. What exactly does this mean?

From what I can gather:
1) We go to studentloans.gov, (a) do entrance counseling and (b) sign the MPN for both Stafford and Grad PLUS... (I'm assuming we re-sign Stafford even if we signed it for u/g?)
2) We send page 3 of this (https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/defa ... nnaire.pdf) to CLS as well.
(a) We have to determine an amount we would like to take out (obviously the max Stafford [20,500] before Grad PLUS). If so, the budget total for 2012-2013 is 79,950. ****
(b) If this is the case, I'm guessing we don't request loans through the studentloans.gov website because the form is doing that for us.

Does this look right to everyone?

****Columbia seems to highball the budget estimate. Let's assume a roughly 21k budget for room, board, and personal expenses... -9k for rent (avg of 1k a month -- the PI funding for 1L summer ought to, at the very least, cover rent) = 12k leftover. This means we have 1k a month for food / personal expenses. Even if you eat out every night at roughly 10 dollars a meal, that's only $300. You can get a lot of free lunches on campus + breakfast is cheap. I'll say $400 for food every month. Add in subway usage and you're at maybe $450 ($4.50 round trip; assumes 11 round trips, or using the subway 2-3 times every week).

I feel like you could take out $300-400 less than they budget and still be comfortable. That would still give 1800 to 3000 for the year to upgrade your wardrobe, travel back home for winter break, fly out to a secondary market for any interviews, etc.

Or is it more reasonable to just take out the full loan amounts the first year? If you end up using 5000 less than the loan amount, take out around 10,000 less the following year.

That's interesting... I was actually thinking they lowballed it. But that might also be because I'm not planning on living in student housing, so that increases rent by a lot, as well as doubles the monthly subway usage costs. Regardless, I would definitely say it's better to take out more rather than less your first year. It will be stressful to have to make up the difference if you find your loans actually leave you with a too-tight budget.

[Tiago Splitter]

That's interesting... I was actually thinking they lowballed it. But that might also be because I'm not planning on living in student housing, so that increases rent by a lot, as well as doubles the monthly subway usage costs. Regardless, I would definitely say it's better to take out more rather than less your first year. It will be stressful to have to make up the difference if you find your loans actually leave you with a too-tight budget.

My understanding is that you can ask for additional loan money during the year if you didn't take it all out up front. If that's the case and you think you can live on less, no reason to pay the extra 4% origination fee on GradPlus loans.

[Bronck]

That's interesting... I was actually thinking they lowballed it. But that might also be because I'm not planning on living in student housing, so that increases rent by a lot, as well as doubles the monthly subway usage costs. Regardless, I would definitely say it's better to take out more rather than less your first year. It will be stressful to have to make up the difference if you find your loans actually leave you with a too-tight budget.

My understanding is that you can ask for additional loan money during the year if you didn't take it all out up front. If that's the case and you think you can live on less, no reason to pay the extra 4% origination fee on GradPlus loans.

Damn, 4%

I guess I might have to do a little more research into this. Not to mention you could also save the ~8% interest on, e.g., an extra 4000 not taken out (I guess that's only 320, but still...)

Let's assume you owe 50k all 3 years. In either scenario we will take out the 20k in Stafford, which leaves 30k leftover. In Scenario 1 we would take out, let's say, 4k less than CLS estimates = 26k ... interest of 2054 after the first year. Let's say this is spot on, so you do it for 2 more years (assuming no 2L SA for simplicity)... your capitalized Grad PLUS loan amount would look like: 26k + 2054 + 2054 + 2054.... + 26k + 2054 + 2054 .... + 26k + 2054 = ~90.3k

In scenario 2, we take out the full amount the first year, find out we only used 26k, so we take out 22k the second year and 26 the third year. 30 + 2.37 + 2.37 + 2.37... + 22 + 1.74 + 1.74.... + 26 + 2.05 = ~90.64

So, perhaps at the end an individual would be taking out roughly the same in either scenario, but would receive more security in the second.

[Mitterrand]

That's interesting... I was actually thinking they lowballed it. But that might also be because I'm not planning on living in student housing, so that increases rent by a lot, as well as doubles the monthly subway usage costs. Regardless, I would definitely say it's better to take out more rather than less your first year. It will be stressful to have to make up the difference if you find your loans actually leave you with a too-tight budget.

My understanding is that you can ask for additional loan money during the year if you didn't take it all out up front. If that's the case and you think you can live on less, no reason to pay the extra 4% origination fee on GradPlus loans.

Damn, 4%

I guess I might have to do a little more research into this. Not to mention you could also save the ~8% interest on, e.g., an extra 4000 not taken out (I guess that's only 320, but still...)

My budget is roughly yours. I'm considering taking out 13,000 for post-rent living expenses. 1k a month to live on and then an extra 1k in case I need to fly home or buy a suit etc. The whole origination fee is total bullshit when you are paying 7.9% interest. I'm going to try hard not to take out more than I need, even if it means i have to ask for additional loan funds during the year.