Shiro Burnette
02:00:15 PM
Hi everyone! Welcome to another Sewanee Session. Feel free to introduce yourself in the chat before we begin.
Kylie G.
02:01:02 PM
Hello, I'm Kylie!
Sarah H.
02:01:04 PM
Hi I'm Sarah from Hershey, PA
Carl E.
02:01:06 PM
Dina Erickson, Parent.
Mary R.
02:01:33 PM
Hello, I'm Mary from FL!
Dottie F.
02:01:38 PM
Hi, my name is Dottie
Kenya C.
02:01:46 PM
I'm Kenya from Nashville, TN!
Carson C.
02:01:48 PM
Hi from Georgia this is Annette Coody!
Talha E.
02:01:49 PM
Hey Everyone! I am Talha Ehsan from Pakistan!
Clara J.
02:01:49 PM
Christian Juckett, Parent from Louisville
Olivia J.
02:01:50 PM
Hi! I'm Olivia Jones from Nashville, TN
Matthew S.
02:01:50 PM
Hi Paul Semcesen - parent
Fiona K.
02:01:51 PM
Hi, I'm Fiona Kelly!
Ryan X.
02:01:51 PM
Hello, I'm Ryan Xavier from Soddy Daisy, TN
Audrey K.
02:01:52 PM
Hi! I'm Audrey Knaack from Charlotte, NC
Montana-Grace S.
02:01:53 PM
Hi I'm Montana-Grace
Meg W.
02:01:53 PM
Sue W, Parent
Mimi W.
02:02:02 PM
Hi! I'm Mimi from Houston, Tx.
Kabir M.
02:02:03 PM
Hi I'm Kabir Menon from India!
Carly A.
02:02:03 PM
Hey! I'm Carly from Maryland
Joseph L.
02:02:04 PM
This is Amy P. (parent) from High Point, NC
Abigail P.
02:02:05 PM
I'm Abigail from Kingsport, Tennessee!
Connor D.
02:02:05 PM
I am Sara Dail - parent - from Raleigh NC
Maddy D.
02:02:08 PM
Philip DuBois, parent
Stefen R.
02:02:11 PM
Hi I'm sSefen from Colesville, MD
Darrell J.
02:02:15 PM
Darrell James parent Mansfield Tx
Lilly D.
02:02:16 PM
Hey! I'm Lilly!
Kostas A.
02:02:16 PM
Hi, I am Kostas from Greece
Rachel W.
02:02:17 PM
Hey! I'm Rachel from Athens, TN!
Dinah B.
02:02:18 PM
Howdy! I'm Dinah from Austin, TX!
Claire L.
02:02:19 PM
Hey everyone! I'm Claire from the Nashville area.
Kamilla H.
02:02:19 PM
Hi! I'm Kamilla from Odesa, Ukraine
Jin Y.
02:02:20 PM
Hello, I am Seokwon Yoon, Parent from Thailand
Maddy T.
02:02:21 PM
Maddy Thornburg, from Florida!
Roshan P.
02:02:22 PM
Hello! I'm Roshan.
Lia S.
02:02:22 PM
David Smith, Parent... joining from Michigan.
Elise O.
02:02:23 PM
Hi, I am Kathleen, parent from Louisville
Gibson B.
02:02:23 PM
Dixon Bynum, parent of Gibson. Hi, everyone.
Clara R.
02:02:24 PM
Hi. Atticus Rominger from Birmingham, AL.
Good afternoon, thank you all so much for joining us here today. My name is Beth Kraeger. I'm you associate Dean of admission for financial aid here. It's morning and what we'd like to spend a little time today doing is walking you through what you can expect when you get what I call your comprehensive financial aid notification. So first and foremost, congratulations on your.
Julia M.
02:02:24 PM
Mary M., parent.
Morgyn H.
02:02:38 PM
Hi, I am Aimee Bentley-Henson and Morgyn Henson parent and student
Missions this morning, way to go and we are happy to see so many of you all that were eligible for some of the academic scholarships that are available through the admissions process. So as you probably know, that is how you apply for those you eye for admission and anything you might qualify to receive in the way of an academic award is in your admission notification, so you already have those, so there are a few other pieces of the puzzle.
Gus G.
02:02:57 PM
Goldsmiths are here
That you don't have and we want to make sure you understand all of that and we can answer some questions at the end of the session.
So that you're prepared when our notifications reach you.
Jacob G.
02:03:40 PM
Hello, Jacob G, student.
So first and foremost, you need to know that the notification will go out via email and what we put together. That's literally a test that I did, and that's the line in my email and what it will actually say when it hits your inbox. One thing I would caution you about is there is a link in there to the PDF of your notification when we send these, so every so often it can land in.
Alex C.
02:03:41 PM
Hi, I’m Christine, parent from Connecticut
Joshua R.
02:03:42 PM
Joshua Ryan from Cookeville TN
Your spam folder, so you need to be watching for that. Below that you see the actual email that goes out, so that's where that link is to take you to a comprehensive financial aid notification. That's again the word I like to use, or the phrasing I'd like to use. It may or may not make sense to you just yet.
Shiro Burnette
02:04:16 PM
We will be using a moderated chat so do not worry if you do not see your question immediately.
Moses V.
02:04:25 PM
Moses from District Heights MD
So the next thing that I want to talk to you about very quickly, partially because I want to leave some time for questions, but the top of the notification is going to address what we call in financial aid, cost of attendance, and that's made up of two different components. So we have our direct costs, the things that you would actually see on a bill, your tuition, your fees, the room and board charges.
Jennifer Q.
02:05:01 PM
Hi y'all! I'm Jennifer from DC
Those are things that are billed to you through our student accounts office, but when we're putting together your financial aid package, we want to look at the entire cost of attendance. Because we do know that you will need books, you will have personal expenses. We do recommend buying shampoo, toothpaste, things like that while you're on campus. And if you've been lucky enough to be here for a visit before this.
Crazy year we've all been through and then our dining Hall is great as it is at some point you're going. You're going to want to go someplace else so we know there are personal expenses and there are also expenses associated with getting to Swanee, going home for the brakes. All of those things. So those are what we call indirect costs, and we use all of that when we're calculating your financial aid eligibility.
So the next thing, and I'm going to show the whole.
Actual notification later, but I wanted to break out these parts so that you know what to look for when you receive yours. So for some of our students.
AJ W.
02:06:19 PM
Hi hi, I'm Adjani from Georgia.
They've applied for academic scholarships. That's what they're receiving. They're not interested in need based aid, and this is just the small section that would show where that scholarship is recorded after they've seen the full costs. An as you look at that, you'll see some little information buttons on a lot of places on this notification. All of those give you a call out to show you some more details about what you're seeing on that page.
In this instance, it's actually explaining that in this section, scholarships and grants, those are funds that you do not have to pay back to anyone, whether it's just the academic award. It's a neat place to work, whether it's state or federal Gift Aid, and that's another phrase we use for those scholarships and grants. Gift Aid things you do not have to pay back the very first thing we put in.
A package we're putting together. We want to get you all that free money first, so that's the section a student would see if the only thing they had was an academic award and they did not apply for need based aid.
So the next example is going to show you a little bit more in detail how this would look to student who did apply for me based a so they had an academic award.
They also qualified for some need based assistance in putting together an aid package. We also consider work study and student loans. Again, there's some call outs that give you a lot of additional information about those.
One of the things here is directing students with loans to studentloans.gov. You can also get to that through studentaid.gov.
If you're interested and you're one of those over Achievers who's ready to go ahead at your closet and start this process, you can't do the loans just yet. The federal system is not set up for the 2020 one 22 a year. At this point, we're all still working in the current age here, so later in the spring for our deposited students, you'll start seeing some additional items on your applicant status page. That checklist.
It will guide you to places, but this will be later in the fall. This is just showing you some more information about the loans. Annual also have a checklist item later about work. Study some of the questions we almost always receive are about how students going to juggle classroom work, maybe even athletics. The student that I'd like to use it as an example is one of our former work study students who happened to be both of.
Varsity basketball and women's lacrosse player. She worked in the Financial Aid Office the entire time she was here in Swanee Anne. Yes, she managed to complete her hours each semester. Typically, students only work about 8 to 10 hours a semester. Or excuse me, a week semester that would be great. I want that.
AJ W.
02:09:19 PM
Was the extent of paid internship talked about?
I've been working on awards behind the scenes spoke, so we've been getting a lot of these packages ready. It was a long weekend. Give you a little bit of insider information at this point. While we're doing this, some computer systems are upstairs, churning out and getting ready to release about.
Not quite 78% of our early action.
I would tell you that you guys rocked it, putting me through my paces. About 90% of you had a complete application and I don't get to start these until admissions has made decisions on academic awards, so that's what I've been doing the past couple weeks and there are almost.
Was 77.9% of them. I did the math. That's how many are ready to go. And I hope his longest. Nothing is blowing up stairs.
I'll be sending those notifications out before I go home today.
Beyond that, just let you know what the work study a little bit more detail about that students actually apply for those jobs. Again, this will come later in the process after you've deposited, so students will have access to a database with all of the jobs that are available. They'll get to fly, they submit a resume. Those resumes are reviewed by our career and leadership division here on campus, so students are building a relationship.
Shiro Burnette
02:11:06 PM
Beth is currently going over student work-study. Internships are separate from financial aid. You can see more about internships through the Sewanee Pledge here: https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/the-sewanee-pledge/
With them from the very beginning, many times before they ever set foot on campus, they'll re apply for those jobs each year, which will allow them an opportunity to submit another resume and.
Our colleagues in that division are trying to help students.
Look at what they've been doing in that position. An actually craft their resume and be able to use those skills as something marketable as they move forward through their career. It's one of the highlights of that program that we really changed, probably about four or five years ago. It's one of the things that I think is really a major enhancement for the program.
Will move down into the next section an this is showing you.
Gus G.
02:11:45 PM
How do we know if we applied for need based aid?
Your estimated I can't stress that enough. Please know and we actually added it this year. This is not the bill.
Lots of times we will get questions later in the year and say, well, the bill said X Ann.
It most certainly did not. 'cause this must have Bill and the student had multiple parking tickets and now mom and Dad are a little disappointed that they have to pay more than what this estimate said. So this is what is estimated that the family would have to pay after the aid is applied. This does take into consideration using a student loan. If the student is eligible for that particular program.
Loans and work study. I would add or completely optional. This is a very personal family decision on whether or not you choose to borrow to cover part of your.
Contribution for your students. Enrollment completely up to the family, whether or not a student uses that.
Particular program, a lot of our students will apply for private scholarships so they are doing that through their high school. Maybe they are applying to the Walmart Local scholarship. All of those things certainly does, or some options that a student could use to replace that loan and not actually borrow that year.
Shiro Burnette
02:13:25 PM
Hi Gus, if you submitted the FAFSA and the CSS profile, then the Office of Financial Aid reviewed those materials to determine need-based aid.
Again, more call outs to give you information about that section. The very next section and this is a little bit different. I know we had some international students sign up for this session. You won't see this piece because this is geared toward our domestic students who can borrow through the federal loan program, but this talks about the financing options that are available to our domestic students.
First and foremost, we have a payment plan so parents can look at instead of writing a check twice a year to cover fall. What we call Advent or spring. What we call Easter semester. You can sort that out over four to five payments over the course of that semester.
There is no credit check. There is no interest on a payment plan. There is only one to tell you this hasn't changed. Did not look at this before. Came downstairs something really looking at fast is a lot.
It should be $40 a semester, but that information will be available to students after they deposit later in the spring so that they can set up a payment plan if you choose for the parent plus loan program.
This gives us as parents an option to borrow up to the cost of attendance less any other financial aid that the student receives.
We can use this. It has repayment terms that vary from 5 to 10 years.
Mostly based on the amount that you borrow, but this is an option for almost all of our parents. One of the things I would tell you is to use this. You must complete a fasa. So for a family who wants to go this route only has an academic award and has not filed a FAFSA. We do need you to complete it faster. That's a requirement, probably in the last five or six years you previously. You did not need to do that, but it is required.
The other piece of the financing options that we've added recently, it was something that we did not necessarily advocate.
We were concerned about students borrowing and overborrowing, and for someone who's been doing this for 30 years, I can tell you that I've witnessed a student borrow once before and the interest rate was 14.99%.
Not something this mom necessarily was happy about that day.
Those things have changed a little bit. Not only are the loans out there and I do not necessarily recommend it for a student to be borrowing or over borrowing, but a lot of the lenders are now offering options to us as parents so that we can cover our portion of the costs.
One of the reasons that we've included this is there's an origination fee associated with the Federal plus loan.
It's a little bit over 4%.
For a lot of the private loans for parents.
There is no origination fee and that can make a major difference depending on how much you choose to borrow and depending upon it your creditworthiness you may find that you have a better interest rate with a private loan's appearance as well. So we did put that out there mainly for that reason. As you can imagine if you were choosing to borrow the full cost of attendance.
And four percent came off your loan off the top.
A private loan again might be a better option for you.
The next piece of this is.
There's some line items over to the right. Again, I'm going to show you a big picture here in a little bit, but all of those are links to more information.
Kenya C.
02:17:33 PM
I think I missed this but I am having trouble finding an answer online, but when will the financial aid reports be sent out?
There is one that will take you to a lot of definitions, tell you all about it will talk about direct and indirect costs. It will talk about the difference in a subsidized versus unsubsidized loan. So for your information, the quick answer to that is a subsidized loan. It is need based. The student had need using the fasick formula and the interest is not approving while the student is in school.
the complete opposite interest is improving while the student is in school. I would tell you, as an aside that I've watched parents over the years. Ask a student to go ahead and use that unsubsidized loan, but as a parent, what they chose to do was pay the interest while the student was enrolled so that they weren't looking at a larger debt burden upon graduation. Again, very, very personal decisions here, some parents.
Just really want their students to have some ownership of their educational costs. Listen to parents.
Shiro Burnette
02:18:39 PM
Hi Kenya, these notifications will be sent soon. Keep an eye out on your email for a notification from the Office of Financial Aid.
That are having their students honest to goodness. Borrow a private loan for the first year, the entire thing and their logic is they need to know that this is expensive and we want them to do their best and as long as he does his best, I'm paying for it afterwards. That's great, again, very personal decisions on what works for your family and what is in your best financial interests. There's not one size fits all to any of those financing options.
We're here to help you through those, but there's more detail about all of that. In some of those sign links.
Button so you can go ahead and enroll, so we'll send you directly to where you can pay a deposit. There's a link there about keeping your aid and what that's talking to you about is something very important. It's called satisfactory academic progress, so students have to meet satisfactory academic progress to continue to receive any of their funds from Swanee. Whether it's the academic will work, whether it's need based award, whether it's tuition exchange, tuition remission.
All of those things require satisfactory academic progress. Another piece in there will outline for Tennessee students. The difference in the requirements for the Hope Scholarship. So for Tennessee residents, that Hope Scholarship has actually a higher GPA requirement than our standard satisfactory academic progress.
And then there's another piece that talks to you. This is in conjunction with our career and leadership colleagues, with the outcomes of a recent year for our students, what they're doing, how many of them want to Graduate School so that nature? So all of those are going to be over to the right when you see your comprehensive a notification.
Taylor Baird
02:20:46 PM
https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/cost-financial-aid/need-based-aid/ongoing-assistance/satisfactory-academic-progress/
The very next like gives you a picture of pretty much the full notification, so that's what a student would see. There's a little bit more at the bottom. It definitely has the standard disclaimers that this is, you know, for this year.
When I'm dealing with need based aid, you're going to fill out a FASA each and every year so we know things can change.
And on that note, yeah, things have changed. We know that I have like I said, about 77% of these complete.
Most of the ones that I've not finished, we're going to take a little bit more time there, just honestly, a little bit more complex.
Not all of us came through 2020 unscathed, and we know that, so we're going through those. It's much deeper dive, and we're looking to see the information that you provided us on the outset so that we can determine if we need to ask you For more information. If we need some additional documentation. If you've given us and some of you guys.
Amazed you guys must have listened to some other sessions somewhere along the line because of the fact that a lot of you have given us what we need to do to do our job. That whole help us help you. You provided details you've told us you know my wages were cut by this amount.
That's extremely helpful because we now know what numbers to use to do a recalculation.
If you didn't do that, that's fine too, because we are going to contact you if we don't have enough information, but we know 2020 was challenging.
I was referring to earlier is again complex situations because I'm tired of the word unprecedented.
It's it's just been rough and we know that, so we're going to be doing our best to look at these on an individual basis.
And one thing I'd like you to know from just literally my own personal experience with this.
Advance warning quite awhile actually. Since December of 1986 and since May of 1990 and financial aid office.
I took this actual position in August of 2008 by 2009, 2010 if there's parents on the.
Call with a stone session. Today I was questioning my sanity, it it was rough and families were really struggling in so many ways.
And as we go through these like you said on a case by case basis, we're also looking at how this is impacted. Each family and one of the examples I've used for a long time now is one that came during 2009, 2010 when in March.
I called to let me know that her husband's company had shut down.
And then she called me back in May when the exact same thing happened at her employers.
That compared to an in. Please understand we don't take any of this lightly. We know that this is challenging for families, but we also pretty much have to triage it a little bit. One of the calls we took had to do with the family who was anticipating, because that's what the employer had told them, that there was a possibility that.
The parent will be furloughed for six days during the upcoming year.
And in the grand scheme of things, yes, we had to wait. The fact that.
Six days over the course of the year without pay versus.
Both parents no longer having a job, and during that time like.
sometimes it's hard for those families to find another option. They don't have one, so we're taking each and everyone of those things very seriously and doing our best to see what options we have with our institutional funding to assist in these situations. Because we know you filled out a FAFSA based on the calendar year 2018. Those are the rules. Those are the Rex. That's the way of Absa works, but 2019 may or may not be.
An accurate representation of your current situation. So for those of you that have already reached out to us.
Those are the ones I'm working on and they will take just a little bit more time. I hope to have as many as possible ready next week, but we want to make sure we go through them completely before we send you any information.
For the ones that potentially don't get a notification tonight, what else could it be other than the fact that I really need to read everything that you sent me and see what I can do? Some of our students said they were interested in financial aid on the common application, but they never sent us a FAFSA. Now what you could have met and we understand that, is that you were applying for academic scholarships. It's perfectly fine.
If that was your intent and you do not get something from us.
By tomorrow reach out. Let us know that that was all you were interested in.
If it wasn't, you need to go to studentaid.gov and fill out your mouse as soon as possible. Remember, you're filling out the 2020 one, 22 FASA the current year still open, because students can still complete that you want to complete the 2020 one 22 FAFSA you'll use your 2019 income information. You fill out assets as of the day you complete the form.
Annual report your household size and number in college to reflect what that will be during the 2021 to 2022 academic year.
If your application was incomplete, we had a number of students who were selected for verification.
That is a federal process.
That the government just wants to make sure that those taxpayer dollars in the form of Pell Grants are going to the right students and we have to verify that application.
If you have not already done so.
Filled out your FAFSA but you never created your account in our financial aid portal. It is a standalone portal. It's not linked to any other password user ID. Anything that you have, but it is at swaney.verifymyfafsa.com.
Go ahead, make sure you complete your account. Create whatever user ID, password you want, something you will remember, please. We can't ever access your password, so if you don't know that we can reset it and send you reset. Will be we can access access the passport.
That is a checklist item on your applicant status page. But again, remember this is a standalone portal, so when you do it, it's not going to go over here and make that checkbox go away, but the red X. Actually you have to self certify on your applicant status page that you completed that process when you complete. When you go in and complete your account it will tell you if you need to submit additional documentation for verification purposes.
You may have to complete a verification worksheet. We may need if you did not use Iris data retrieval when completing the FAFSA, we may potentially need a tax transcript. Those things so we're still missing things for verification.
You're probably not in this batch that we're going to release tonight.
The other thing that we ran into were some significant discrepancies between when you completed the CSS profile and when you completed the FASA. So if those are coming out with some very, very different numbers, if one of them tells me that your family contribution is 0 and the other one tells me your family contribution is 200,000.
I have to look at those and see what the difference is. It make sure that we're giving you accurate information. For me personally, making sure what we go out with the very first time is as accurate as possible is important. I don't want you to get this and think Oh well, you know that's just wrong and I'm not going to Sony. I want to make sure I've looked at everything and to be very Frank.
Ideal location every one of these paths is is why I think I feel like in my eyes are kind of burning today, but it's one way that we identify errors that a lot of families make sometimes to their detriment. So maybe they've reported something that they should not have reported on the FASA and using this method were able to catch those errors. An if we can't see exactly that, that's what the challenge was.
You know someone the other day where it looked like they just had an extra key when they were doing their data entry because there was a major difference between the number of household members an.
That's actually what happened. There was just a little data entry error in some instances on the FASA. They've listed mom dad and the student that they forgot about the other two siblings that they reported on the CSS profile. So these are ways for us to ensure that we are doing our best to get you accurate information. The first go round. Another thing that sometimes slows this down as if you have submitted multiple.
Maddy T.
02:31:19 PM
can you please send the link to the Sewanee FAFSA website
***** you made a change. You made another change. You made another change that's fine. I mean, we know that sometimes you go in and you catch something. Maybe you catch it before we did.
At some point, you probably want to stop that and reach out to your schools first.
Shiro Burnette
02:31:32 PM
Here is the link to our financial aid portal: Sewanee.verifymyfafsa.com
Because more times you submit a FASA and the later, you do this in the process. The more likely you would be selected for verification on one of those subsequent transactions, and all that's going to do is require you to go through some steps. So if you weren't initially.
Selected for verification. You really don't want to keep changing the FASA.
Those are the main reasons that we would run into something. I want to tell you that I had.
I know there were less than 150 that were incomplete.
And there were about 200 students that we really need to do that deeper dive and see what's going on with the employment situation. We do have an appeal process and for the most part, if you've told us something.
Already through the CSS profile or other communications that would impact your.
Your ability to pay what?
You would normally be able to do.
We might just initiate that ourselves, or maybe you've given us enough information. We typically look at families who were dealing with some catastrophic medical out of pocket expenses, and then of course this year.
This employment issues are serious for a lot of families and those are the things that we're focusing on at this point. So if you've already told us those things, please just give me a little bit more time. I actually run alternate calculations.
Just trying to think of some of the things that I've read over the weekend in the bonus that Dad normally gets. He's not going to get that the employer is not doing that well. If he's told me how much the bonus is, then I can go in and run alternate calculation to see if without that bonus, this student will qualify for additional need based aid. So in this things take a little bit more time, but we want to make sure that we get through all of them and that we are.
Giving you accurate and timely information.
200 government perfect world. If my husband will make sure he takes care of everything else at home.
Kenya C.
02:33:57 PM
I created my Sewanee FAFSA verification account, but my application status page says "awaiting". (When I log in, it says "all done!")
Unless I need to ask for additional information, I would tell you that most of these should be going out early next week if they're not in today's batch.
Other than that, what I want to make sure you know is how to contact us. So if you don't already know, we use a generic email account to filter a lot of things that come through the office and also just to manage email everyone in the office can answer these accounts so that if someone is out sick or unavailable that day, these are still monitored during business hours. So the general.
Is R finaid FINAIDS one e.edu?
Shiro Burnette
02:35:06 PM
Hi Kenya, the last step is to self-certify your account. You can do this by clicking the link on your status page. This will take you to a short form that allows you to tell us that you created your account.
We also have one for alone questions, so that's just loans at swanee.edu and then for specific questions with regard to work study. One thing I didn't mention that I should have. We probably have about 500 students a year doing work study. We have probably about 550 positions available on campus. We have a few off campus. We're not utilizing a lot of those right now due to the.
Academic departments administrative departments so students have a wide variety of options as far as positions on campus, but you can direct specific questions to work. Study at swanee.edu an our phone number is 931598.
1312 the other thing will be doing admissions has more popular Facebook, Instagram and things than the Financial Aid Office. But we do have both of those and Instagram and Facebook page. So when I try to do periodically is just put general information out there. It's been doing, uh, it's sporadic, because right now I'm looking at fast as a sporadic. Did you know posting so that as certain questions come through? If it's something generic?
That I can answer that way and get that information out to families. It's literally a did you know post to give you more information about the process and we're swooning. Financial aid office on Facebook so.
I'm guessing after trying to get all that information in and out like that, I'm there maybe some questions. I have some wonderful colleagues that you guys can't see 'cause they make me sit over here.
That I have been fielding and looking at the questions that you may have been submitting and we're happy to answer those.
I this is not one of the questions that submitted Cheryl is skewing those up for us, but I know that as a counselor, so everyone off screen on screen. I'm Taylor Taylor buried in the Office of Admission, one of the big questions we get about the particular aid portal is the student email versus parent email and who can contribute? What to those documents in navigating uploads? So this financial aid portal is somewhat similar to Facet in that the student.
Needs to create the account. It is a student account and the only time a parent needs an account for this is if there is a parental signature required. Because this portal allows you to isign, it's awesome. It took us out of the Dark Ages when you were still having to fax things to our office. So in the event a student is selected for verification and the parent needs to E sign the verification.
If we initiate an appeal for you, and the parent needs to E sign, the student is going to initiate a signature request that sends to the parents email. So make sure students parents that you guys know each other's email address and that will start the process for a parent to have an account other than that student really needs to take leadership on this and have their own account, because if you start tying it too.
The parental account it it is a problem, so please let the student create their account an if you need to sit there, help him upload things. You can take a picture. You can attach a PDF. It has been a tremendous help not only to our families but our office in expediting information.
So and then, as with a lot of financial questions, but as you mentioned, it's personal. It's with families, so there are some questions in the queue that we might just make generic and not actually approve over to the chat. So if you I might try to make it a little more general.
So if if we had an early decision student who has gone through the process, received that information, and actually already paid their deposit, and I know a good amount of you actually already deposited and planning to come to Swanee, if there has been a significant economic change, then are they is a deposited student still able to? Yes, most student is already deposited.
Can I tell you that we can fix everything up? I'm not going to do that, I'm I'm a realist in my office and I have to be because you need good information, but most certainly is an institution where prepared for the fact that we are going to get a significant number of appeals. We are still going to be until this all blows over and life gets back to normal.
Whatever normal will be after this.
We know things will change.
Again, will we be able to fix everything? No, but you do need to raise your hand. Let us know what's happening. We have a system upstairs so that if you already have your notification, as in early decision candidates that I will get information so we can go back and revisit those.
I will tell you very frankly, we probably will not be revisiting any of those that are already out the door.
Until, at the very earliest mid March we still have regular decision students that have not been notified of admission and do not have any notification from either office an. I'll have to start working on those as well, so we will look at them. We will most certainly look at them, so contact our office. Let us know what's happening.
Again, will take into consideration how how this is impacting your individual situation so.
$350,000,000 a year. I have to do exaggerated things. Please understand I'm not taking this lightly, but I also don't want to provide something that seems too close to somebody's own personal situation. If I made $350,000 a year and I told you, well, my employers cut my pay by 5%.
In the grand scheme of things that might end, it won't impact anything, but we go back to that family who both parents lost their jobs as opposed to someone who needed to budget for six days over the course of a year without wages. So we'll have to take all.
And consideration, but we do want you to let us know what's happening.
And then this is backtracking a little bit, probably more simple question, but just to reiterate, for students who did not apply for need based aid, they do still get a notification and an email for students who did not apply for any type of need based aid. You did not send a facet to this institution.
An academic scholarship through the admissions process, we are going to send you something partially because we want to make sure you know what are possible being next year, and we also want to alert families about the payment plan options if they want to pursue something like that. So yes, those notifications and and those were the easy, so those are pretty much unless you told us yes it didn't do the FASA. The other thing that I would note is we had a number of families.
Who actually said they weren't interested in financial aid? Need based aid?
But you were from the state of Tennessee.
Carson C.
02:43:12 PM
Thank you this was very helpful.
So the only way you can obtain the Hope Scholarship is to complete the fast and maybe you don't want that. But it is $3500 a year for students who qualify for the first 2 years and then as long as you're maintaining the right GPA it is $4500 for junior and senior year. So if you want to still do that, please go ahead and complete the FASA we have flagged you in our system.
So we're sending you a notification, but it's flagged on our side is what we call internally conditional, and you're only conditional because we kind of thought she might want to fill out a FAFSA.
And so this one is more specific, but I think will be helpful for others out there. Can a non custodial parent who didn't fill out the FAFSA qualify for a Federal direct parent loan? Or are those options only for the custodial parent? Know both parents can apply for as long as the student files so fast so.
So it's the student spouse are with the custodial parent household information. As long as an we've had that happen on multiple occasions. Parents have worked out what the options are and how they are going to finance the situation in a in a face to face presentation, I use my family all a lot for the poster child for everything that could be different when you're sending your kids to school. So I've told my step kids. They were very, very blessed that they had.
For working parents, just them while they were going to school. And yes.
While their mother was the custodial parent, she could have pursued A plus loan and my husband could have pursued so. Most certainly that's an option. OK, wonderful. This is sort of a niche question, but perhaps there are others.
Gus G.
02:45:16 PM
Our page also says awaiting, all has been filled in.
Hot with the comprehensive letter goes out. Does that include information about tuition exchange or programs with partnerships with other colleges, students who were awarded our tuition Exchange scholarship? Yes, that information is is another one of those that will go out. If you also filled out fasa, we might be showing you potentially depending upon your situation. User so unique so we could have a student who has tuition exchange and just an unsubsidised.
Loan because they completed the faster we will show you any eligibility for student loan. So if you didn't qualify for anything else, we're going to show you that maximum $5500 loan for a freshman.
What we do not do an other schools may choose to. There's no one size fits all and everyone does it differently. It's one of the reasons the very first when I took this job high school night I thought been doing this for years. I know what to do and then it hit me that the people in the audience would not all be applying to Swanee and they would have different programs, different deadlines, all of those things. But some schools will actually include that parent.
Oslo in this notification and I can do that. And actually putting that loan in there could get you to where it says that you owe 0 for both semesters, but we feel pretty strongly that that parent plus loan piece is.
Very, very personal. So we're not going to put out there that your balance is 0 because we added plus long, but we do include the student option there. Again, you can decline those.
And so I know we've gone over sort of the aqb awards in this set. Scholarships listed on an aid letter. But if a student is still.
Hoping to go through the Benedict are by she answers process or maybe applying for fellowship in the arts. How will that update on a letter? Or would they be ones that timeline look like for them to question? We have so if a student is applying for the Benedict Scholarship Fellowship in the Arts or if they are looking even as side of Honor program, I don't know. I don't know the dates of when they have all of that up in the emission side right now.
But if you're doing that as soon as those decisions are made, they will notify our office and I serve pretty much as a.
Shiro Burnette
02:47:33 PM
Hi Gus, if this is for your Financial Aid Portal then you can follow the link beside "Awaiting" on your status page to fill out the self-certification form. If you have problems please reach out to your counselor in our office. We will be happy to help out!
A glorified data entry clerk for the process and we will get you.
A revised notification. The only difference will be where you saw that.
A little bit more wordy information at all. Congratulations all that it's just going to simply say that this is a revision and it will not have.
All of the words in email and it will not have all of the buttons down the side because it is a revised notification. It's not the first time you're getting one.
And for that question, we will walk Sharon. I would look at our calendars and we will put the date in of Windows. Notifications are going to go out there. That was sort of pass into that question, but I broadened it because that that could include the number of students.
Clara R.
02:48:28 PM
Can a student do Work/Study and Bonner Scholar?
Ryan X.
02:48:33 PM
I know this is not exactly financial aid, but if you were nominated for either the Benedict or Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship, when would you be notified of your nomination?
Let's see so one question related to that kind of student. Do a work study. Anbia Bonner leader. If you are a Bonner leader, you work. Study is honor. You will automatically be assigned to them. You will not have to go through the application process and you will be working with that team with the Community service projects that they do. So same thing for the fellowship in the arts. If you're eligible for work study and we received one of those.
You will be assigned to one of those areas, so if you're doing fellowship in the arts and your focus was theater, and you're eligible for work study, then you would be assigned to that Department as opposed to applying for different positions.
Kylie G.
02:49:25 PM
did the raiseme money just get put into the EQB award?
Instead, for students who have been logging items and raise me and utilizing that resource, how does that get input into their letter or where those funds live in a comprehensive letter, so the rise may that's already been taken into consideration in your admissions information. So if you aren't.
Don't make me do math in my head this late in the afternoon. So let's say that you earned.
A slacker. That's what it was. I just turned $4000. So basically I have $1000 a year in raising money. Luckily I wasn't a slacker in the classroom and these nice folks in the admissions office actually offered me an $18,000 EQB scholarship.
The $1000 in the Razmi is in the QB money.
Shiro Burnette
02:50:36 PM
Students who are under consideration for the Vice-Chancellor's or Benedict scholarship will be notified in early March.
Perfect, not an additional scholarship. They have considered the amount of your raise ME dollars as they were putting together your EQ. Being now had I not done anything in raise me, you know it could very likely be that my EQ B was only $17,000. So all of that's already been calculated in your admissions notification, wonderful.
Alright, and this is I guess, thinking long term we've got a couple of steps to get to this point of getting your letter kind of discerning it. Asking questions so we have someone asking about like what might make you eligible for a financial aid appeal in what would a student need to do in that case. So I guess speak broadly about that. So we want you to get your notification 1st and when you get that. As I said, I've been looking through.
Parts of these and this piece is labor intensive because it is on a case by case basis. There are number of 'em that provided enough information and what I have done is I went through each and everyone of them was their notes in our electronic systems so that my team if you call the office and you say you know I really need someone to look at this. They know if I've already calculated that will use that.
Other example of making $350,000,000 a year not not really having any.
Need even though I lost some wages.
So they know all of that.
You still need to contact us. We want you to get the notification. Look at that because in some of these instances you may find that what we've already been able to do.
If you need to reach out to us.
Please either use the email that's there. We do anticipate sending out these this afternoon and our phones are going to be ugly and I have two people out partying so bad begging your patience.
We can initiate the appeal process, the need based appeal process for you through the portal you have to fill data faster. If you have not at least done the faster.
We have no way to start that process because you're not in our port.
The other piece I would tell you is and I'm stepping a little bit out of my Lane.
There is an appeal process for merit.
What I would say about that piece is if you have additional information, if something if you took.
They see TV S80 again, so I don't know how they're doing all that with Kovid right now. That's so far out of my life, but if you have additional information that you feel that the admissions office did not know about at that time, you contact your counselor and they can initiate the mirror appeal process. You can't do both. We are definitely anticipating some need for families who lost jobs and things of that nature, so.
Maddy T.
02:53:59 PM
how do you know if you are eligible for the other scholarships? should it have been said in the acceptance letter?
We're working very, very hard to balance our budget with those needs, so it would be one or the other. If you're if you know you don't qualify for any additional need based aid and you have additional information that you need to share with admissions, contact counselor. If you need to talk to us about a change in your circumstances, we would ask that you first and foremost have filled out that FASA and then make sure you get your notification from us. Look at that.
Then reach out to US phone email. How are you to do that? And I think that's a great point about the merit conversation. I think if for parents and students, if you did reach out to your counselor where you know we can have that conversation and guide you pretty specifically on the phone. I think some of that gets illuminated in a one on one conversation.
Conversation that I find myself having their families is just reminding them. Or do you like talking about the process in general that every school has a different merit process in regiment, so I guess could you speak about like just how that's our cap and how we stopped?
What I would say that I think it's really important to understand Swaney made a major commitment when they said they were going to go back to meeting full need and being in this office for 30 years. That's how I started my career. We were meeting full need. We also only gave out.
Wow, I've been doing this a long time. I can't remember if it was just 25.
Or 50 Wilkins awards? That was it. That was all the merit that went out the door.
Shiro Burnette
02:55:43 PM
All students are eligible for each merit scholarship, including the Benedict and Vice-Chancellor's scholarship. The Fellowship in the Arts is application-based and can be viewed here: https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/cost-financial-aid/scholarships/
We're doing a really good job on still providing merit while going back to ensuring that students who are going to thrive and be do amazing things while they are here on our campus are able to come to Swanee without trying to figure out how to come up with 20 extra $1000 on the fastest, says they really can only pay 5000, so.
I'm very proud of the fact that we've gone back to doing that.
And it does mean that we have to balance those things. So it's an important piece for me because that's how I started my career.
And I've always felt very strongly that there are kids that would love to be at Swanee and isn't an amazing that.
We can do this in a way aware of finances are not the only concern they have when choosing their institution, right?
And I think just to the way I break it down as a counselor to digest that too. As myself is, you know, outside of the Vice Chancellor and the Benedict are scholarship ranges. You know, 5000 to 30,000 and so if you just kind of having that top level for context of putting your ecobee award or scholarship in context I think is really helpful 'cause when you start to compare all those letters it is you kind of get easy to lose sight. I think that everyone has a different budget like you said and.
Different priorities in different regimen.
Gus G.
02:57:19 PM
Who should I email for giving additional information about finances.
It's hard to say I got this much money at one school. Why doesn't look the same as the other three or four? And that's the piece that one of the things that I would caution families and it will be running up against our time limit is especially at your private schools when it comes to their institutional dollars. They all do it differently and.
Shiro Burnette
02:57:45 PM
Hi Gus, you can reach out to finaid@sewanee.edu
That for me it's one of the confusing pieces that I hope we help you live through this process. When you fill out a CSS profile, another school can take that data and say, well, OK, they had two in college, but one of them only went to Community College. So we're not going to calculate it the way the facet does an. Then you get an award where you don't really understand the numbers.
One of the things I enjoy doing and.
Pandemics taken that away from me is when a family could come in and we would walk through of asset in the formula. Can I tell you that they liked all the answers at the end? Better now, but it's really helpful to understand that calculation and by going back to meeting full need and staying very close to that facile formula we look at non custodial contributions when it's appropriate. And we do look at what we've called paper losses on a tax return.
But other than that, we're staying very close to that pass. A formula that will hopefully provide you some.
Some semblance of clarity in the process, so we have one last specific question, and then I can close this out.
As far as like this set tuition and fees. Thinking of that number, it's really, I guess the question is related to course hours. So for Swanee students is that does that tuition and fees change with however many hours there enrolled in? Or is that more of a set cost for every student?
We called in some areas of flat rate, so we're going to charge that amount in 2020, one, 22, eight year, and the numbers on the PowerPoint where our actual costs for the upcoming year. And if you take 16 hours.
That's four horses for four credit hour courses. Each semester you will graduate in four years.
You can take 12. That's still full time.
You need to be figuring out where you could make up those hours. You don't want to do that on a regular basis, but yes, 12 hours is full time.
I think I just assumed take 16 if that's what I'm paying, if you take.
18 hours we're still going to charge you that same flat rate tuition.
Perfect and I'm just going to say this to make sure it is clear we still have some students who went Swanee froze their tuition for four years. Please understand that is not the policy in place. Now we're meeting full need, which is amazing. We weren't doing that when we were freezing tuition for four years. So you do need to know that you will see a tuition increase as you move forward. But if you're need based, will be taking that into consideration our calculation.
Thank you and so I just want to close this out by saying this is one of many Swanee Sessions that we will have in the spring. We always say always, but typically kick off this spring with this topic because it is really pressing. We're getting questions about it and try to get out in front of you to kind of Orient you to your letter. You know, upon receipt of that, it's kind of helpful to know what you're going to be looking at.
But we will have many more sessions to come, and some of the things that Beth mentioned about applying for work study, or really the enrollment process thinking about fee bills, all of that that is going to come. And we're going to have multiple sessions about about the enrollment process here at Swanee. Kind of moving into March and April of what's going to load the spring. We're going to be able to access and apply for, and then what action items really aren't going to come up until June, July, so.
Shiro Burnette
03:01:32 PM
View future sessions here!: https://engage.sewanee.edu/portal/thesewaneesessionsyield
Know that it is a long haul. It's an enrollment process, just like an application process.
Connor D.
03:01:41 PM
This has been very informative - thanks for doing it!
Elise O.
03:01:42 PM
Thank you. This was helpful.
On the screen, here are the accounts that Beth mentioned in the phone number, but also feel free to reach out to Shiro or myself or any counselor in the office just to help us get you in the right.
Turner answer Some basic questions. We're happy to do that too, but thank you so much and we will be posting this recording to the website by the end of the week. So we just have to let that recording process and will get it on the web page for you to reference back when you're looking at your letter or for anyone who missed the session, we will be putting us on line, but thank you and thank you, Beth.
Thanks for joining us folks by everyone.
Shiro Burnette
03:02:16 PM
Reach out to your counselor here: https://new.sewanee.edu/admission-aid/admission-counselors/
Rachel W.
03:02:19 PM
Thank you guys so much!
Palmer W.
03:02:20 PM
Very helpful- thanks much!
Emma Grace L.
03:02:21 PM
thank you
Dottie F.
03:02:22 PM
Thank you for this informative session.
Jennifer Q.
03:02:24 PM
Thank you!
Carly A.
03:02:29 PM
thank you!!!
Gibson B.
03:02:29 PM
Thanks!
Abigail P.
03:02:31 PM
Thank you! This has been very helpful!
Gus G.
03:02:32 PM
Thank you!
Ryan X.
03:02:33 PM
Thank you so much!
Audrey K.
03:02:33 PM
Thank you so much! :)
Roshan P.
03:02:34 PM
Really informative session. Thank you!
Olivia J.
03:02:35 PM
Thanks!
Maddy T.
03:02:36 PM
Thank you, this has been very informative and helpful!
Julia M.
03:02:36 PM
Thank you!
Morgyn H.
03:02:37 PM
Thank you so much this has been wonderful!!
Matthew S.
03:02:38 PM
thank you
Ellett W.
03:02:51 PM
Thanks from South Carolina!