2019-2020 Columbia VP&S

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Student189045 said:
Does anyone know if a letter of intent is necessary to come off the wait list? I Would love to attend Columbia but unfortunately I can't make a blind commitment without knowing aid as I have a very generous scholarship at a different school.
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I don’t know much about letters of intent but the aid at Columbia is hella generous. Both need based and merit. It might be worth reaching out to the aid office.
 
mass-premed66 said:
I don’t know much about letters of intent but the aid at Columbia is hella generous. Both need based and merit. It might be worth reaching out to the aid office.
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But you can keep yourself on the waitlist until June or July and accept the other offer.
 
Hi guys, I'm currently on the waitlist, and I'm wondering if anyone is willing to share what financial aid at VP&S is looking like? How do they calculate their "100% of financial need," and do you find it to be accurate in terms of your needs?

I'm just asking to gauge how to feel about my other dream school's offer on the tinyyy chance I get accepted here later on.
 
stressed0-0 said:
Hi guys, I'm currently on the waitlist, and I'm wondering if anyone is willing to share what financial aid at VP&S is looking like? How do they calculate their "100% of financial need," and do you find it to be accurate in terms of your needs?

I'm just asking to gauge how to feel about my other dream school's offer on the tinyyy chance I get accepted here later on.
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They do two calculations, one based on parent income and one based on assets. If your parents make less than $125,000, they do not expect a contribution to tuition based on income. However, they can still calculate one based on assets.

That’s all that is included regarding their calculations on the award letter. They also do match merit aid but I assume that goes through a dif process. Good luck!!
 
MDapplicant578124 said:
woah the merit aid match is huge news for me. Do you have any other details on whether that’s just for special circumstances or if they always match?

I have a substantial scholarship from another school that was preventing me from writing a letter of intent to Columbia because I didn’t want to commit to paying a huge amount more should they actually take me off the waitlist (I know the chance is low anyway)
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PM me! Don’t think I can start a conversation with you
 
Would someone be down to talk to be about their financial aid package and about how parental assets affect the calculation?
 
RockyMtDr said:
Would someone be down to talk to be about their financial aid package and about how parental assets affect the calculation?
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To the best of my understanding, it is 6% per year of parental assets excluding primary home and retirement funds. Plus a sliding percent of parental income from 0-45%.

This calculator works decently as an EFC estimate:
www.tamingthehighcostofcollege.com

Financial Aid & Student Aid Index (SAI/EFC) Calculator - 2024-25

Financial Aid & Student Aid Index (SAI/EFC) Calculator - 2024-25
www.tamingthehighcostofcollege.com www.tamingthehighcostofcollege.com
 
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Congrats to everyone who got off the WL! Is there a chance to get off the WL if you sent a letter of interest and not a letter of intent? Has it happened in the past?

I think Columbia is a relatively high yield school so the little WL movement they have might be for people who sent intents.
 
bluejay2019 said:
Congrats to everyone who got off the WL! Is there a chance to get off the WL if you sent a letter of interest and not a letter of intent? Has it happened in the past?

I think Columbia is a relatively high yield school so the little WL movement they have might be for people who sent intents.
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I know of a couple people who sent letters of interest and got in recently
 
to the people who have gotten in off the waitlist - how long do they give you to decide? and do they let you get a financial aid package before deciding?
 
filthy_premed said:
to the people who have gotten in off the waitlist - how long do they give you to decide? and do they let you get a financial aid package before deciding?
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Think you should have at least 5 biz days to respond right now according to the AAMC traffic rules. I’ll let someone else chime in regarding the financial aid award letter but their office seems to be very responsive, for what it’s worth!
 
relax1234 said:
Think you should have at least 5 biz days to respond right now according to the AAMC traffic rules. I’ll let someone else chime in regarding the financial aid award letter but their office seems to be very responsive, for what it’s worth!
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Correct.
 
Wondering if any current students on here could speak to how closely the cost of attendance budget matches their experience? From what I calculated, $67,405 of the $93,064 total CoA goes to tuition and required fees. That leaves $25,659 for rent, food, and other living expenses. Is this do-able in Washington Heights? Could I get away with budgeting a little less -- say, $22k, if I plan on spending about $1,000 in rent? About how much do students find they are spending on rent, and then on living expenses other than rent? Any insight would be much appreciated!!
 
femmebot said:
Wondering if any current students on here could speak to how closely the cost of attendance budget matches their experience? From what I calculated, $67,405 of the $93,064 total CoA goes to tuition and required fees. That leaves $25,659 for rent, food, and other living expenses. Is this do-able in Washington Heights? Could I get away with budgeting a little less -- say, $22k, if I plan on spending about $1,000 in rent? About how much do students find they are spending on rent, and then on living expenses other than rent? Any insight would be much appreciated!!
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If you have your own health insurance already, you can remove that expensive line item from the Columbia estimate and get to your number.
 
proudofmykids said:
If you have your own health insurance already, you can remove that expensive line item from the Columbia estimate and get to your number.
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Thanks, and I already didn't include the insurance in my numbers above.
 
30 people have joined the groupme in the last week.. so there’s definitely more movement than has been posted here!
 
For anyone that participated In the virtual second look:
Does anyone have the class of 2024 academic calendar for VP&S?
Also, is move-in day the day of Orientation, or before?
 
When you get off a WL you have five business days to decide between the current acceptance and the new (off the) WL acceptance so that you can evaluate the fin aid awards. You have to communicate with both schools and get their agreement with that arrangement as well; it's outlined in the AMCAS traffic rules.
 
Meeps117 said:
When you get off a WL you have five business days to decide between the current acceptance and the new (off the) WL acceptance so that you can evaluate the fin aid awards. You have to communicate with both schools and get their agreement with that arrangement as well; it's outlined in the AMCAS traffic rules.
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They were posting about this choice well before traffic day. So even if they got off the waitlist before traffic day, 5 days has passed a while ago. Also Columbia and Cornell both sent out emails that pretty clearly stated you were required to narrow it down to one acceptance and select plan to enroll by April 30th, so the school specific policies were very clear outside of AMCAS guidelines. But to your point, I’m sure there is something else going on that I haven’t thought of. I doubt someone would gamble with school specific policies and acceptances being rescinded at this point.
 
medschoolthrowaway2020 said:
They were posting about this choice well before traffic day. So even if they got off the waitlist before traffic day, 5 days has passed a while ago. Also Columbia and Cornell both sent out emails that pretty clearly stated you were required to narrow it down to one acceptance and select plan to enroll by April 30th, so the school specific policies were very clear outside of AMCAS guidelines. But to your point, I’m sure there is something else going on that I haven’t thought of. I doubt someone would gamble with school specific policies and acceptances being rescinded at this point.
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Some people are above rules.

Not following traffic rules is a middle finger to other applicants/potential matriculants.
 
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Chill folks, this all seems to have occurred after April 30th, it was not “well before traffic day.” We all have to follow the rules, Idk how you’d go above them unless u email a school for an exception, and if they say yes then ur still following the rules. So there’s literally no way to “break” the rules.
 
Punky Brewster said:
Chill folks, this all seems to have occurred after April 30th, it was not “well before traffic day.” We all have to follow the rules, Idk how you’d go above them unless u email a school for an exception, and if they say yes then ur still following the rules. So there’s literally no way to “break” the rules.
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I’m not saying they broke the rules! I have no clue what the details of their situation are. I remembered they posted a help me decide Cornell vs Columbia well before traffic day because I used it to help me think about my decision too so that is what I was referring to above. I just assumed their kid was accepted to both schools before that post. But again, I don’t know their full situation.
 
MDapplicant578124 said:
Hi all,
I have a question for accepted students who have filled out financial aid:
I am working on one of the required forms, the MD Student Questionnaire, and one of the boxes simply lists "TRAVEL- area, dates." Is this referring to academic travel such as study abroad or any vacations or what? I think I missed the memo with this Q.
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I had the same question! I assumed it meant academic travel but idk
 
MDapplicant578124 said:
I ended up forgetting to fill it out before submitting and now there is no way to edit so oh well haha
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you can just submit a second form if you want. a warning to everyone: there's no final "submit" button on the form, it just looks like a next button, but then the next page says "thank you for submitting"
 
tardigrade12 said:
do you know how much it can change by? For example, if a sibling was in college paying lots of tuition and graduated, would you expect financial aid to change by about the amount of that tuition or some fraction of it?
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Total EFC is split between dependents. So if you and your sibling are in school this year, and they graduates, your portion of EFC will double.
 
mvsrocks said:
The environment was very very relaxed (interviewees were playing Jenga together at a point to kill time), great food, tour didn't require much walking, and the student guides were very nice (they don't report to adcom). We had 2 interviews, both 30 min, with 2 different people.
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Was it with two faculty? or a faculty and student?
 
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