Hello everyone! So this is the first in what I hope to be an indefinate number of somewhat regular updates on the financial aid process for those of you who have been admitted. I hope to provide you some answers to frequently asked questions and an understanding of where we are in our process.

So here we go:

Quesiton 1 -- Where is my financial aid award letter?

First of all, congratulations on your admission to MIT. After an anxiety-filled week, I hope many of you took a well-deserved breather. As to the question of the award letters, we delivered the bulk of the financial aid paperwork to the Admissions office on Friday with the remainder of letters delivered today. Admissions is sealing the envelopes as we speak, and they plan on delivering these to the mailroom this afternoon with the goal of having these hit the postal service tonight or tomorrow morning at the latest. After that, they will be winging their way to you!

Question #2 -- Can I get my financial aid award by phone?

No. At this point, we are not releasing financial aid decisions in any other mechanism than by the physical award letter. Once you receive your letter we will be happy to speak with you about its contents, but we ask you to wait until you have the letter in hand. For those of you who are eager beavers (and really what MIT admit isn't one?), you can get a sneak peek at the booklet which will accompany your packet by clicking here. Our publication entitled "ComMITment" explains our financial aid award policies and contains useful information about billing, loans, student employment, and many other topics.

Question #3 -- How do I know if I am receiving a financial aid award?

First some statistics: Of the 1554 admitted students into the class of 2012 (with an additional 11 deferrals), we are expected approximately 1245 of you to apply for financial aid (at least based on your statement of such on your admissions applications). Of the 1245, in the packets we sent 652 financial aid letters, 65 complete letters, and 528 incomplete letters. The complete letters indicate that your file was complete but we were unable to produce a financial aid letter in time for the admissions mailing; these packages will be completed and award letters sent by the end of this week (perhaps sooner). For the 528 of you who did not complete your financial aid application, you will still see what we are missing by logging into your MyMIT portal. Please complete this information AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, so that we can make every effort to get you your financial aid award in time for your enrollment decision.

Question #4 -- I've logged into the portal and I see these two new forms I am required to complete, the Self Help and Outside Award Reply Form and the Student Information Review Form. What are those?

If you have been awarded either MIT scholarship or Sef Help, there are two additional forms we will need from you in order to complete your file.

• The Self Help and Outside Award Reply Form lets us know if you will be receiving any outside awards from any source which was not originally reported to us and also allows you to specify how you want your Self Help broken out, between term-ime employment and student loans. With our recently announced financial aid enhancements many of you will have a low to non-existant self-help amount. We still need this form to be completed so that we have information on any outside funding you may be receiving.


• The Student information Review Form is a document we use to help us match you with a generous donor so that part or all of your MIT scholarship can be underwritten by an MIT endowed scholarship fund. This form provides us the information we need to make this match. This will not mean additional grant assistance to you, but it is crucial to our process. We rely upon the generous support of our alumni and friends to help us provide the generous financial aid programs we are able to offer, and this form help make the connection between these donors and you as students.

Question #5 -- How do I know what forms I am missing?

Check your MyMit portal page to see what you are missing and get it turned in as soon as possible.

Question #6 -- What is your favorite TV show?

Well, I am so glad you asked. Take a look here. Nothing's changed!

Other questions?

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

first

=)

sorry!

Posted by: 0 on March 17, 2008

FIRST

Posted by: Sammi on March 17, 2008

Oh yeah, i was wondering about those forms! (I somewhat freaked out when I saw that you guys didnt have stuff that was needed, but no worries now!)

Thanks so much Dan

and oh,

second!

Posted by: Aditi on March 17, 2008

oh. who is that? We have a score to settle, we sure have

Posted by: Sammi on March 17, 2008

Thx...
Btw are you sending the packages o international students by normal mail or courier?

Posted by: Ragheb on March 17, 2008

Yesh!!!! I got the first!!!

Posted by: Patty Cakes on March 17, 2008

Dan you happen to like heroes?

does anyone?



and crap! I didnt get second. oh well...!

Posted by: Aditi on March 17, 2008

What do you mean that students have been "awarded" self-help? Does this mean that they will be able to work on campus, something like work-study? Does this mean that not all students have the option of working on campus to contribute to their education costs?

Thanks for the clarification!

Posted by: kristina on March 17, 2008

Yay! I'm so glad that the fin aids are finally gonna be announced!

congrats to all admitted and I hope to meet all of you at CPW! =)

Posted by: Jing Jing on March 17, 2008

Number 6 was really the question I was hoping that you'd answer in this post. :D

Seriously thanks for the information. I and all the other prefrosh really appreciate it!

Posted by: 0 on March 17, 2008

i have a question...what is the deadline for these new papers?

Posted by: liv on March 17, 2008

What's your favorite ice cream flavor ?

Posted by: Isshak on March 17, 2008

So, if my My.MIT portal doesn't show either of these two documents, but instead shows documents related to loans, does this mean that I've received no financial aid? Or does it mean that my package hasn't been completed yet?

Posted by: Karen on March 17, 2008

Hmm.... if my MIT portal doesn't show documents relating to loans, work study, or grants, does that mean I really got nothing.....

Posted by: Anon on March 17, 2008

Karen, mine shows the same as yours. D:

Posted by: igna on March 17, 2008

Yeah mine shows the same as Karen. In fact, it refers to loan counseling that I have to do. I second Karen's question hehe.

Posted by: Omar '12 on March 17, 2008

I third it ...

~Donald

Posted by: donaldGuy '12 on March 17, 2008

Great post. Very informative.

Posted by: Cody Dean on March 17, 2008

Can someone explain how i get the pell disbursement record form from COD and if not turing in that letter means I can't receive financial aid? THanks

Posted by: AJ on March 17, 2008

If I'm missing a form, how and where should I send it?

Posted by: Rub on March 17, 2008

Me prolific? You must have been threatened with your life or something, I'm using every amount of energy I have to keep up with how much you're posting lately. This is a typical evening "Snively is talking to himself again" moment:

"Let's seem has anything new hit the internet? *click click click* Barky!!! Holy crap, that's the third post in 2 days! Now I have to write an entry!"

Posted by: Snively on March 17, 2008

seem = see

Posted by: Snively on March 17, 2008

Mr. Barkowitz,

Question: For those of us who were waitlisted, what goes on with us and financial aid? As I have found out, if you are accepted from the waitlist you have a very finite amount of time to tell MIT if you wish to attend or not... How will we know what kind of financial aid we will or will not be getting? Are we getting these "just in case"
financial aid packages? Thanks!

Posted by: Ross Klosterman on March 17, 2008

I have a question... Are you missing any of my financial aid materials? MyMIT doesn't work for me, and I can't exactly call (I'm on a ship in the middle of the ocean right now, until April 11th).

Posted by: Hawkins on March 18, 2008

Mr. Daniel,
Can I send you a statement from my parent's employer instead of the tax form? I've sent you one, but my status page still says 'tax form required'... >.Mr. Daniel,
Can I send you a statement from my parent's employer instead of the tax form? I've sent you one, but my status page still says 'tax form required'... >.<

Oh, and what kind of poems do you like to write? ^^

@Aditi,
I'm ZEALOUS of HEROES!! xD

Posted by: senna '12 on March 18, 2008

So if there is a Student Information Review Form, this means we qualified for some sort of MIT grant? W00t!

Posted by: Money? Wahoo! on March 18, 2008

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