Applying to schools on a budget (tips from an NYU undergraduate admissions ambassador)
Tips on how to find College Application Fee Waivers
There are a lot of discussions surrounding paying for school once you get to college, but how about paying for the process of applying to college? When I was heading to university I was lucky in that I was the fourth of four kids in my family to go through the US university application system. The downside was that I did not have more structural help from my school. Though I was in a magnet program and went to a high school that had a great academic record, the school had a lot of kids and very few counselors.
In my class alone, there were over 1000 students, but only 5 counselors to handle all of our requests. The ask on counselors every year in huge, but when you add the different deadlines of every student and number of requests asked of them, the to-do lists for high school counselors sometimes get out of hand. As there was no way that I was going to get a personalized college preparation process with a counselor, the internet became a large source of my pre-college information. If I wanted to figure out how to apply to more scholarships I went to my existing high school network, my family or the internet for my information. This is how I figured out about the CommonApp application waiver. There is a select number of waivers that each school can choose to give out to a select number of students every year, and when a person gets one you no longer have to pay a school money to apply there.
With the increased flexibility of the CommonApp, that is giving people the ability to submit information from a previous application to another school, having the fee waiver means that for some applications in order to apply all you would need to do is select the school and confirm your application. Most schools decide who to give their fee waivers to on a variety of factors like your existing registration in programs such as:
- The National School Lunch program
- Federal, state or local programs that aid low-income communities, such as Upward Bound
- or if you already receive public assistance, including being a recipient of the federally subsidized housing.
If you believe that your family’s income falls within the income eligibility guidelines you may also be eligible to receive a waiver through college board. In any case, the person to contact about obtaining your deserved four free fee waivers is your high school counselor or a representative of an authorized community-based organization as they are the people that sign-off on who is eligible. But if for some reason you have done all of the above and still are not able to apply freely to a university of your choice there are a couple of other options.
When I was working in admissions there always had a select office or person that handled all of the fee waivers. If the only thing standing between you and applying to a university of your choice is the fee I would highly suggest you pick up the phone (do not just email) and call the Undergraduate Admissions line at that university. They will most likely give you an email address to follow-up with and you should detail your exact reason for not being able to pay the fee for the application. Feel free to follow-up with that email if you have not heard back within 72 hrs, but if you are doing this process close to the application deadline it may take longer for a response. I would recommend completing this process as soon as you know that you are unable to pay but would like to apply. It is best for both parties.
In addition to the more structured way of getting a university fee waiver, one can also apply to scholarships. There are many types of scholarships that do not demand that the money you receive go towards your university tuition. Therefore, you can spend that money on other university-related expenses, such as applying to college. Sites such as Scholly, The College Board, Unigo and CollegeData help students find scholarships based off of advances personalized searches.
If you have any more questions about this subject I would suggest first contacting your high school counselor and checking out this website.
Danielle is a content contributor at Mascot. She studied Business & Political Economy at NYU and worked as an undergraduate admissions ambassador for four years.
Mascot is a free IOS app designed to connect college applicants in group chats. Find the right groups for each college you are applying to and meet your future classmates today!
