By Mukesh 
If you were admitted to Northeastern University but were hoping for more financial aid, the school may have recently told you this: Your appeal could take up to eight weeks to process.
Given that the school’s deadline to decide — and pay a deposit — is generally May 1, this is a problem.
Northeastern is facing simultaneous challenges, ones that are likely to affect other popular schools in the future if they do not already.
A growing number of students with multiple admissions offers are asking for a better price. Sometimes, they want more merit aid. At other times they think they qualify for additional need-based aid. Some people ask for both.
Northeastern claims to meet students’ full financial need. But its definition of need may not match a family’s feeling about what they can afford.
Federal law requires colleges to hear you out if particular financial circumstances of yours have changed. “No institution of higher education or financial aid administrator shall maintain a policy of denying all requests for adjustments,” the Higher Education Act states.
But the law does not require a timely reply, nor does it mandate adequate in-office staffing. And while a retailer can bring in seasonal workers to stock shelves and run registers, settling financial aid appeals requires much more training.
“We strive to treat all appeals with urgency, compassion and thoroughness,” said James Slattery, senior director of financial aid at Northeastern, via email.
Filing an appeal requires clearing a few hurdles. The first comes in a curious statement on the school’s website.
“Your financial aid offer represents the best financial aid package Northeastern can offer to you as an admitted student,” it says. “While we would be happy to review your financial aid offer with you to answer any questions you may have, award decisions cannot be negotiated.”
An appeal for additional need-based aid, however, is not a negotiation — it’s a plea for reconsideration, usually based on a change in financial circumstances that occurred after a student applied. Families have to know the difference — or find the appeal information farther down that same web page.
“People are afraid to ask, because they think it will reflect poorly on the student or the parents or will come across as ungrateful, if they’ve already received some kind of aid,” said Matt Carpenter, co-founder of College Aid Pro. His company helps families navigate the aid process, and he alerted me to the delays at Northeastern.
Northeastern received over 105,000 undergraduate admission applications this year, and according to Mr. Slattery, there were hundreds of appeals. As of the end of last week, he said, only 3.75 percent of them had taken more than four weeks to resolve. Merit aid appeals, he added, usually get a “quick” response.
Earlier this month, however, one representative on the phone and another at an in-person event said it would take up to eight weeks to process appeals. Mr. Slattery said an eight-week wait would be an outlier.
For families who want to avoid such delays in the future, it’s best to act fast, compose a clear request and submit any appropriate supporting documents before the line gets too long. If a school asks for more information, hand it over quickly.
That said, you may not even be able to get a hearing until just before you start school. The website for the University of California, Davis, says that the school processes appeals within six to eight weeks and that the forms won’t be available until July.
Deborah G. Agee, executive director for financial aid and scholarships there, said via email that families had not complained much about the timeline and that its online calculator could give people a good sense of how any change in financial circumstances might alter their aid.
Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said her members had seen a big increase in appeals that read as if robots had written them.
Don’t use artificial intelligence here. It’s not a good look, and the stakes are too high.
But don’t be shy about asking for extensions, including in the next few days. Sure, it might mean making a deposit elsewhere and losing it if Northeastern saves you a spot and you like its revised offer once it arrives. But if it’s your dream university, perhaps it would be worth it.
“We have a good track record of granting extensions,” Mr. Slattery said.
The Higher Education Act is silent on the question of timely appeals, especially when you can’t get an extension and a financial deposit might be nonrefundable. Mark Kantrowitz, the author of “How to Appeal for More College Financial Aid,” said a legal requirement might be worthwhile. “Failing to respond to an appeal in a timely manner is effectively another method of denying an appeal,” he said.