Money @ MIT (The Archives) : 5. Posts for International Students

The Blog is Dead. Long Live the Blog.

barkowitz — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:22:00 GMT

This blog is officially closed and will now only exist as an archive of past posts.

Please visit the new blog at http://daniel.mitblogs.com.

The Right Hand DOES know what the Left Hand is Doing...

barkowitz — Wed, 04 May 2005 15:16:00 GMT

A couple of other items of interest:

For International Freshmen, we are providing copies of your finalized award letters to the ISO directly so that we can produce your I-20. We are working closely together with the staff of the ISO to make sure this information is released to you in a timely fashion so that you can start your visa application working. It is important to note, however, that we will not produce a finalized award letter until we have received your reply indicating you are coming to MIT (so if it is in the mail, we will get it and then work it through).
For International Freshmen and for Domestic No Need Students, if we have already determined the loan program from which you will borrow, you need to give us a little time before attempting to do the Student Loan (Tech Loan, Stafford Loan) paperwork (online or otherwise). Systems for this will not be ready until closer to July 1.
For all other Admitted and Coming Freshmen, we are including an insert as part of the May mailing (which Ben has trademarked as the NBM® -- Next Big Mailing) which identifies what paperwork we are missing (either to confirm your award or to provide an award). Please pay attention to the information provided. It is critical you act quickly at this point; any delay may jeopardize our ability to deliver your financial aid to you on time.
Lastly, I will be serving as a Freshman Traditional Advisor next year. I've had so much fun getting to know all of you this year that I can't wait!!! So I may get to be your advisor. We'll see!

Thanks! Be well!

Clearing the Decks (or the Desk) -- The Return of the Return of More Questions Answered.

barkowitz — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 01:01:00 GMT

Sorry all, between dealing with emails (over 200 a day), phone calls (don't even ask), questions from my staff, and just trying to spend a little time with my family, the last two weeks have been INSANE!!! So, I haven't been blogging...

Bad me!

But, just like a bad fungus (or a plague -- see: Passover starting tomorrow at the end of this post), I'm back!

So, to begin with, let me deal with the backlog of questions since last I posted:

Serene (and others) had questions about the medical insurance and whether or not it is covered by MIT financial aid. As you may know, MIT does require that all students attending the Institute have medical (hospital) insurance. If you have your own medical insurance coverage, MIT is happy to accept proof of this coverage in lieu of our own medical coverage. If not, you will be billed for the MIT Student Extended Insurance Plan (once in the Fall and once in the Spring). Details on what constitutes acceptable coverage, and what expenses are covered by the medical plan are available at http://mit.edu/medical/p-student.html. (Note that the Student Extended Insurance Plan is different than the basic MIT Student Medical Plan which covers urgent care - information on this is also at the same web page).

As for the financial aid repercussions: since medical insurance is considered a responsibility of all parents, we do not provide financial aid coverage at MIT by and large to accommodate this expense. For 2004-2005, the annualized cost of the coverage was $1,440 (for twelve months of coverage). Rates for next year have not yet been announced (to my knowledge), although they will likely be marginally higher. If meeting this cost would present an overwhelming hardship for your parents and you have no comparable coverage available (including public health insurance), you should be in touch with your financial aid counselor and keep this in mind when planning for what expenses you may need to cover through summer employment

There was a “question on behalf of someone” on a previous post which read in part:

how can I apply for financial aid from MIT if my family does not pay taxes, has never paid taxes, we have limited incomes, which although above the minimum taxable threshold, is not within the tax purview of the taxation authorities, and is barely subsistence level for a middle class large family.

What documentation should I produce, other than our own sworn personal statements of our finances, which will be acceptable to MIT (under the assumption that MIT has little reason to trust such statements - as falsehood for material gains is not an essential characteristics of peoples in poorer nations alone, which is why even in the US one is required to produce official verifiable documentations and one's word isn't enough). I do not have any officially verifiable income documentation, like the majority of the people in the nation.

You do need to provide some kind of documentation of income, whether that is simply a letter from your employer (appropriate for International Students), a copy of payment stubs, copies of checks, or simply a statement from you explaining why no other kind of statement will be available. We do ask that you do what you can to document income; we are not interested in placing insurmountable hoops but we do want to know what income is received so we can do a fair and equitable analysis.

I had no takers for CPW pics (how sad, how sad!!!), but Ben and others identified that you can see all of the CPW pics others have taken at http://mit2009.com/. (yay, Anthony!! w00t!)

Meder wanted to know about when we would be providing finalized aid awards (presumably with the Self Help award broken into loan and work). The answer to this is complicated as it depends on what is missing from your file. If you did not turn in your 2004 tax returns when your application for financial aid was originally reviewed (or some other piece of paper was missing, other than the Student Information and Self Help forms), we are reviewing your file as the information is received and if there are any changes, we will notify you by mail immediately.

If all you are/were missing is the Self Help and Student Information Review Forms and you have turned these in, we will wait until June 1 or so to mail the revised awards (since we want to only process these for those of you definitively coming). For international students, we do understand that you may have student visa issues which need to be finalized, and cannot be if the award letter from us says “tentative“, so we will likely produce your letters first (and potentially will begin processing yours sooner than June 1).

On a related note, Meder and Saad asked whether Autumn would be adjusted with the receipt of these forms, and in later feedback noted that it is being updated!

So, that's that! I think I am up to date.

But now I have an etiquette question for you. How many Livestrong (and Livestrong clone type) bracelets can one person wear without looking, hmm, a tad bizarre? I tried seven the other night and it looked offensive. Anxiously awaiting your reply.

And for those of you who will be celebrating the Passover holiday, have a sweet Pesach (for a list of MIT Passover events, look here).

One clarification to student contribution...

barkowitz — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 14:53:00 GMT

Just wanted to offer one clarification on my student contribution post below.

The numbers I gave ($1500 Freshmen, $2200 Sophomores, $2500 Juniors, $2800 Seniors) are summer earnings expectations for US Citizens and Permanent Residents only. For International Students (as well as US Citizens living abroad), we do not require a minimum student contribution as we recognize it may be difficult in your home country to earn the amount of money necessary to meet this expense. Instead, we expect a $0 student earning contribution, but do expect international students to cover their own travel to MIT. We encourage you to earn enough during the summer to cover that travel, but we let you determine how to get here and let you make the arrangements yourself.

Sorry for any confusion!

Some more answers to your questions...

barkowitz — Tue, 04 Jan 2005 04:47:00 GMT

More answers to some of your questions:

Carlos asks "Also, besides the College Board form we (international [prospective] students) need to fill, what other information is required (I know about the Tax Form [my country has one so I am sending that translated to English], but is there anything else besides that?)".

For the financial aid process at MIT, nothing more is required. We will act upon your application using the information gathered from either the Tax Return you provide (translated into English) or the letters from your parents' employers (translated into English) and the Financial Aid Application for International Students. For the Visa process, there are many other forms and pieces that are required, but that will come after you have been accepted and decided to attend MIT. Some information on the process for the Visa can be found here.

While we are on the subject of international students, Shahab asked that I "please also point out tips/suggestions on the financial aid procedures for internationals."

I would first draw your attention to an earlier post which identified the application procedures for international students. I also should mention that we use the same Institutional Methodology for international students as for domestics, so the information I have been providing here is the same for both, unless I have specifically indicated it is applicable to U.S. Citizens or Permanent Residents.

Eujin wrote the following: "I need help with question #22 in Intl Student Fin Aid App. It asks about the year and the price our apartment was purchased. The problem is in the following fact: the apartment wasn't purchased by my mother, it was given to her by her employer without any cost (basically it was a present, because she worked there for 27 years and did a lot of good things )."

My advice in this situation (or in any situation where you have been given an asset and do not know the value of the purchase price) is to leave the information about purchase price and year blank, inform us why, but be sure to provide a current estimate of the property's value and debt. I would be careful, Eujin, only to include assets over which she has control, so if she sells the property, would she retain the proceeds? If it is not her asset, do not include it.

Yi-Hsin asked "My parents are divorced, and my noncustodial parent is filling out the noncustodial form as required. My custodial parent is paying for my entire high school education. What does my noncustodial parent write for "Parents' Contribution" on the noncustodial form? 0 or the amount my custodial parent pays? What about the scholarships blank?"

If your non-custodial parent has a particular contribution they plan on providing for you during the coming year, you could list it here, but we will only consider it as a "reality check" against what we determine to be a reasonable contribution from the parent. If s/he has never paid before, and likely will not be willing to pay this year, do put 0, but keep in mind that we may (and in fact probably will) come up with a different assessment. Remember that our assessment is about ability to pay, not necessarily willingness to pay. I'm not sure about the reference to a "scholarships blank." Can you provide some more information on the question itself?

Ann had some detailed questions about home equity, business equity and inheritance. I will be tackling the home value issue in a post soon, so let me focus on the other two issues. She asked "Is business income considered the same as wages earned working for someone else? Are the assets owned by the business taken into account like home equity? 3. If an inheritance received while my child is in college is used for college expenses in place of college aid, I feel that I've lost out on the inheritance my relative wanted me to have."

As to business income, it is in fact considered as just another source of income, like wages or interest income or lottery winnings (we should all be so lucky). Assets owned by the business, however, are not considered at a 100% straight shot. Net worth of a business (value minus debt) is discounted by a formula (usually in the 50% or so range) and then added in to other assets.

If the inheritance you received is held as an asset, then it will be included as a part of the family's assets (unless it is in a retirement specific account), but remember that assets are included at a MUCH smaller level than income in the formula (some estimates are from 3 to 6% after some built-in asset protections). Remember, though, that while we may consider the asset in the formula, we say nothing about how you actually finance your contribution -- if you wish to leave the asset alone to protect it, then by all means do so. Realize you may need to find another source for some of your parental contribution.

If the inheritance was received in a year in which you are applying for aid (thereby showing up twice - once on your tax return as income, once in your assets), you will need to attach an explanation of this to your financial aid application and ask us to consider that this is a one-time source of income and will not be repeated.

Some there are some answers. More to come (I am sure) when your questions are posted. In the meantime, look for part two of the post on our formula and process.

Happy New Year to all.

How are your financial aid applications coming?

Armchair traveling

barkowitz — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 21:56:00 GMT

I love to travel. I love the experience of anticipation, not knowing what you'll see around the corner or around the bend -- to borrow an easy Hobbit reference, “The Road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, and I must follow if I can.“

Unfortunately, I don't get the chance to travel as much as I like these days. So I use every chance I get to see the world in a virtual way -- reading travel books, travel magazines, watching “The Amazing Race”, anything I can.

Of course, one way I get to travel the world is by reviewing the financial aid applications of our international students here at MIT. We have applicants from all over the world, and when a Financial Aid Officer reviews the application, we get a little peek into (at least the financial aspects of) your life. With international applicants, we also request income documentation from the home country and ask that such documentation be translated into English, so we have the distinct pleasure of looking at tax returns and documents in many different foreign languages. And in the final analysis, we get to look at stamps from all over the world since our mail arrives here from you with your local stamps on the envelope.

So, maybe not the exciting nature of actually coming to see you in your country, but I'll take what I can.

If you are an international applicant, how do you apply for financial aid to MIT? Here is the process:

1. Fill out and return the International Student Financial Aid Application. This document should be completed in US currency with some indication of the exchange rate you used. The document should be based on the income and assets for the last completed tax year in your country that ends before April 1, 2005 (if your country operates its tax system on a January through December calendar, the last completed tax year will be 2004; if it operates April through March, the last tax year will end March 31, 2005; if it operates July 1 through June 30, the last tax year will be the one ending June 30, 2004).

2. You should send in a copy of the most recent tax return you and your parents filed in your home country. Make sure to translate it to English and provide both the original and the translation. If your country does not have a national tax system, provide a letter from your parents' employer(s) certifying the amount of their earnings for calendar year 2004. Again, make sure this information is translated to English.

Once we have your forms (and again we shouldn't have them any sooner than mid-January), we will begin reviewing your application for aid. In a later blog I will detail more information about how we analyze applications, but for now I will attempt just to answer some of the questions you all have raised.

Eujin asked a question about summer contributions and whether we expect international students to remain on campus during the summer to earn enough to provide a summer contribution. Here at MIT we assume that students will return home during the summer and, if your home is international, that you will return there. Therefore if you live internationally (whether you are or are not a US Citizen) we do two things: 1) we exempt you from a requirement for a summer contribution; and 2) we do not include travel as a component of your financial aid budget. We, therefore, expect that you will earn whatever money is necessary to provide your transportation home and back and we do not expect you to contribute any of these earnings toward your MIT expense. This is different for students living in the US. For US residents, we do expect a minimum summer contribution from your earnings, but we also allow a travel cost (based on your residence) as a component in your budget.

Meder asked whether all students would be required to contribute something, even if they have no income and no ability to contribute. It is conceivable that an international student, following the above rules, would have no contribution to make for her/his MIT education, and that neither would his/her parents. It would in whole depend upon the income level of the family and other pieces that would form part of our analysis.

There is an important caveat to this though. All students at MIT are required to have health insurance and to buy the MIT-offered health insurance if they do not have comparable coverage from another source. There is a fee associated with the medical insurance coverage and we do not provide financial aid coverage for this expense. We encourage international students looking at coming to MIT to plan for this expense as well, and to attempt to earn money during the summer to offset this expense.

So hope I have addressed some of your questions about the process for international students. We look forward to seeing your applications in the near future, and feel free to drop a postcard in with your application materials so I can virtually visit your hometown (if you want to put an interesting stamp on it, I won't object either)!