Financial Aid FAQs

Whitman’s Office of Financial Aid uses the information from your financial aid application to determine your expected family contribution. 

• Parent contribution: contribution from income + contribution from assets
• Student contribution: summer earnings expectation + contribution from assets

After your expected family contribution is determined, we calculate your demonstrated need as followed:

• Cost of attendance - expected family contribution = demonstrated financial need

We then put together a financial aid offer that will meet no less than 95% of your financial need using a combination of aid from multiple sources, including Whitman need-based and merit-based scholarships, federal and state grants, federal student loans, and work-study.

All students who apply to Whitman are considered for merit scholarships, and if you receive a merit scholarship it will be included in your financial aid offer.

Whitman’s Early Financial Aid Guarantee can let you know what your financial aid will be—before you even apply. This is available to students entering their final year of high school and to transfer students.

If you would like an estimate of your costs prior to your senior year of high school, you can complete our Net Price Calculator to get a rough estimate of what your financial aid might look like at Whitman.

You can find detailed information about the financial aid application process in the How to Apply for Financial Aid section of our website.

There is no fee to apply for aid with the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), WASFA (Washington Application for State Financial Aid) or WISFAA (Whitman International Student Financial Aid Application). 

The CSS Profile costs $25 for the first school you submit, and $16 for each additional school you would like your CSS Profile sent to. However, many students qualify for a fee waiver from the College Board. Eligibility for a fee waiver is assessed by the College Board at the time you complete the CSS Profile.

Once you’ve submitted your financial aid forms to Whitman, we will contact you by email if we have any questions about the information you reported on your forms or if we need additional information to complete our review of your financial aid application.

If we have requested additional documents to complete your financial aid application, you may upload them to the College Board's IDOC portal or through our secure ShareFile link.

If you've submitted the Common App, your applicant portal will be updated to show those items as received. Please note that it may take a couple of days for the status of these documents to update on your portal. You will also receive confirmation emails from our Office of Financial Aid.

If you have unusual or special circumstances, we invite you to provide additional detail in the Special Circumstances section of your CSS Profile so that we can take that information into account as we review your financial aid application.

If you are not completing the CSS Profile, or have a change in circumstances after submitting the CSS Profile, please contact us by email at finaid@whitman.edu. Once we have information from you about your family’s special circumstances, we will let you know if we have any questions about the information you’ve provided or if we need any additional information.  

If your family’s financial situation changes after you submit your financial aid forms, we will work with you to understand your situation and adjust for those changes to the extent possible. Please contact our office so we can determine what information we may need to update your financial aid application to better reflect your circumstances.

If you're offered admission to Whitman, your financial aid package will be provided along with your offer of admission.

Learn more about application deadlines and notification of admission.

Your financial aid offer is available through your applicant portal. After logging in, select "View Updates” and then scroll down to find your Financial Aid Offer.

If you are a first-time borrower of federal Direct Loans, you will need to complete Entrance Counseling and the Master Promissory Note for your loans. 

Please contact the Office of Financial Aid. Someone on our staff can go over the details of your financial aid offer.

If you’re concerned about costs, or want to discuss options for re-evaluating your financial aid offer, our team can help. 

Yes! Whitman’s merit scholarships are renewable at the same amount for eight semesters—four academic years—as long as you make satisfactory academic progress towards your degree.

Satisfactory academic progress means that you: 

• Complete at least two-thirds of the cumulative credits you attempt while earning at least a 1.7 GPA your first semester
• Maintain a minimum 2.0 cumulative GPA in subsequent semesters
• Complete your degree within eight semesters 

You will need to reapply for need-based financial aid each year. We will recalculate your eligibility for need-based aid annually based on your updated financial aid forms. Our approach to calculating your financial need will not change during your time at Whitman; the only things that may change are the cost of attending Whitman (tuition typically increases 3-4% annually) and your or your family's income, assets, and other circumstances. Some factors that commonly impact a student’s financial need from one year to the next are:

• Siblings who begin attending college, or who graduate from college
• Significant changes in family income resulting from things like promotions, layoffs, job changes, retirement, increases in business income, etc. 

As students progress through college, they have increased eligibility for federal student loans. As a result, Whitman’s financial aid packages typically include an increase in federal student loans. This increase is typically not more than $1,000.

If your family does not experience significant changes to your financial situation, you can expect a similar aid offer each year. It is also not unusual for students receiving need-based aid to receive additional aid as a result of changes to Whitman’s cost of attendance (like an increase in tuition and fees).

Congratulations! Please notify us about any outside scholarships as soon as you know about them so that we can ensure that your financial aid includes them and your student account balance reflects them.

Outside scholarships will not reduce your Whitman scholarship unless your total amount of aid and scholarships exceeds the cost of attendance at Whitman. However, outside scholarships may affect your eligibility for subsidized need-based aid from the federal government, like the Federal Direct Subsidized Loan and work-study.

If your outside scholarships reduce your eligibility for those types of aid, someone in our office will contact you. In some cases, this may mean that you go from being work-study eligible to being a regular student employee, or that some of subsidized loan has to be converted to an unsubsidized loan.

You can view your complete financial aid offer on my.Whitman.edu. Once you’ve logged in, navigate to Student Tools (on the left side of the page) and open the dropdown. Scroll down and select "Financial Aid by Year.” When prompted, select the academic year you wish to view.

Helpful tip: Pay close attention to the instructions on the top of the “Financial Aid by Year” page as there are important details about how to accept or reject any loans offered to you.

We understand that students can have circumstances that contribute to academic hardship. If you don't meet the academic requirements during a semester, you will receive a letter from the Office of Financial Aid letting you know that you've been placed on academic warning. You will still receive your full financial aid offer, but you should meet with your advisor to discuss ways to increase your success during this term. If you improve your academic standing, you won't receive additional communications from our office.

If you don't meet academic requirements two smesters in a row, you'll be placed on academic probation. You will need to submit an academic plan created with your advisor or the Academic Resource Center before we can offer you aid for the following semester.

Yes. If you need a ninth semester of aid to complete your degree, you may submit a ninth-semester request form. We will review the form and determine if your request can be approved.

Good news! Your financial aid package travels with you when you study abroad or you study at another U.S. college or university through one of our Whitman-affiliated off-campus study programs.

If you live off-campus, we still factor in estimated costs for food and housing when determining your eligibility for need-based financial aid. If you live off-campus, any aid you qualify for that exceeds Whitman’s direct costs (tuition and student association fee) would be available as a credit on your student account which you can then use to pay for off-campus living expenses.

Yes. Although on-campus employers give preference to students with work-study when they make hiring decisions, many jobs are available to all students. 

We do not factor in your use of work-study in previous semesters or years when we determine your eligibility. Work-study is awarded based on your or your family's demonstrated financial need. If you have remaining financial need after being offered other forms of financial aid, like Whitman scholarships, you will be eligible for work-study, regardless of whether you used your work-study amount in previous years.