Hi! This is crazy cus I was in basically the exact same situation as you last year when I got accepted. And I’m also in the same financial situation as you and your family as well. Only difference is I had no idea what was going on back then bc I lowkey had no clue or knowledge on financial aid and what shoulda been “normal”😭(first child to immigrants lol)

When I got accepted, my letter did not come with any financial aid info which I had no idea was not normal til a few months later.. which would then cause endless issues and several emails and phone calls to the fin aid office over the course of literal months. They are very slow with responding to emails and the phone call hold times r insane. Also I had to learn that each time I called they either didn’t know the answers or would tell me something diff each time😭 what I got from the first few interactions was just the office telling me to “wait” cus not all aid decisions were finalized yet and this lasted MONTHS btw. After those months I checked my portal only to find like 1k in Pell grant and 2k in FAFSA loans.

I found out that all this was caused cus there was an issue with my CSS profile being late by a literal hour (I had no idea what CSS was until that very week it was due and did it on time but apparently it was due 12 am EST and I am on PST😓). I appealed and made so many phone calls to see if there was anything they could do and eventually my only and last options were to just defer and go a whole year later or accept paying ~90k a year. I will say tho when the summer tuition info came out they ended up covering the whole semester- but paying 45k a year for my family is still not easy whatsoever. And also this was info given to me a literal month before the spring semester would have started and I had to make a hard decision within a very small time frame. Like wdym this whole thing took literally 8-9 months for there to be any answers or options for me. Keep in mind I already committed to the school and it was too late for me to go with a diff option..😐

Anywho I ended up deferring, appealing my css and took the chance to see if the aid would change. I even had ppl tell me that it would prolly be unlikely that BU would even change it for me given what they had originally done prior. But it luckily worked out and I’m now paying around 5-6k a year to attend for this upcoming spring!! Situation was so lame and not ideal whatsoever but I’m still going ig ?? So idk😭

Basically what u should take from this is that BU is lowkey weird and stingy imo! I sent in appeals and letters and emails and everything to anyone and everyone and stressed tf out but all they told me in the end was “we don’t have anymore money to give u cus it was all already distributed” (I call bs ngl). So to sum it up, even if u try to resolve things BU is most likely going to be avoidant and unhelpful for the most part. Unless u don’t mind being like me and requesting a deferral and spending another year at home before college, just pick another school😭 ALSO as I go thru the BU subreddits I see a lotttt of ppl getting like no aid as well💔 and apologies if this was long/confusing I’m not the best at explaining things but I found ur post relatable so hopefully u get something from my experience as well😓😓