The New York Times reported in late April that in the current economy, more families are filing financial aid appeals with schools that have already admitted their child and offered an aid package.

Financial aid appeals are typically handled by the school’s director of financial aid. In one example, the Times profiled a financial aid director who was spending the week going through a stack of 100 appeals from high school seniors who were accepted for the next freshman class but who claimed they cannot afford to attend. “Each packet contains a heartfelt plea for more aid than the college offered initially, to offset the impact of recent job losses, plunges in home values or other financial setbacks,” the Times wrote.

The financial aid director’s desk was cluttered with medical bills, layoff notices as well as tax forms sent as supporting evidence for the appeals. This painstaking and emotional task, the Times explained, is playing out on hundreds of campuses, in advance of the May 1 deadline for tuition deposits from many incoming freshmen.

Financial aid appeals increased anywhere from 15 to 40 percent over two years ago at schools sampled by the newspaper. Some well-endowed schools coped with the rise in appeals by raising their financial aid budgets. But many colleges are under enormous financial constraints, as costs rise and their endowments ebb. Some schools are able to avoid the layoffs and furloughs that other public and private universities have done, but only by substantially raising tuition, board and fees.

The Times notes that schools typically use a combination of federal formulas and policies uniquely their own to arrive at an award offer. Financial aid directors often have the discretion to increase an offer by several thousand dollars a year if they deem a family’s financial circumstances severe enough.

On appeal, when warranted, students can sometimes get another $1,000 to $2,000 in grant or school scholarship, instead of loans. Moreover, a precipitous drop in income may qualify the student for a federal Pell grant, as much as $5,550. However, additional loans, such as an unsubsidized Stafford Loan, could also be part of a post-appeal package.

For those parents who have lost a job, especially after filing 2009 taxes and the student’s 2010-2011 FAFSA, financial aid offices will request thorough documentation, including a letter from the former employer that the parent is no longer an employee and including the termination date, evidence of unemployment insurance income (if a claim was filed), as well as evidence of how the family is supporting itself under present circumstances. The burden of proof is upon the student’s family to document that the level of family income and resources in 2009 are no longer the case in 2010.

In addition to marshalling all available evidence, I recommend parents and students maintain a courteous and respectful manner in all their communications with their school’s financial aid officers who are interacting with numerous equally worried families.

When my son was applying to college there was a school our guidebook referred to as “the caring college.” I have to admit that I loved the sound of that – it conjured up comfy images of school personnel following my son around with chocolate milk and warm cookies, encouraging him to get enough rest and talk about his feelings. My son ended up attending that college and he was very happy there – he got a wonderful education, had lots of fun and made lifelong friends. But did he find the school to be unusually caring? Not so much. And yet seven years later, as my daughter is getting ready to apply to schools, the updated version of that same guidebook is still referring to it as “the caring college.”

Which raises the question of reputations – the “buzz” that some schools generate.  What are they based on and how much of it should you believe?

Some of the buzz does originate in guidebooks – those massive  manuals that many college-bound families still pour through often contain lists that rank schools on criteria such as whether they’re “party” schools,  as well as drug use, academic pressure, liberal attitudes, and the quality of food.

But much of the buzz that surrounds some schools never appears in print – it seems to materialize from thin air and sink into the collective consciousness of prospective students. The high school students I work with often claim to somehow “know” that a particular school is monopolized by drunken frat boys, or stoned hippies – despite never setting foot on the campus. I have heard schools described – and dismissed – as too conservative, too artsy, too lame, too granola, too preppy or too alternative.  It troubles me that kids are willing to buy into these generalizations based on nothing but buzz – and the perceptions can be hard to dispel.

My daughter’s guidance counselor recently recommended we look at a school that seemed to meet every one of her college criteria. It is an excellent mid-size university that would be a perfect target school for her. It’s the right distance from home, in a populated area, it has a well regarded theater program and exactly the right amount of Greek life.  And yet my daughter has consistently resisted visiting this school because she believes it to be populated exclusively by “hipsters.”

I have no idea if this is true or not and it would be hard for me to verify since I’m not precisely sure what a hipster is. When we finally visited the school, the students we saw on campus looked perfectly fine to me. In dress and demeanor, the kids we saw in the library and on the quad seemed like regular kids – no different from the students we’d seen at another college the day before. But the minute we drove off campus my daughter turned to me and said “I told you so….hipsters.”

Clearly, I don’t understand the prevalence and staying power of these perceptions– but if your child is applying to colleges you should know that he or she will be hearing and absorbing and believing in the rumors and myths that surround these schools.  It’s unfortunate that what might be an excellent school choice may not be considered because of hearsay and misconceptions. The best you can do is visit the schools – maybe even more than once. Attend tours and information sessions and spend as much time as you can on campus, speaking to a variety of students. An overnight visit may dispel (or confirm) what your child already thinks of a school. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt – and good luck fighting the buzz.

The Washington Post, in its column, The Answer Sheet: A School Survival Guide for Parents, reports[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/more-colleges-join-50k-plus-a.html] that more colleges than ever now cost $50,000 or more per year. For example, Harvard students who don’t qualify for financial aid will pay $50,724 for tuition, room and board, and fees, the first time the university has climbed into the ranks of schools which charge more than $50,000 a year.

Although many students qualify for financial aid, the Post notes that “$50,000 is a symbolic marker, one that is expected to frighten many parents away from these schools before learning that they could get significant aid.”

More private schools are crossing the threshold for the 2010-11 school year. Citing a Boston Globe survey, the Post says in the Boston area alone, schools already in the $50K club are Smith College, Boston College, Tufts University, and Boston University. Among those joining next year, besides Harvard, are Dartmouth College, Wellesley College, Brown University, and Brandeis University.

Last November, the Chronicle of Higher Education did an analysis indicating that nationally 58 private colleges charged at least $50,000 for tuition, room and board, and fees. Outside of the greater Boston region, schools that broke that barrier this year include Johns Hopkins University, Washington University in St. Louis, Bryn Mawr College, and Skidmore College. For the 2008-2009 school year, only five schools charged that much.

A report on college pricing [http://www.trends-collegeboard.com/college_pricing/] by the College Board, issued in October, showed that the average cost of attending private colleges for the current school year rose 4.3 percent from the year before, to $35,636.