In London, you see signs and tourist shirts everywhere that say “Mind the Gap”. If you ride their underground transportation system, you will hear them announce “mind the gap” at each station. It’s a warning for passengers to be aware of the distance between the train and the train platform.

In admissions, college gapping is a term used in reference to colleges and financial aid awards. The gap between what you can afford to pay (your EFC) and what colleges offer in aid creates this gap. Gapping happens when a college makes an offer of admission and doesn’t back it up with financial aid. Quite simply, the college doesn’t offer enough aid to cover the difference between the cost of the college attendance and your expected family contribution.

Gapping is a serious business. Colleges use the tactic to “weed out” the good applicants from the average applicants. Quite simply, if your student is at the top of their applicant pool, they will receive the aid required to attend. If not, your student will be gapped, in the hopes they will reject the offer of admission.

It’s a numbers game. Colleges offer admission to more students than they can possibly accommodate. Gapping helps them lessen the number of students who accept those offers of admission.

The warning you can hear in the London tube, is the same warning parents should hear when opening financial aid packages: Mind the Gap! Sometimes, gapping isn’t obvious. Colleges will pad the EFC numbers with federal student loans, federal parent loans and work-study. These should NOT be considered when determining if the college is gapping your student. All students qualify for federal student loans. College aid should only be in the form of merit scholarships and grants. If the difference between what you can afford and what the college offers is padded with loans, the college is gapping your student.

For more information on why colleges practice gapping and how to avoid being gapped, read this article I wrote for TeenLife: How to Avoid “Gapping in College Admissions. Lynn O’Shaughnessy also explains gapping in her article: Don’t Let Colleges Snooker You.