<p>My parents(and I) are poor but willing to do anything do support my higher education.. in other words, my parents(and I) will, if need, take out a loan as much as needed, if i wont get enough scholarships. we all agree that I shouldnt compromise to go my not-good-as-my-first-choice school only because of money problem (umm)</p>
<p>anyway, i am filling out financial aid forms and got this question(or similar question).
"Amount the student's parents think they will be able to pay for 2005-2006 college expenses"</p>
<p>Now my parents and I worry if writing too little amount of money(EFC is $300 according to CC EFC calculator) would give me disadvantage. (which is true since i am applying JHU and couple others where are NOT need-blind, but rather need-sensitive when it comes down to borderline applicants)
But I and they are also worrying if we put too much(basically more than our EFC) .. i wont get much money as other-wise. (i dont know whether i am explaining sufficiently. it's late and my brain is not working well... oh by the way i gotta send PROFILE by today so... )</p>
<p>so. should i ask "how much should i write down for self-EFC?" ??
how much does most middle class parents would put???
i deadly need advices on this issue. i hate to see my chances being lowered substiantially only because of how much my parents can contribute.</p>
<p>any comments would be helpful. oh dont forget to reply ASAP. deadline is TODAY!!
thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Students are expected to contribute $2,000-$3,000 generally to cost of education.
You can earn this much in a summer working full time. For lower income students who are already working long hours to contribute to their familys income, it seems reasonable for the EFC to be lower.</p>
<p><edit>
I am a little confused- I admit. It has been our experience that the FAFSA EFC is higher than we can comfortably pay ( about 1/4th of after tax income)
If your EFC is actually only $300, I would imagine that, that $300 would be pretty hard to scrape up let alone any extra.
I would put down whatever you think you will be able to come up with, yes many schools aren't need blind, but as you will need aid to attend, it is good to know up front what the cost will be.</edit></p>
<p>I also want to stress that even if you are attending a school that meets 100% of need and your EFC is less than $500, your need will be met by a combination of loans, grants and work study. So your school may cost $20,000 to attend but you may have $8,000 in grants, $4,000 in work study and $7,700 in loans, so think carefully about how large of loans your family can afford to have. Parents loans generally require to begin paying back right away.
I couldnt find the CC calculator so I don't know how it compares with the actual estimator, but I found the calculator at finaid.org to be pretty accurate, additonally schools that use the PROFILE have their own forms, and more assets may be earmarked as being available for tuition.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly when Candi got accepted to JHU she got a really lousy package from them and she had lie a "0" EFC, which did not make it at all affordable.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity is right on with her advice. Please bear in mind that the cost of an education at Johns Hopkins runs $40K+ unless you are commuting. If your EFC is $300, unless your parents have a sack of money under their mattress that is unreported, I do not see how they are going to make a dent in a $40K tab. That they report they can pay $6000 vs $600 is not going to make a difference in Hopkins need aware assessment. You are still going to be in the high need category as opposed to someone whose EFC may have come out to be $37K, for example, in which case the school would be happy to float the additional $3000 or so needed to fully fund such a student.</p>
<p>Let me tell you how need awareness works at Hopkins. The adcoms do admit on a need blind basis but each potential acceptee is coded A,B or C. Those who have applied for financial aid are then sent to the financial aid office for their packages. The A's get whatever they need--these are the crown jewels of the applicant pool and the college wants them. They will get the grants and the merit within need scholarships, and less in loans and workstudy. The Bs will get what grants are left along with loans and workstudy to make up the remainder. The Cs get what is left. They are given full government grants and subsidized loans and work study, and any university money that is left after taking care of the As and Bs. Hopkins does gap a little bit so kids who are Cs may be gapped at the 90-95% level if it looks like the family can swing the gap. They do not gap huge amounts and will turn down those border line kids who need much more money than the school has left to fund. However, this number is pretty small, according to what the admissions office has released. Less than 5%. about the same % as those gapped. So unless you are at the bottom of the C category and your parents can provide about 90% of your need, it really is not going to make any difference in your admissions chances. And if they put down that they can come up with, say, $10-20K, for example, and you are in the A or B category, the school is going to reduce your aid by that amount since you are saying you can come up with it. So it would not make much difference in your acceptance if your parents stretch and skimp to borrow the money at an elite school like Hopkins. I know several other schools that use a variation of this method. </p>
<p>Also Hopkins uses its own methodology to calculate need. Your family may not end up with just $300 to contribute with their calculations. Most elite colleges use Profile or their own application to come up with financial need. Your EFC only ensure you government money, and even those with a zero EFC are not going to get enough from the government to pay the type of tuition the highest costing schools charge. the rest has to come out to the colleges' coffers or from loans.</p>
<p>so let me recap some point and ask some more questions</p>
<ol>
<li><p>"That they report they can pay $6000 vs $600 is not going to make a difference in Hopkins need aware assessment."
=it means there is no difference in terms of financial situation between one with $6000EFC and another with $600EFC, correcT?? (also both would be at the C category.) ... so i should just put $600 for EFC eventhough i might be able to get 6000 dollars a year by working my S off and get loans and all that, since i would never be able to get 10k~20k... Comments??
in other words, jamimom, that unless I put $10k, i wont make any difference on my chances of acceptance???</p></li>
<li><p>it's another lame question, but what kinda students would get admitted but not be met the near 100% needs??? (i am talking about JHU)</p></li>
<li><p>I did talk to JHU financial aid officer, and i was told that they do NOT care about EFC at all, and they do calculate all that financial aid AFTER admission/acceptance.
What do you think about it??? an officer was very sure about this subject.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>jamimom, emeraldkity4, sybbie719
Give me one more shot, I will be so happy :D</p>
<p>P>S : also emeraldkity4, where did you hear or read about 2k-3k expectation?? </p>
<p>Student contribution seems to be part of the PROFILE which is used by many private schools ( oh the acronyms you''ll learn)
It usually estimates a higher IM or Institutional methodology, because of inclusion of home equity and of the amount the student will earn. I think it is also dependent on school, my daughters school expects her to earn $2,000 and it is calculated into our EFC. (BUt a piece of interesting info- money earned during school through workstudy is not counted into EFC as income- so earn as much as you can during the school year cause it won't count against you)</p>
<p>According to my guide which is a few years old, JH isn't need blind, however they may have gotten more money so that they now are, alternately paying $600 or $6000 is not that big of a difference to warrant different classification. So I would say that they are giving you honest advice, but I wouldn't apply ED. They also state ( in my 1999 guide) that they reserve preferential packaging for those in RD pool and that humanities majors are likely to get better need based packages as they work to attract top students to those programs.</p>
<p>JHU is correct that they willl not do a financial aid package for you unless you have been accepted. To do so other wise is a waste of time and resources. </p>
<p>However you can check Williams or Dartmouth both which are need blind and will meet 100% of your demonstrated need. Williams is committed to no hidden cost so based on your financial situation, you may not get any loans in your package (when my daughter was accepted last year our loans were very small in addition to the amount of $ she would have to earn during work study)</p>
<p>Regarding the $2-3,000 from summer earnings:</p>
<p>There is an expectation that you are an active participant in helping to pay for your education. When the school determines your EFC it will have 2 parts; what your parents are responsible for and what you are responsibile for through summer earnings. If you do not make this money, your scholar ship is not increased and you will most likely have to take out an unsubisdized loan to make up the difference.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at Dartmouth where every student had to earn atleast $2250 from summer earnings toward their expenses. in addition she has work study.</p>
<p>What you also want to do is go to the library or your college office and get the US news and world report ultimate financial aid guide as you want to try to get schools that do the following</p>
<p>Need blind
Meet 100% of your demonstrated need
give large amounts of grant aid.
large amounts of merit money or special scholarhips</p>
<p>See where you fit in, do the research to see if the schools are offering what you are interested in.</p>
<p>If you are willing to go a notch below JHU, you will probably find many schools where you may fall at the top of the applicant pool and get merit aid</p>
<p>also start applying for outside scholarships which can reduce the amunt of loans/ workstudy you will have to do. Some schools may allow you to use outside scholarships to reduce EFC.</p>
<p>oh yes, i am also applying or going to apply to other schools where i can be somewhere at the top, and are need blind.</p>
<p>so i do have somewhat a safety school.
oh. i also apply MIT which is totally needblind and meet 100% need. (of course it's a super reach for me. :-)</p>
<p>what is avg. EFC for middle class family?? (i am not going to increase an amount of money my parents will be able to pay based on this. Since just several thousands wouldnt make any difference. ---if not, please recomment!)</p>
<p>i am kinda tired of all this strategies.. i think i will just put whatever EFC came out from EFC calculators. (or should i still PLAY??)</p>
<p>last minute advices would be sooooooo helpful. since i am so ready to send my profile!</p>
<p>almost 10% of students are denied because of their financial status. i hope they will increase the size of "admit-deny" and minimize "no admission at all for poors"</p>
<p>At Hopkins, the Admissions process is not entirely "need blind"; admissions officers do consider the financial need of some applicants in deciding whether to admit them. But those affected represent only a fraction of applicants--those who are "on the margin," says Bob Massa, dean of Enrollment Services. He estimates that each year, between 200 to 400 applicants "are not admitted, where one factor is their need for aid." (Hopkins also admits another 200 to 400 students but does not meet their financial need--a process known as "admit-deny.")</p>
<p>Hopkins has described their financial aid process in detail in their alumni magazines. You can call the alumni office and see if they will send you a copy of that issue. It is very similar to what I have described. They are not need blind in acceptance which means that means, yes, it is possible that needing money could affect your admissions chances. But only if you are in the "C" category which is the borderline for acceptance category. Since they say they do not do the financial aid analysis until an admissions decision has been made, they may well make the admission decision just on whether or not you are applying for financial aid, in which case it doesn't make any difference if your family can pay 1% or 90% of the tuition. The fact that you are applying for aid would be driving the decision. I do not believe this is quite correct--I think a number of borderline candidates are given some kind of perusal of need and there is probably some threshhold that would make a difference. And I do not know what that threshhold is--doubt if there is a fixed number but a rolling figure that changes as the adcoms work through their stack of applicants. That is why it is really pretty useless to try to guess the way the system works--it changes as it happens and what is true one day may not be true the next. If you need financial aid, for goodness sakes, apply for it and be upfront on what you comfortably dredge up beyond your EFC. The question is there to probe any other income or asset sources that may have been missed by the financial aid forms and questions. For instance, a grandma with college money all earmarked to send to you is something they want to know about, though, frankly, few people report these sort of off record situations, particularly if they are only probable. I just saw Dreamings's post and it correctly shows the JHU situation as I understand it though I had thought that the percentage of kids affected was more like 5%--I believe that is what it once was. It has effectively doubled now--scary.</p>