<p>I was accepted to one of the few colleges which offers to meet 100% of need, but their package still falls short of the FAFSA EFC by 10k. On some other posts here, I've been noticing the same trend of 100% need met schools offering less money than the FAFSA estimate would assume. Is this normal as I was under the impression that their estimates would match the FAFSA estimates pretty closely? Any insight would be appreciated!</p>
<p>Is it a Profile school? Profile assesses need with a different formula and includes more assets. Same comment if the school uses its own financial aid application. </p>
<p>FAFSA is only used to determine need for federal programs, which are small potatoes compared to institutional aid at private schools.</p>
<p>Funny thing here- mine worked just the opposite---figures?? The school that took my CSS and the FAFSA actually gave us MORE aid than the school that only took the FAFSA??? I am probabbly the only one in the world that this has happened to?? LOL -I was told the same thing and It doens't apply to us?? So if their is an answer to this I would LOVE to know?? This whole process is so random I think??
Does anyone know if the financial packages can change once once they get thier may 1st applicants letters back?? If you appeal the process and they find out some monies that they offered potential sudents are not coming to thier school are they apt to up your package?? Hmmmmm ;)</p>
<p>It add on to DT123's comments, if you were admitted to a school that meets 100% of your demonstrated need, the school most likley uses the CSS profile in addition to the FAFSA have their own institutional methodology to estimate your family contibution </p>
<p>Becasue the profile takes more things into consideration than the FAFSA,( a federal methodology for calaculating your EFC) which really only inidcates whether or not you are eligible for federal aid in the form of grants (pell/seog) or stafford loans (subsidized/unsubsidized). Keep in mind that most schools that use the FAFSA only and most colleges in the country do not meet 100% of a student's demonstrated need.</p>
<p>Bear with us, one more time the difference between federal and institutional methodologies:</p>
<p>Differences between the IM and FM models include:</p>
<p>IM collects information on estimated academic year family income, medical expenses, elementary and secondary school tuition and unusual circumstances. FM omits these questions.</p>
<p>IM considers a fuller range of family asset information, while FM ignores assets of siblings, all assets of certain families with less than $50,000 of income, and both home and family farm equity.</p>
<p>FM defines income as the adjusted gross income on federal tax returns, plus various categories of untaxed income. IM includes in total income any paper depreciation, business, rental or capital losses which artificially reduce adjusted gross income.</p>
<p>FM does not assume a minimum student contribution to education; IM expects the student, as primary beneficiary of the education, to devote some time each year to earning money to pay for education.</p>
<p>FM ignores the noncustodial parent in cases of divorce or separation; IM expects parents to help pay for education, regardless of current marital status.</p>
<p>FM and IM apply different percentages to adjust the parental contribution when multiple siblings are simultaneously enrolled in college, and IM considers only siblings enrolled in undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>The IM expected family share represents a best estimate of a familys capacity (relative to other families) to absorb, over time, the costs of education. It is not an assessment of cash on hand, a value judgment about how much a family should be able to use current income, or a measure of liquidity. The final determinations of demonstrated need and awards rest with the University and are based upon a uniform and consistent treatment of family circumstances.</p>
<p>Except in the most extraordinary circumstances, Colleges classifies incoming students as dependent upon parents for institutional aid purposes, even though some students may meet the federal definition of independence.</p>
<p>Students enrolling as dependent students are considered dependent throughout their undergraduate years when need for institutional scholarships is determined.</p>
<p>For institutional aid purposes a student may not declare independence due to attainment of legal age, internal family arrangements, marriage or family disagreements.</p>
<p>Your COA (cost of attendance) is tuition, room board, books travel expenses and some misc. expenses associated with attending college.</p>
<p>No matter how you slice it, $180,000 is a lot of money. Your parents have already stated that they can't/won't pay/borrow this amount because they feel that you have more viable options (a good in-state school, and a school where you are getting a considerable FA package that most likely has merit money within it). </p>
<p>As a student, there are cumulative limit of $23,000 which you can borrow for an undergraduate education using stafford or perkins loans. </p>
<p>
[quote]
If you appeal the process and they find out some monies that they offered potential sudents are not coming to thier school are they apt to up your package??
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The people who work in enrollment management and those that allocate the FA bugets are a pretty savvy bunch. They set their budgets past on trends; knowing how many admissions they need to grant in order to yeild the number of students to fill the freshman class. </p>
<p>They have a good handle when it comes to knowing that students are going to be admitted to multiple schools, the schools that are likely to be cross-admits to their schools, what percentage are going to be full freight payers, what percent would need aid and about how much they aid a student would need (more so if a school is not need blind in the admissions process), how many admit-deny they will have to hand out (admit from and admissions standpoint while denying them from a FA standpoint). </p>
<p>After all of this, there usually is rarely any "left over" money because they may have to go back to revisit their budgets especially if they get a large number of students taking them up on their offer and end up re-evaluating packages in order to meet their yeild.</p>
<p>i too have been admitted to 100% need met school and their aid differs from EFC by 13 graND. tHE THING IS THOUGH, that My CSS profile estimated my EFC is LOWER than FAFSa. My CSS EFC estimate was 1020$ and my FAFSA efc was 1,900$. my family only makes 70 grand a year in gross income for 4 people. We do not own a house or farm, we rent an apartment. we have no stocks or bonds or anythin that would be consiedered an assest. Two sieblings, me and my brother are entering college the same year.
So I will not be able to afford even a '100% need met school". I too feel this is ridiculous. The 100% schools are lying, they don't give anything close to 100% of need. if People like me still cAN'T afford to go there.</p>
<p>From what I hear your need is based on your GPA and their formula. If you applied to a school where they met 100% need and your GPA and scores are in the higher end of their standards you are more apt to get 100% of your need. I wish I knew this when we applied to schools also. My son got very close to 100% need at his safety school and more like 75% at the school he is going to- a 50/50 school. If he decided or got into one of his reach schools he probabbly would get even less aid-unless it was a need -blind school. I could be wrong on this but this that is how it worked out for us.</p>