<p>Now that acceptances are in and FA packages have arrived, what do 2012 parents think about the accuracy of the Net Price Calculator compared to the actual FA/merit packages? </p>
<p>I dropped our 2011 tax info into the NPC's for D2's schools yesterday and while I know that those numbers aren't guaranteed, I'm wondering how accurate they are in practice. I've dropped them all into a spreadsheet; there are a few with extenuating merit situations that didn't quite get picked up that I have a 2nd net price column for, but before I share with D & DH, I'd like to get some feedback. Thx!</p>
<p>After using the NPC for 20 schools, it was pretty accurate for us. The only thing that changed it was that we received more merit than calculated by every calculator.</p>
<p>^^^For the few schools that I “know” well and are match/safeties for D, I noticed that. The schools that use the College Board NPC (that has all the questions about gpa & test scores) seemed to catch some of those situations compared to the other annoying NPC that didn’t save your info. My 1st world complaint of last night: why don’t they all just use the College Board sign in? </p>
<p>NPC users can gauge accuracy by the number of questions an NPC asks. About 1,500 colleges and post-secondary schools posted custom NPCs that are accurate because they ask 30 to 40 questions, which takes 8 to 12 minutes to answer. Custom NPCs are based on current aid and cost data. However, most colleges used the free federal template NPC that asks only 8 to 10 question. The federal template is based on two-year-old data, uses averages, and generates a merit aid number without asking merit questions. Two tests where 145,490 dependent and independent student profiles were put through the template resulted in aid eligibility and net price estimates being wrong 54% of the time. Aspiring students will find their NPC estimates and aid award letters from colleges using custom NPCs will be close. Not necessarily so if the college in question used the federal template NPC - especially if the college provides merit aid.</p>
<p>I’ve used a bunch of these. Several of what seemed like the serious ones were accurate and easy enough to use but the really short one at most colleges I checked was generally useless. Counselor said it is actually provided by the government but we noticed it isn’t even consistent with what is on the gov’s Navigator website. How can that be? Anyway, navigator seemed much better.</p>