<p>Many thanks to those that have already answered a few PFS questions. Here are a few more:
How does one answer question 25 A: Amount Parent can pay for applicant's education?<br>
Is this just a wild guess? Do you just put in a number and it really doesn't matter once EFC calculations are done?
Same with Question 27: amount of cost paid by parent/student? Again, how do I determine what to fill in?
AAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!</p>
<p>Question 25 is often called "the offer" by FA folks so be careful what you put - be as close to what you really think you can honestly afford as you can be. Some families put far more than they can really afford and the school will take them up on the offer to test it out. Other families "lowball" the offer and that can be troublesome to an FA officer also. For example, be careful about putting down $1000 as the amount you can pay when your EFC comes up closer to $20,000. But do be honest about what you can really afford and most FA officers will work with you to find a reasonable amount between your demonstrated need and your ability to pay. Question 27 refers to whether someone else will be paying -- ie a grandparent or trust or something. </p>
<p>Remember also that most schools have appeals processes once you receive your award and onward negotiations can take place. You are in the best position if you know what you can and cannot do financially.</p>
<p>I put in the amount I think we ACTUALLY can afford to pay, not leaving room for a "compromised offer". Would the school generally come up with something between what you offer and the EFC?</p>
<p>We put in a figure that was way too low many years back when D applied. We simply had no idea what the PFS would spit out and put in a figure that we could afford to pay with CASH. It was a huge mistake! The amount we put down was about $10K less than the mystery formula spit out. </p>
<p>Fast-forward five years. We sent in a PFS one year BEFORE we would be applying for my son to gauge the amount of the parent contribution. When we applied the following year for son, we were fairly certain of the parents contribution, so could estimate it within reason. It worked well for us and there were no surprises.</p>
<p>You don't have the luxury of an extra year to play around, so I would strongly recommend that you put down the amount you would be willing to pay: cash plus loans. I would also put in the note area an explanation of how much cash you have available and/or how much you are willing to borrow to meet the education costs of your child.</p>
<p>Another alternative is to quickly file the PFS using reasonable estimates of 2008 income. Enter the code for only the parent report and perhaps one school to which you are NOT applying. (I only say this because I believe you need at least one school) Once you receive the parent's report you will know exactly how much it states you can afford to pay. Then you can have the reports sent to the schools to which you are applying and independently send each school a note explaining how much you can actually afford and why. If you can swing this before FA decisions are made, it might work to your advantage and remove the unknown, upsetting portion of the application process.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Thanks Baseballmom for sharing your experience. You said you made a "a huge mistake" when you filed PFS for your D. What happened? Did that affect your D's admission or cause any problem with the school?</p>
<p>It was a mistake for two reasons.</p>
<p>Firstly, we did not notice that we could put in a code for the parent's report, so never had any idea of the amount of family contribution that was reported to the schools. This means we did not realize that we had low-balled the figure and could not counteract it with a dialogue with the schools before the FA and admissions decisions were made by the schools.</p>
<p>Secondly, D was waitlisted for FA and/or not admitted (to one, for sure) as a direct result of our "contribution" figure. Low-balling could result in a school not admitting because they don't want to fund to that extent. These were not need-blind schools, but even if they were, our pfs reported a much higher contribution that we could "afford" and we stated a number much lower. </p>
<p>As an earlier poster reported, the parent number is considered the "offer" and if your offer is way too low, lower than what the formula reports the parent can afford, it appears that the parent may not be able to come up with the parent portion.</p>
<p>On the box where you check off boarding or day- what do you do if your child is applying to both? Three of the schools our son is applying to are boarding but we have one local day school in the mix too.</p>
<p>Hmm.....good question. Your EFC may vary based on the answer, as somewhere in the EFC report it said something about when your child is away at school, you save money for his/her food (trust me, based on this vacation, it is true ;)), so that is an amount that can be added to your contribution. But, for a day student, you wouldn't have that savings.....</p>
<p>Sorry that I don't have the answer for you...perhaps other parents, or a call to the SSS itself can help.</p>
<p>PA-C, I am in the same boat, so I left it unchecked (I think), then I get a two figures from SSS - one is boading school EFC and the other day school EFC. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Watertester: did SSS tell you if you leave it blank they will give two numbers? If so that will be great. </p>
<p>Brooklynguy: If we can't get two numbers then I think we should just check off boarding. After reading the posts about what to put in the "offer" line of how much we can afford to pay for school, I am thinking about not applying for aid at the day school at all. The day school is "only" 21000 per year (Wow I can't believe I said only there!) while the BS is 41000 per year. So I guess I answered my own question! :)</p>
<p>I got my report back. FYI, two figures are only a couple of thousand dollars difference.</p>
<p>After much thought and discussion my H and I have written a letter to be included in our financial aid stuff that ups our amount for #25 significantly on the PFS. Primarily because of what we have read in this thread.</p>
<p>I guess we thought the amount was cash, so we added in loan amounts as well. Of course we would much rather not have loans but we really believe the boarding opportunity is best for our S.</p>
<p>So thank you all for your insight into this process, I think it has really made a difference this year. Hopefully we will have a positive experience to report on March 10th!</p>
<p>Just wondering - or take this as a small survey if you would - on PFS, what is the difference between the figure you put in (how much you think you can afford) and the EFC returned by SSS. Mine is 20K - there a good start so you can tell yours without inhibitions LOL.</p>
<p>Our "offer" ended up being right between the amount the PFS said we could afford for day and the amount we could afford for boarding. (The two amounts were $1650 apart.)</p>
<p>We came up with the amount by seriously scrutinizing our budget and doing alot of figgerin. I was happy when the PFS computed the same amount. The school accepted our "offer" number, but in the end we needed to borrow half to make the tuition payments.</p>
<p>Our offer is about $5000 less than the SSS said we could afford. And that is with borrowing 2/3's or more of the offer. </p>
<p>We shall see what happens on March 10th!</p>
<p>We put $500 as what we could afford.
Granted, the tuition is MORE than what my mother makes in a year (even before taxes) and she is supporting my younger brother, and she has graduate school expenses. Were we wrong to have put such a low figure?</p>
<p>I am concerned that because of the terrible current economic conditions the schools are going to tend to offer less than the difference between the EFC and the cost to attend. Is this an appropriate concern, or do you expect that most of the schools will offer the full difference between the cost to attend and the EFC? Also, which schools are more likely to be short of the difference? Am I crazy for worrying?</p>
<p>I asked this question else where, but will post here also. Is the loan market for boarding school still viable? I have heard media reports that college students are having a difficult time getting loans, so what about boarding loans.</p>
<p>Some help needed---I can't see where to put in the "parent code" to get a copy of this myself. Is it after I hit the "submit" button (which I'm not ready to do yet)?</p>
<p>I think it's a question they ask early on whether you want a copy for yourself. Go through the process from the beginning again, and you will see it.</p>