<p>This, by definition is a place that you can pay for without any aid other than GUARANTEED federal, and/or state, and/or institutional merit-based aid. In other words, what you qualify for by filing the FAFSA, filing for state money if your state offers it (TAP, Blue&Gold, Bright Futures, Hope, etc.), and by having the right set of GPA and ACT/SAT scores for that particular college or university’s guaranteed merit scholarship. So yes, as always, for the vast majority of applicants, the financial safety (or closest thing to a financial safety) will be a commuting distance in-state public U or community college.</p>
<p>I think people are kissing a key piece here when they are saying to appeal the FA pkg by showing other offers. </p>
<p>You can’t show other offers. The ED agreement means today once you receive the admissions acceptance you are required to IMMEDIATELY withdraw all other apps. Thus no other FA packages are coming. </p>
<p>This is exactly why ED is a bad idea unless you are full pay. All you can do is ask to be let out of the ED agreement and move on to another school. You have no FA leverage. </p>
<p>This, by definition is a place that you can pay for without any aid other than GUARANTEED federal, and/or state, and/or institutional merit-based aid. In other words, what you qualify for by filing the FAFSA, filing for state money if your state offers it (TAP, Blue&Gold, Bright Futures, Hope, etc.), and by having the right set of GPA and ACT/SAT scores for that particular college or university’s guaranteed merit scholarship.*</p>
<p>Oh, I agree. But, many don’t view it that way. Some will look at a school’s NPC, think they’re going to get “about” that much aid, and think it’s a financial safety. </p>
<p>*It sounds like the self-employed mom had gross receipts of about 30K and expenses/losses of about 28K, so her net profit was around 2K.
*</p>
<p>Yes, but even adding $28k in additional income, shouldn’t mean that their Amherst NPC estimate ($14k) and actual ($35k) be more than a 100% difference. There’s a $21k difference in expected contribution. If so, then it means that every dollar you earn over - say - $100k - will cause about a 75 cent increase in “family contribution”.</p>
<p>I get it also, I wasn’t suggesting to the OP that there was any way to negotiate based on a peer school’s package, ED application obviously precludes that. All I was pointing out was that sometimes appeals work and sometimes they don’t, EVEN WHEN you can show a more generous offer from a peer school.</p>
<p>I think the best point for an appeal would be a print out of the NPC that indicates a $14k family contribution. I would note that even if the mom’s deductions weren’t all considered, it shouldn’t mean a family contribution that is more than double the NCP results.</p>
<p>I just looked at the NPC for Amherst and it is very detailed. I am wondering if the Op correctly filled in all of the information tha the NPC asks for including all of the details of his mother’s business, equity in the home, money in the bank, 401 contributions, etc.</p>
<p>I’m going to defend Amherst here. I think people are talking about what they’ve generally heard about the NPC, without knowing much about Amherst.</p>
<p>Way before there was a NPC, Amherst had its own calculator on its site and it was VERY accurate and rather generous. One of my kids applied ED to Amherst. I am self-employed, had another kid in college and filled out the calculator. Kiddo was deferred but, by some fluke, Amherst sent out its financial aid package and it was quite generous and in line with the calculator. By the way, same kiddo also applied to Bowdoin and was given similar financial aid. (Amherst was more generous but the difference was only a couple of thousand.)</p>
<p>I think the family didn’t fill the calculator properly. As I’ve advised other self-employed parents, I used gross receipts as a worst case scenario on the calculators and was quite happy when the numbers came out much better than that.</p>
<p>I think it’s true that the family didn’t fill out the calculator properly. It sounds like for the redo, the mom put the dad’s income in, and then only added a couple thou for her own…and got $14k family contribution. The odd thing seems to be that if she had used “gross receipts” and put in her gross income ($30k) that then the actual family contribution increases by $21k. That just doesn’t seem right.</p>
<p>Maybe the old Amherst calculator was more accurate? </p>
<p>Maybe the new NPC has some kinks? </p>
<p>or maybe the mom still made other errors when re-doing the NPC??? </p>
<p>The student does need to ask Amherst why the numbers are so different. Maybe the dad put money into a 401k, and that amount wasn’t “added back in” by the mom???</p>