Applying ED but worried abt money?

FWIW, we were able to get an official financial aid estimate from my D’s school before signing the ED document, once we had paid the application fee. The estimate ended up being very close to the NPC I’d run, and almost identical to the actual official package that eventually came in with her acceptance.

If we’d decided we wanted to compare offers we just wouldn’t have signed the ED agreement and they would have put her application in the RD pool.

This took a lot of the FA stress away from applying early.

@Pheebers if you don’t mind me asking, how did you find this out? Do you just call the school after paying the admission fee? Or is this different for all schools…?

Each school likely has an institutional policy on doing financial aid pre-reads. Some schools will not do pre-reads, no exceptions. Other schools will do it on a case-by-case basis. If you can’t find a policy published on the school’s website, contact the financial aid office and ask.

Ok I just checked their website and aid packages won’t be made known until after ED is submitted. Duke only recommends using their net price calc to find out early…
However I ran the NPC again and I would still get over $30,000 in aid…? I checked to make sure my parent income was entered as $210000 and that all other spaces were more or less accurate. After parent loans and work study, this would make Duke affordable for me. Should I just go for ED then?

That doesn’t mean you can’t ask for an early review. Schools really don’t want their ED acceptances turning down the spot because of FA either. They want you to be able to accept and attend.

Sorry…but that still doesn’t sound right.

How many kids in your family will be in college when you enroll?

@thumper1 none…

Ok…I just did the NPC for Duke. I entered $210,000 for income. I also put $20,000 in pre tax retirement contributions.

I put NO other assets…no savings, investments, home…nothing.

I got a net price of $60,000.

Maybe someone else would like to try it too.

^ I did the NPC as well and got the same.

To the OP…

When you did that NPC the first section asked if your marital status. Did you put YOURS or your parent? The parent one comes later in this form.

You would be single.

It seems to me that something was misentered when you did your NPC entries. Marital status? Number in family? Something.

Yup I put single. I’m sure I must’ve messed up somewhere else but I’m suspecting that it might just be my pc that’s causing incorrect calculations…? I’ll try entering my info on a different device…

It should not be your device!

Also make sure that enough 0s are where they need to be. You want $210,000 to be that…and not $21,000.

But really…check EACH entry carefully.

Any chance your parents are self employed?

Yup checked the zeros. And no, they work for companies.

This chart:
http://admissions.duke.edu/application/aid

shows average aid for families making over 160K as around 25K, which makes the COA near 45K. Did you use the NPC linked on that page?

Some questions…

  1. Do your parents file a joint tax return?
  2. What tax form do they use?
  3. Do they itemize deductions on their taxes?
  4. How much home equity do they have (although this would make your contribution higher if there is any).
  5. Siblings? How many in family?

Something just isn’t adding up here.

So I’ve rerun the NPC and if I put in a 0 for this line “How much were your parents’ total adjustments to income?”
My aid drops substantially (to $16,000)
I think this would be the more logical amount I may receive. I don’t know why the number my parents told me initially was so high, but I doubt this was correct.

Also I will get back to those questions soon, sorry.

What amount was the “adjustment” amount…and what exactly were the adjustments to their income?

@BelknapPoint what can be used as adjustments to income?

Ok…I just redid that Duke NPC…a couple of times. You would need $70,000 or so on adjustments to income to get your net cost down to $30,000 a year.

I have no idea what these adjustments might be…I looked on my tax returns…and my adjustments were…$250 educator expense. And that’s it.

What would,have been the adjustments? Do you know?

Yes my parents put in a crazy high number for adjustments that mirrors your guess, but I don’t think they understood what this meant initially. I see now that it says to directly reference a specific line in the tax form, so I’ve contacted my parents and am waiting for them to send more accurate info. Now I’m pretty sure that’s where all of this misunderstanding came from.

My parents only gave me a estimate on the tax form. I think this serves as a reminder to reconfirm NPCs and be distrustful of relying solely on memory. I now am firmly convinced I would not be able to afford Duke.

I will update with a more accurate version of my cost soon.