<p>Or are they distorting the actual EFC? I have come to notice that the actual EFC given in SAR is about $8K more than the calculators on collegeboard--for what reason though?</p>
<p>My experience is that they are accurate to the dollar.</p>
<p>Mine was accurate to the dollar also.</p>
<p>They use the same formula, so they should come up with the same result, given the same input.</p>
<p>Mine was 3K more than the collegeboard EFC.</p>
<p>For me, the estimators were about $100 higher than the official</p>
<p>overall, yes.</p>
<p>The most common oversight with the estimators is people forget to include contributions to retirement accounts. This can skew calculations considerably.</p>
<p>yes u r so right, the person told me my parents 401k was too high, and mine was 5K higher than the estimate</p>