<p>vanderbilt offered me $8000 in financial need-based aid, but do you guys know if this will be the same for all other colleges? thanks for any help on this....</p>
<p>most likely not. each college's aid varies slightly.</p>
<p>In my experience, financial aid offers vary A LOT. My cost of attendance after FA ranged from $3,622 to $28,276 at my various colleges.</p>
<p>Wow, Shadow, BIG difference!</p>
<p>My son's ranged from $0 - $10K</p>
<p>We had an 11,000 spread between the best financial package, to the worst. Some packages were more generous with grants, and one package (where my son's stats were way above the 75%) offered only loans (no merit money either). These were all private schools.</p>
<p>A client of mine last year saw a spread of over $13,000 at her #1 and #2 schools, both private. This year it appears to be averaging around $3000 to $5000 (depending on circumstances as always).</p>
<p>Same thing we have an EFC of $6300 and our offers with Federal loans are anywhere from $11,000 to $25,000 . No where close to the EFC. We were really hoping that the EFC was what we would have to pay. Not the case.</p>