<p>OP,</p>
<p>Our nephew is currently a sophomore at Carleton College. He is an independent student (was in a legal guardianship with us from 16-18) and has an EFC. When I was helping him with his college search, his packages varied WIDELY, from one offer covering full COA with no loans to offers that would have left him with a gap of over $25,000 a year. All the packages contained a combination of merit and need based aid. The wide variety in packages was really a surprise to me. Fast forward 2 years to helping nephew #2, and I’m no longer surprised by the variation proving you can teach an old dog new tricks :)</p>
<p>I think you gave good advice to your niece regarding being happy that she got a merit award but needing to wait until the need based award comes in.</p>
<p>With respect to your question about study abroad, it would be good to ask each school about their policy. Policies regarding the amount of financial aid that can be used for study abroad vary. Some schools have students pay their tuition to the home college as normal, and allow the student to participate on an approved study abroad program with the same amount of financial aid as normal(so no change in cost). Others only let you keep a portion of your financial aid, but charge you the exact cost of the program (so, for example, if you go on a semester program to Costa Rica that only costs $10,000 for tuition, room and board when the cost for a semester at your home institution is $20,000, you save $10,000 but don’t get to keep all your financial aid so the net cost to the student could be higher than if the student had stayed at the home institution.) Hope this makes sense. By all means, ask at the school what their policy is.</p>