<p>Did you receive a financial aid award? “EFC” is a FAFSA term, so perhaps they called it “Family Contribution” or something like that? Usually there will be a breakdown, something like:
Family contribution - $$
Grants/Scholarships - $$
Loans - $$
Student Earnings expectation - $$</p>
<p>What did you receive that told you about the scholarships? Was there more information in that letter?</p>
<p>All I received in my preliminary estimate was a grant of $7,000 and a “Chicago Scholar” award of $5,000. There was no other information.</p>
<p>But you did apply for financial aid? Go to the school’s FA webpage and make sure you got everything in to them that they require for an aid application, and that you sent it by the deadline.</p>
<p>Assuming you submitted everything required, it looks to me like perhaps you haven’t even received a FA award yet. The grants are a nice piece, but may be only part of what will ultimately comprise your aid award. There are some EA schools that will accept a student early, but not work up their aid award until the spring with everyone else’s. This is because they do not need a confirmation of your plan to attend until the spring anyway.</p>
<p>After you check the FA webpage, I’d give the office a call (is anyone will even be in next week) and ask them when you could expect to hear about your FA award. If there isn’t one coming, they’ll tell you that. You may be relieved though to find out they haven’t even done them yet.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is from the school’s FA website. I’m beginning to think you just haven’t received your aid award yet. Call and ask.</p>
<p>This is the exact letter I received:</p>
<p><a href=“http://imgur.com/wOmkC.png[/url]”>http://imgur.com/wOmkC.png</a></p>
<p>Does this help at all? I did indeed apply for aid. Does it look like I have more coming?</p>
<p>It certainly looks to me like a preliminary aid estimate that they have based on the financial information you provided to them.</p>
<p>Are your your family income and assets pretty high? From this letter, it does not seem like they think you qualify for a lot of need based aid. If you expected to qualify for more need based aid (meaning your family income and assets are not high), you should double check the figures you sent them.</p>
<p>OP, you need to look at your other schools. You are looking at way too much undergrad debt and then a sizable gap. How were you planning on paying for such an expensive private?</p>
<p>You don’t have to decide now! You have until April 1. </p>
<p>What you need to do is to get your FAFSA in as early as possible next fall so that you can get a final financial aid award, and then appeal that if it isn’t enough.</p>
<p>In the meantime, apply to other colleges where you think you are likely to get more aid – either colleges which may be more generous with need-based aid or which may offer merit aid. </p>
<p>Then make your decision during late April base don the information you have in hand then.</p>
<p>And congratulations on your admission! Again – you do NOT have to decide now. If it turns out that you can’t afford Chicago in the end, so be it… but you’ve got 4 months to continue to explore your options.</p>
<p>I would note that Chicago does promise to meet full need, as they define it – so it seems that your EFC is much higher than what your parents say they can pay. Chicago does tend to have less generous aid policies than many other colleges, but Chicago’s view of your family’s ability to pay is likely to be in the same ballpark as any other university, with the exception of the elites like Harvard that have adopted unusually generous aid policies. So be realistic – if your family’s EFC is, say $35K, and they are only able or willing to pay $20K, then you are going to have a “gap” wherever you apply – if that’s the case, you should seriously be looking at schools that will offer significant merit aid.</p>
<p>@calmom Turning my eye to other colleges, which other elites have usually generous aid policies?</p>
<p>That’s interesting, Applicant. It does look like a financial aid award, at least in the text of the letter, but I’ve never seen one before with so little information.</p>
<p>Have you put your family’s income and assets information into a FA calculator? There is one with both federal methodology (FAFSA) and a sort of generic institutional methodology that a private college requiring the CSS Profile might generate. (It’s just a guesstimate, because colleges can use the Profile information according to their own FA policies, but can still be revealing.) You can find these calculators on the CollegeBoard website.</p>
<p>Run your family’s numbers both ways, IM and FM. If you find your expected contribution is very high, that might be your explanation. It could be that while your family doesn’t feel they can afford more than 20K, the college may determine they are capable of paying far more than that. This disconnect is something many, many people experience each year. “The school thinks we can afford WHAT? That’s a third of our income after taxes!” But, yes, it often happens that it is what the college thinks you an afford.</p>
<p>Running your numbers on the FA calculator can also be illuminating as to what you might expect from other schools, although, as I said, they do all have their own policies for awarding aid – plus merit aid is generally not dependent on financial need, so that’s something to look for.</p>
<p>Remember to be eligible for merit aid, you’ll probably have to look down the college rankings a bit to lower tiered schools where your stats make you a great catch.</p>
<p>BUT, I also agree with Calmom. You have a lot of time to go through a review process with UChicago. Definitely pursue your other options, but you don’t have to decide for months. Keep talking to UChicago. Have a parent call them to review the FA aid award for starters.</p>
<p>Re post #29 – I can’t really give you a full list – but I believe Harvard, Yale, Stanford & Columbia all have aid policies that go beyond merely meeting EFC. But it still depends on your parents’ income and assets.</p>
<p>Congratulations on your acceptance! My son wanted to apply, but didn’t because after I spoke with the financial aid officer it was clear we could not afford U.Chicago. In order of generosity if your family meets demonstrated need: Princeton (does not count home equity and has a chart on their website showing how much your family would pay according to their income); Stanford (caps home equity at 1.2 x income) - they have a calculator on their website - likely tied with Harvard which does not count home equity or assets <100K; Yale, which just provided my son w/ a generous aid. Sorry, we didn’t look at Columbia. None of these schools provide merit aid. Brown’s aid is good only if your parents have very limited assets and little home equity. Washington University in St. Louis has a good combination of financial aid and merit aid that might get you close to a free ride.
If you get a better aid offer from a comparable or “better” school than U. Chicago, take it into their financial aid office. You don’t want to tell them to match the other school, but you can say that U.Chicago is your dream school, but your parents can’t afford to send you, your personal contribution with work is limited to $x, and you can’t afford to attend U. Chicago w/out more aid. You can tell them it seems that this other school has evaluated your need differently and would they reconsider. Worse case is no.
When I called Brown and they told me outright we did not qualify for any aid, they also said quite bluntly that if my S got in and also got a financial aid offer from another university, we should bring it to them and they would endeavor to match it because they are competitive. Not attractive, but you might as well use that type of attitude to your advantage.
Congratulations again on your achievement.</p>
<p>What is the standard loan load for someone going to a selective private school? What can be considered an upper bound for a sane amount of student loans?</p>
<p>I would have to take out 50k or more in loans in order to even have a shot at this working.</p>
<p>Also, what’s the deal with Income-Based Loan repayment? Some academics (at Grinnell) I talked to told me to suck it up, take out a bunch of Federal loans, and use IBR to make it manageable.</p>
<p>You will only be able to take federal loans out up to about 27,000. Private loans would need to be taken to cover the rest either taken by you with a co-signer or by your family directly to pay the gap between what the school believes they should pay and what they can afford to pay.</p>
<p>“They” meaning your family, not “they” the school.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that you should limit loans to the maximum allowed subsidized Stafford – I believe that is $19,000 over 4 years. I do not think that students should take unsubsidized loans. Also, you should definitely NOT take more in loans to attend an elite university like Chicago – my rationale is that those schools promise to meet need, and so it is inappropriate for them to expect students to borrow more. I actually could support a student borrowing more (such as a combination of Stafford & Perkins) to attend less selective or public schools, on the rationale that those schools have limited funds and the students may not have better options. But if you are a strong enough student to qualify for $5000 designated as merit money from Chicago, then you can reasonably expect more generous merit money from many colleges.</p>
<p>My d. turned down Chicago in part because their aid award was very weak compared to the college she did attend. (I think the other college would have been preferred over Chicago in any event – but Chicago might have been seriously considered if its award was better.).</p>
<p>Please, I know that at the moment Chicago seems like a “dream” college, but its not a dream if you take on more debt than you can manage. </p>
<p>But again – you have time. There’s no point stressing too much when it is only a preliminary award. Just keep in mind that from here on out the goal is to get into an acceptable college for you that you can afford. If you qualified for Chicago as an EA admit, there will be plenty of other colleges that will fit that bill – but again, if your parent’s FAFSA EFC is significantly higher than what they think they can pay, you need to be focusing mostly on colleges likely to give you more generous merit awards than Chicago has offered.</p>
<p>You are in the situation many college students find themselves in. Congratulations on your acceptance to UChicago. Now you have to decide how to pay for this and if it is worth it, over other less pricey options. </p>
<p>My son is currently at a private college that is more than we could pay without hurting our family situation. So he is borrowing, we are borrowing, he is paying out of savings, we are paying out of savings, he is paying out of current income–he has a part time job and works holidays and summers, we pay out of current income. That he gets a scholarship from the school helps, and he also got a small outside award on a one time basis freshman year. He got a research grant this year, which was very nice. </p>
<p>It isn’t easy paying this each semester, and next year is going to be more difficult with 2 in college. We’ll have to do the same with again. We’re on a tight austerity regiment for a long time. If our next son picks a state school or commutes from home, it would make a big difference, but his first choices are really expensive. </p>
<p>For our first son, a $10K award brings his total cost down to $45K. He pays $10k of it out of his savings and earnngs, leaving $35K. He has taken a Stafford that brings the cost down to the $30K that we agreed to cover. A little more than your parents can afford but close. We borrow $10, take about $1K out of our monthly paycheck and put in an ancillary account for his college costs and take out $10K each year from our various savings. Not so bad this year, but last year really hurt since we had to sell stock that we would have liked to have kept. Starting next year, we’ll have depleted o four savings/stocks accounts. Scary because we are getting older as well. It took us 20 years to build up that account and it will be gone in 7. </p>
<p>So our son may be in the same predicament as you are soon. He did not apply early any where. He has applied to some school, like UC that cost close to $60K. He has some nearby options which would cost about $40K plus home costs that we can handle as the additional cost of another person at home is minimal or none to our operations. He can go to some OOS choices which would run about $30K. If he goes to one of our SUNYs, the cost would be between $20-25K. If he stays at home and commutes to a CUNY, the out of pocket tuition, fees and books would be $5K at most, and maybe even free as he qualifies for a full award there. </p>
<p>But on a “prestige” and personal preference basis, the higher cost options are the ones he wants the most. </p>
<p>With an acceptance to UC, you probably have the resume for some nice merit awards. Those and your state options are going to be your lower cost choices.</p>
![http://imgur.com/wOmkC.png[/url]](http://imgur.com/wOmkC.png%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
