<p>Was just reading an article about college financial aid offers to students and it is amazing how the same set of income numbers from parents submitted to many different colleges can yield such a wide variety of financial aid offers. I went through this with my son last year and it turned out the most selective college he was accepted to gave him the best financial aid. I would have thought that the colleges were he was in 75% range or higher as far as test scores for that college is where he would have recieved the most financial aid. Do you believe the following are factors in offers of financial aid:</p>
<p>1) the student is in the 75th percentile or above, the college wants to include this student in its admitted statistics but the admission people feel the student would not be a good fit for the college so offers less financial aid than it would a student with a similar income backgound and the same stats but looks to be a good fit for that college.</p>
<p>2) Where the student lives. Even with the same set of income factors, one student comes from an area of wealth, the other a more middle or poorer income area. The student from the wealthier area would be offered less because financial aid may percieve there must be money there somewhere(ie other relatives).</p>
<p>Any other factors you can think of?</p>
<p>In my son's case, he has liberal views and his essay reflected that. I noticed that more middle of the road( as far as political views) colleges offered him less financial aid although he was in the 60th to 90th percentle of scores than the the highly selective liberal college he enrolled in.</p>
<p>*I would have thought that the colleges were he was in 75% range or higher as far as test scores for that college is where he would have recieved the most financial aid. *</p>
<p>Not necessarily… These sound like safety or match schools and they often don’t have much institutional aid to give.</p>
<p>*In my son’s case, he has liberal views and his essay reflected that. I noticed that more middle of the road( as far as political views) colleges offered him less financial aid although he was in the 60th to 90th percentle of scores than the the highly selective liberal college he enrolled in. *</p>
<p>I HIGHLY doubt that the persons in admissions who read his essays have anything to do with the FA dept. Probably…more likely, that the highly selective college just has more money/endowment.</p>
<p>Where the student lives</p>
<p>This might be a factor, but probably not for the reason you listed. Schools will give preferential packaging to students that they REALLY want because they come from a state or region where they don’t have many students. Schools want to brag that they have students from all 50 states.</p>
<p>Every college is so different, whether full need or not. We found even the full need colleges gave different offers, some varying by over 5000.
Some schools have more money than others, some less. I remember my first blush with FA, my son’s match schools ranged from 8.000 scholarships to 23.000.
I always tell parents, FA will always be a surprise, sometimes nice, sometimes not.</p>
<p>If you are talking about need based aid only…there are a few things. First,most of these schools are need blind for admissions so they admissions folks make decisions about admissions without regard for financial need. So…need based aid at these schools would not be predicated on being at a certain %ile with regards to grades or SAT scores or the like. Need would be the only factor in awarding their generous aid.</p>
<p>Second…In my opinion (and it’s my opinion) the biggest factor with regards to school institutional aid (need based) is that the SCHOOLS can use the financial info from the FAFSA, Profile or their own form ANY WAY THEY CHOOSE to award their institutional need based funds. These formulas likely vary WILDLY from school to school. What one school may consider in the equation, another school might weigh differently (home equity on the primary residence at schools that use forms OTHER than the FAFSA is one example of this). </p>
<p>Remember that the FAFSA is used primarily to determine eligibility for federally funded need based aid. Schools that are FAFSA only use the same info that is on the FAFSA, but none (except reportedly Chapman) meet full need for ALL students. That being the case, the institutional need based awards could look VERY different from school to school depending on a variety of things including the wealth of the school endowment, the need to add a variety of students to their roster, and the like.</p>
<p>D applied to a bunch of selective LACS. Several were full need no loan schools. The difference between the best offer and the least offer was about 25K. The difference between the offers of 2 equally selective, similarly endowed schools was 20K. She got 4 early writes with widely different aid figures. Her “safety” LAC did not give her an early write or particularly good financial aid. One school gave her their “best” scholarship (give to about 5 applicants a year), but since it was included in the financial aid package, it provided no financial benefit. </p>
<p>I don’t think anyone can predict financial aid packages which is why you must cast a wide net.</p>
<p>^^^ and why every kid needs a rock-solid academic safety school that his/her family can afford without any financial aid other than federally determined (FAFSA) aid.</p>
<p>Our experience was similar to GTalum’s. My kids have applied to a wide variety of colleges across the coutry and received everything from full ride to nothing except Pell and Guaranteed Student Loans. Generous merit was trumped by generous financial aid and her most generous awards were by at least one school that I’ve seen listed here as often not as generous in their estimates of need. (They were so generous to us that we wouldn’t have even had to send a deposit in to hold her space!) </p>
<p>I have not seen any indication that colleges guess that there is a rich relative somewhere. I think they know there are people in fancy neighborhoods who have no equity in their homes and people in real middle-class neighborhoods driving beaters who have lots of $ in the bank. </p>
<p>I did not see schools give more or less $ for my child’s viewpoint although some of the more religious schools I’ve seen do not have as much $ as top lacs.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to argue with a fellow parent, but as stated previously, even full-need schools vary. One parent I met kept telling me once that a women’s college HAD to have given my daughter a similar package to another full-need school. They didn’t, they all varied, some had loans, some didn’t, some had many loans, including Perkins, some didn’t, some expected large summer contributions from her, some didn’t. Some included my son who would be full time in grad school, some didn’t.
Never, never, never, think you know what you will get.</p>
<p>As Kal Chany says in “Paying for College Without Going Broke” (Princeton Review) </p>
<p>“it is as though you have sent your tax returns to 5 different countries with 5 different results.” not exact quote, but just off the top of my head! :)</p>
<p>And I agree with happymomof1 that while casting a wide net for one’s so-called “dream schools” have a financial and academic safety you can live with. If I knew then what I know now, I would have asked her to apply to 1-2 more well endowed schools.</p>
<p>Also, with “preferential packaging” of aid, packages with the same dollar amount can vary widely in “real cost.” </p>
<p>For anyone who is new to this: preferential packaging means that the financial aid office designs better packages for students whom the admissions office really wants. They get more grants and less loans/work study.</p>
<p>This is the point I made in the orginal post. Colleges will give more financial aid to a student whom they want than to another student even though they may have the same income level. It was said that the admission office and the financial aid office do not communicate, but i don’t believe this to be true. Also there are very few need blind schools where these two offices do not communicate. My son happened to be lucky enough to be admitted to a truely(if there really is this type of college) need blind LAC.</p>
<p>And some colleges, even if they want you, just don’t have the same resources. One college for instance courted daughter A, but they couldn’t compete with another colleges endowment.</p>
<p>My D cast a very wide net, too, and while the differences weren’t as drastic as $25,000, they did vary from $0, not even a loan offered, to more than $11,000, only $1,000 of which was loans. This was from strictly need, meets full need schools.</p>
<p>Since D knew what we were willing/able to contribute, she went with a merit school so she could graduate debt free. It’s COA was also $12,000 less than many others, so she considered that as an additional $48,000 scholarship she gave to herself.</p>
<p>Agree with other posters who have stated that full need schools vary, they have different policies and so give different FA packages based on the same financial information. </p>
<p>The year before the FA policy changes at HYPS, we had a range of $0 to 15k (no loans). The following year after the FA policy changes, we had a range of $0 to 25k (no loans). These were all highly selective, reach schools; in my experience, there can be a steep drop between the top 4 and the rest of the pack.</p>
<p>Even among the top colleges, it can vary. Yale gave quite a bit more than UPenn for instance to my daughter, but I’m sure overall, they are collectively more than average in FA.</p>
<p>Any idea if and how timing play a role in this? I have read on other threads that grant money gets distributed on a “first come first served basis.” To what extent is that true? We had CSS and estimated FAFSA in by the end of January (before all deadlines). IDOC in on 2/28 with 3/1 deadline. Even though the deadline was met, is that too late in practical terms?</p>
<p>As long as you meet the deadline, you should be fine. </p>
<p>I think that first come, first served also depends on the school and how much FA they have to give. For instance, with Yale, I’ve had late FA packages due to a form that I was unaware of and a financial review, but it never affected the amount of FA given.</p>
<p>That’s true, re Yale, but their endowment is so large. With some schools, they will be honest and say that late paperwork might effect aid or transfers wont get as much.
UConn seemed to give more to EA in our state, but I don’t have enough data to say if that was a coincidence or not.</p>
<p>As much as everyone tries to figure out how similar schools can differ so much on aid, it all comes down to who they have “targeted” as “must haves”. I will agree that while there are many different factors, ie geographic, socio/economic, or race among others that these schools look at, on any given year their “needs” may change and therfore affect who gets the better aid packages.</p>
<p>I was amazed by how our S different aid awards varied and how tough some schools made it to appeal their initial offer and some were willing to do it over the phone. </p>
<p>It did not seem to make a difference that some of these schools had flown him out at their expense just months earlier. His best initial offer came from a school that had not invited him to campus. A couple of the ones he had visited made it impossible for him to attend.</p>
<p>So I guess the point is, there is no one clear answer/strategy in trying to predict which schools will give the best aid to any particular student.</p>