<p>Amen to that. You can drive yourself crazy comparing income/stats/GPA…you never really know why. It usually works out okay though.
My son really liked Clark, loved Psych, visited twice, went for the day, was above their stats, he only got the 10,000 scholarship for his SAT score and they wanted us to pay the rest…which was impossible. Drew, which he also liked, gave him 22,000 scholarship, 8,000 grant and loans and luckily, being very logical, he said, “Well, Drew here I come” and ended up loving it.</p>
<p>Anyone have any experience with Amherst to share?</p>
<p>Before FA policy changes, Amherst offered us zero, HYP offered 15k/yr in grants & WS.</p>
<p>Zero? Wow, My daughters weren’t interested in Amherst, I didn’t realize their FA wasn’t very good.</p>
<p>Debruns, that someone got zero from Amherst does not mean your Ds would get zero or a lesser amount than other choices. As another poster remarked, you can go crazy trying to figure out how someone got what from which colleges. Better to focus just on your on situation. </p>
<p>A great example is NYU. Most people will tell you that financial aid at NYU is not good. They do not meet full need, admit and gap many kids. However, I do know of a few kids who got their most generous offers from NYU. For whatever reason, NYU wanted them enough to give them a very generous financial aid package. I also know some kids who feel that they were treated very poorly and unfairly by the school. It’s really hard to say where you are going to get the best financial aid.</p>
<p>That is true, and I know that, for some reason the “0” seemed odd, but there isn’t really any “odd”.
Funny I know a grad student that transfered from NYU to Amherst and got more money from them and was a transfer, so you never know.</p>
<p>Thanks cpt, that’s exactly what I was going to say. The reason I posted was to keep with the topic of this thread, the difference in FA offers between schools. Along with Amherst, Brown, WUSTL and Rice also gave us zero FA that year. The point is not that these schools have poor FA, on the contrary, they give excellent FA, but rather that there can be a rather large step between HYPS and the rest of the schools. </p>
<p>As a point of reference, that year family income was 100k but I have substantial assets due to home equity and saving for college and retirement, only 1 child in college.</p>
<p>As far as transferring to Amherst, it’s my understanding that A treats transfers like fr admits for FA (at least for UG, not sure about Grad school). Brown is a school that states that it has both need-aware admissions and limited FA for transfer students.</p>
<p>Brown also doesn’t include grad students in the family picture even if they are living home and not working full time although Yale and I think UPenn did…also a factor in amounts given.</p>
<p>I don’t yet know what financial aid will amount to with my d this year as an applicant but I do know what happened with my son. His best package came from a school that used Profile only plus their own form. He had one other that used Profile and FAFSA both and was nearly the same initially but would have stayed the same even as tuition costs went up while the other was a percentage of cost.</p>
<p>Some schools using Profile will count the value of your cars and the gold/silver in your teeth. Others are generous about sibling non college tuitions and will be sympathetic to some financial situations. Some cap home equity. There are many differences on how some will value self employed. Some use estimates for certain situations like another kid in college, other will use the actual numbers. It all depends on the school. You can run your numbers through the institutional calculators that they have and get some idea of what they expect you to pay, but the true nitty gritty does not come until the award letter arrives.</p>
<p>Also some schools do have preferential packaging. If they really want your kid and s/he makes the “A” list, the financial aid may be more generous than those on other lists. I remember one young man from my son’s school who was able to work out quite a bit more in financial aid with a school that truly wanted him. His first choice school would not bite and wouldn’t give him a dime more than the initial offer which was loan heavy. Both schools give close to 100% of need according to their PR.</p>
<p>I try to stress that to newbie parents to college FA. There are so many variables. Some can’t understand how a full need school can give so much less than another or they miss the fine print on how some colleges use loans, student contribution and work study in their calculations. (with us loans/workstudy varied widely)
I’ve known parents that got more from private than state, some that had children way over stats but got less from safety schools than at “match” schools. I’ve seen colleges court a student heavily to apply and then give them next to nothing to attend and some that surprised parents by giving very nice packages with little interest on the student’s part.
Unless you have a great FA safety, I think spread the net wide and take advantage of any free apps to schools you like and hope for the best.</p>
<p>“Unless you have a great FA safety, I think spread the net wide and take advantage of any free apps to schools you like and hope for the best.”</p>
<p>Oh Debruns, you are so much kinder than I am! I’d say, keep hunting until you pin down that rock-solid Admissions and Financial Safety even if it turns out to be your home-town community college or commute-to public U, and then make sure that there is something that you like enough about it so you can be happy there if all else goes wrong. If you are too picky to accept that option, then have a decent back-up plan for the gap year (or two) you might have to take.</p>
<p>The financial aid and scholarship packages probably will be all over the map. Knowing that going in, will make your life a lot happier. Being sure to not fall in love with any college/university other than your rock-solid safety helps too.</p>
<p>Our last round with the college process involved a high stat kid which made merit aid a good possibility. He received zero to a full ride + . This time around, we are highly unlikely to get any merit aid or get much financial aid. He really did not meet the criterion for the schools that meet 100% of need and are need blind with his academic profile. So I doubt he’ll get much if any financial aid in forms other than in loans, and only for the one year when we have 2 in college. So we had to look at a number of low sticker price options. </p>
<p>He applied to some schools that are generous with financial aid though they do not guarantee to meet it without loans and are not need blind. Those schools have the highest sticker prices and they represent his reach schools in terms of admissions, so I really don’t hold out a lot of hope that they will be affordable. Getting in would be the issue there. He has a few OOS choices that come in at $35K which is about what our maximum is in what we can pay for him. He has a few catholic schools that come in about there with some parish awards that he can get too which is nice. He has a good local private school to which he can commute for under $35K in tuition and fees. He has already been accepted to a state school with a sticker price of about $20K with room and board. . So our cost spread ranges from $55K to $5K for a local SUNY or CUNY to which he can commute.</p>
<p>Do all these huge differences in offers apply to a family whose EFC is 0? It seems if the FAFSA says 0 and the college says they meet full need, that they are saying such a kid would get a full ride (at least tuition, maybe tuition plus room and board?) Or are they going to somehow calculate those super low numbers in a way that the kid gets nothing near a full ride?</p>
<p>Just because FAFSA says the EFC is zero does not mean the college will agree. FAFSA, for instance, only uses custodial parent financials and does not take into account any primary home equity. Many colleges that tend to give generous aid use their own definition of need, and sometimes they want to know the value of the fillings in your teeth. Non Custodial Parent information, primary home equity, value of cars, amounts in savings for siblings, qualified retirement assets are all examples of what PROFILE, a commonly used financial calculator by schools that tend to meet most of their students’ needs, takes into consideration. You can have a zero EFC and be PELL eligible, get subsidized Stafford loans, but be eligible for zero aid from a school. Entirely possible if the student has a well do to non custodial parent, for example. Also some schools that do claim to meet generous percentages of need may use a lot of loans to meet the need.</p>
<p>Last year when my son applied his guidance counselor said only apply to 6 to 8 schools. What the guidance counselor should say is apply to 6-8 schools if you don’t need financial aid, if you do need financial aid, cast a wide net. We applied to 14 schools and I’m glad we did. He ended up getting enough grants from an expensive private LAC that made it cheaper to go there than to our in state SUNY. So he ended up at a highly selective LAC rather than at a SUNY(i’m not saying there is anything wrong with a SUNY, but at his current college he has met a wide variety of students from all over the world, not just NYS). So don’t ignore those high price privates, you never know what you may get.</p>
<p>borghugh, We had the same experience with both daughters and couldn’t agree more with your statement about not ignoring the high price private schools. Too many people look at the cost and that is where they stop. You really do never know unless you apply.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation cpt. For the family I’m asking about, the non-custodial parent is not an issue. Apparently there is some process and all this kid’s schools agreed that they would not consider the non-custodial parent. I don’t know the mom’s “tooth filling situation” (heh), but I don’t think there’s anything that would make them seem wealthier than the FAFSA indicates. I will just keep my fingers crossed that the schools see it the same way!</p>
<p>Snoozn, some schools that meet full need also meet with heavy loans and work study. So packages can differ widely in what the school will actually cost. The problem with loans, is, of course, that they have to be repaid and a kid with a family EFC of zero is going to be hard put paying them off himself. Work Study, though nice, is not guaranteed money and it’s still better to get the grant because then a needy student can work to make a little extra on top of that. When work study is part of the aid, you are really jammed in a corner as to any leeway. So, yes, a zero EFC kid can get a great package with minimal subsidized loans and little self help, to one loaded with both. Also even schools that meet full need sometimes have a student work allotment that they expect the student to meet. And then sometimes there is not such a thing. So the packages can vary even for a student whose need is zero no matter how one looks at it, from schools that all meet full need.</p>
<p>I never counted workstudy toward our EFC, it usually is given to the student and although it could cover books, etc, is not guaranteed and sometimes the student finds he can’t work many hours if at all. My guys got anywhere from no workstudy, to 450.00 a semester to almost 4,000 a year! (that’s a lot of hours) </p>
<p>We had 2 schools add perkins loans, but others not, some wanted my daughter to work and earn 4000 over the summer (and that increased with each year) to no contribution at all. Quite an education when you’ve had more than one pass on through.</p>