<p>For those who would otherwise get financial aid grants, merit scholarships often replace the EFC last. Some schools will replace the student contribution (loans and/or work study) and/or unmet need (if any) first, but others will replace financial aid grants first. But you should expect the merit scholarship to replace EFC only if it is large enough to replace all of these other categories and have money left over.</p>
<p>Students getting no financial aid grants should not have to worry about the above.</p>
<p>Getting more than one merit scholarship does not necessarily mean that they are added together. In some cases, the student would only get the larger one.</p>
<p>“I realize that two LAC’s might not be as different as two high schools on opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, but I wouldn’t be surprised if two different LAC’s had very different cultures, due in large part to the wealth of the typical student.”</p>
<p>I’m sure there are many wealthy kids at my kid’s college (Oberlin)–but on the whole they don’t do the BMW conspicuous consumption thing. The coolest bike to have is the rattiest one, and they do the hipster used clothing thing. At the first parents’ weekend, I noticed that there was not ONE blond mom there. I was the only “dyed-hair woman” (red–Gone with the South reference) that I could see. Everybody else was sporting natural grays-or maybe covering it very subtly. Even the parents didn’t seem have Mercedes… Obviously these are very superficial observations–but the kids don’t seem to jet off to Mexico for spring break, either.</p>
<p>Probably not a difference in wealth compared to other LAC’s, but a difference in culture.</p>
<p>You can look at how many, what % of kids are on financial aid, and what the average aid numbers are. Running your own family numbers through the school NPC, you can get an idea where you family sort of stand in terms of finances in a college community. </p>
<p>However, that isn’t the only thing the words “socio” and “economic” are paired because the combination is what often makes the difference. I knew families who lived very modestly though the parents were highly educated. They just did not make much money, did not have much in assets. But that didn’t mean their children were necessarily living the same way as others in their neighborhood. The “socio” part of it often kicks into gear. Other kids with out parents with the education level, interest in education, involvement with the school and kids, were much more disadvantaged even at the same or even higher economic level. It’s more difficult, IMO, for those kids who come from back grounds where the education was not stressed, family did not could not support those activities and school work that kids who most often go to selective school do. If your student is going to a high school now and/or lives in a community where kids tend to go to the type of colleges you son is checking out, then he’ll likely be find in that setting even if the family economics are not up there with most of the other students. There is of course stress when a family is stretched money wise by anything, including college costs, but if the family truly cannot make ends meet and pay the college, that is a serious problem that should be addressed.</p>
<p>lol…I wrongly guessed that someone who thought he wasn’t upper-middle class would not have a EFC higher than a $65k school. So, I wasn’t clear enough.</p>
<p>I thought that you might have a highish EFC - say $35k - and you may have thought that a school will give you need-based aid for the rest…and if your child got some merit awards, then you could just reduce your EFC. NO.</p>
<p>But, if your EFC is equal or higher than these LACs that you’re considering, then (yes, you’re at least UMC…lol) any merit would get applied directly to cost, and you’d pay the balance.</p>
<p>But, keep in mind…may top schools don’t give ANY merit, and many schools only give merit to those within the upper quartile of test scores.</p>
<p>Holy Cross does seek students of all economic backgrounds and the school is need-blind and offers some merit aid. HC has a higher percentage of students who qualify for Pell grants tha a lot of its peers. Holy Cross is currently conducting a large capital campaign anf financial aid is a top priority.</p>
<p>This may sound a little weird, but maybe your daughter wouldn’t be uncomfortable around them, and would actually learn a lot from them.</p>
<p>I come from a working-class family that just barely moved into the middle class in my college years. For undergrad I went to a school where 50% of the students have Pell grants (and I think that’s actually down from when I was in college), but for grad school I went to a school that’s well known to have many wealthy people there, and that includes in the graduate divisions. I hadn’t given much thought to the idea of feeling different because I wasn’t wealthy.</p>
<p>And indeed, I didn’t feel out of place - but I actually learned a lot of social conventions of the upper middle class that I found useful when attending professional conferences and interacting with people who are in a position to give you a hand up. For example I do remember someone once making a joke that went something like ‘poor people don’t stand around trying to balance a small plate of crudités and a glass of wine; when we want to talk to someone, we sit down.’ But the wine-and-cheese functions are a staple of professional life in the fields in which I was interested, and watching my more privileged peers navigate them sort of helped me figure out how to do it.</p>
<p>Hearing them talk about what they had growing up clued me into what upper middle class people do. I mean, when I was younger I couldn’t fathom making enough money to take flying trips across the world, and I had no idea that people paid for high school or took paid lessons after school to learn all kinds of things (I just assumed that, like me, most people did extracurriculars as part of school). But being someone who hopes to be in the upper middle class myself, it was relatively useful to know these things and find them out.</p>
<p>But people driving cars more expensive than what my parents could afford? That didn’t bother me one bit. It’s really just about the sensitivity of the kids your daughter hangs out with. If they all want to take ski trips for fall break and go to St. Barth’s for spring break then yeah…well, that can get alienating. But if they’re willing to give her a ride in the BMW to their shared internships or they are planning on splitting a set of rooms in Cozumel for spring break…then the wealth differential might not mean much to make her feel bad.</p>
<p>@mom2collegekids and @ucbalumnus,thanks for the clarification. I think I have it now. </p>
<p>@mom2collegekids, I think that we might be considered UMC if judged by income level, but for reasons I won’t go into, we have essentially no assets outside of Retirement accounts, and so much debt that I don’t have $500 of cash flow available to pay tuition each month, much less $5000!</p>
<p>I’m not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me, because my wife and I got ourselves into this situation, but the fact still remains that I have no ability to pay the EFC that the calculators come up with, because they don’t factor in debt or cash flow.</p>
<p>Does anyone know if any of the more selective LAC’s will look at a situation like ours and decide they we actually do have need, even though our family income is high? </p>
<p>The more I do research, the more I think Holy Cross could be a good fit for my daughter. I just hope I can afford it when the time comes. Thanks for the info. That’s encouraging.</p>
<p>@juillet, rather than quote your entire post, I’ll just say thank you for a very insightful, and helpful post.</p>
<p>The examples you give are very true. You can learn a lot from people who have grown up around success. I guess I just worry about the snob factor, but like others have said, not all rich kids are snobs.</p>
<p>Since I first posted my question, I’ve been looking at the unigo site that has questions that students answer about stereotypes of their school and of the students at their schools. Most of the kids seem to give serious answers, although there are some kids messing around on there.</p>
<p>After thinking about it some more, I think my daughter might be more comfortable around a bunch of slightly rich, conservative kids than the kids at some of the more liberal colleges. I think @BrownParent was right in his post way up above. I’m getting the impression that many of the kids at most of these elite LAC’s are going to be rich, but the vibe can still be very different, even amongst the wealthy kids. </p>
<p>I think my daughter would feel more comfortable around rich, conservative kids, than rich, hippy kids. I was reading about Grinnell, and although I think it sounds like a great place, I think my daughter would experience culture shock.</p>
<p>Of course, my daughter is the one who will have to feel comfortable, not me. I’m just trying to get prepared, so I’ll know what to expect when the college visits start.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone for all of the great replies.</p>
<p>To answer your earlier question - I don’t think there are any schools that take debt into consideration. And there’s a good reason for that - it would make it too easy to game the system. So they just use income.</p>
<p>If you truly can’t come close to affording your EFC, you’re going to have to move way down the prestige ranks to do what I call the prestige/merit tradeoff. Think of test scores as money - they can buy prestige or they can buy merit aid. Try and figure this out as soon as possible and then sit down with your daughter before it’s time to start seriously looking. I can’t tell you how crushing it is for a kid to go looking at Top 20 LACs, apply, get in, and then be told no, can’t afford it. I see it year after year at our HS, someone gets in their dream school and then has to turn around and attend something in the mid-150s because it’s giving them a full ride and the other school was never realistic from a financial standpoint. Not saying some of those 150 range schools aren’t good, but if you don’t start off knowing that’s where you’re going to wind up, it can lead to a lot of unnecessary angst. It’s the equivalent of kids shooting for Ivies with no realistic academic way of getting in, then having to settle for a poorly chosen safety.</p>
<p>I honestly wouldn’t worry about your daughter not fitting in anywhere because of class differences - that really only happens in the movies and maybe a few snobby sororities, which exist even at state flagships. Politics, yes, that’s a concern for a lot of people and certainly was for my daughter, who really didn’t like activist campuses. But figure out your finances first and what you need, then make everything else fall into place. CC can certainly help with that.</p>
<p>Yeah, of course! Some of my closest friends in graduate school were very wealthy; one was very wealthy and quite internationally famous. I had no idea until she mentioned something in passing that tipped me off and then I searched for her on the Internet. She was the sweetest person. So definitely, not all wealthy people are snobs :)</p>
<p>I agree. This is the sense I’m getting from reading more on here. I’m starting to worry less about how rich the kids are, and more about how I’m going to pay for this.</p>
<p>We are fortunate to be considered upper middle class. Our family travels to Europe every other year. Despite this, our daughter is driving a Toyota that is older than she is. You’d never know her background until you talked to her. And that’s how we like it.</p>
<p>Some parents may buy their kids fancy cars while others do not show outward signs of affluence. Don’t be intimidated by displays of conspicuous consumption. You have no idea how much debt they are carrying to impress people they don’t know.</p>
<p>I was a poor kid when I went to the “University of Spoiled Children” so I know how intimidating it can be. Just remember that all of the kids who look affluent are actually poor. It’s their parents that have the money! :)</p>
<p>When I was growing up in suburbia, it was my parents observation that the poorest family in the neighborhood (our neighbors) always had the newest and fanciest cars. They weren’t poor by any means, just middle class like everyone else, but that’s what they chose to spend their money on. People from the really poor areas even had better cars than anyone in our neighborhood because that’s what they wanted to project. What you don’t see is those cars are often repossessed, leased, are rebuilt wrecks, etc. </p>
<p>I learned a long time ago not to put too much credence in what someone drives - there may be too many other things they don’t have in order to pay for that status symbol.</p>
So, I wasn’t clear enough.</p>
Or UMC means just a little bit more well off than me.</p>