<p>Especially, HS Class of 2012 parents, was the financial aid calculator accurate? If your child was applying to a selective school, did you get a break if your child had strong stats or unique talents/experiences? Is it worth it to apply to schools if you cannot (will not) pay the COA that the financial aid calculators say?</p>
<p>I am curious to see the responses to this one! I have run net price calculators, and all the selective, need-based aid only schools, would give us at least $10,000 off. I was surprised, as I wasn’t expecting anything. There was one, Colby I think, that asked for GPA and test scores in the calculator and would give significantly more to us. On the other hand, other schools wouldn’t give us any need-based aid, although my D would qualify for merit scholarships at those. She hasn’t applied to any yet though, so we have nothing to test those results. If you run a school’s net price calculator and could not come up with the resulting money, I probably would not have my child apply. I wouldn’t expect financial aid to be much better, could be worse, than the net price calc.</p>
<p>For the schools my son applied to, most of the net price calculators seemed to be pretty accurate. The big surprise to me was that Stanford’s COA turned out to be about $7K less for us than what our EFC was for both the FAFSA and the Profile. This meant that Stanford, which meets 100% of need but has no merit aid, turned out to be less expensive for us than any of the state schools where my son was accepted. Except for one lower tier school that gave him a significant merit scholarship, Stanford had the lowest COA of the nine schools he applied to.</p>
<p>My experience was that if the college had their own calculator then it was fairly close.</p>
<p>The net price calculators were very accurate for us, except a few schools that were more generous than expected. We were very lucky about that. Of course, we applied far and wide for merit aid, and DA didn’t apply to reach schools because he knew he needed to go for the cash. He ended up at a school that is known for being very challenging academically, but gives great merit aid. He received 3/4 tuition in merit aid alone. The NPC estimated 1/2 tuition.</p>
<p>Yes, the net price calculators for the colleges we checked were very accurate and yes, we pay “sticker price.”</p>
<p>Re: #3</p>
<p>Stanford is one of the few schools whose need-based aid is more generous than what “meets full need” typically produces.</p>
<p>We don’t qualify for need-based aid, but the net price calculators for each school my S applied were very accurate for merit based aid when GPA and SAT/ACT were part of the equation. At St. Lawrence, my S received merit aid and we were not expecting anything, so perhaps his interview, stats, or something else kicked him into a bucket that wasn’t published. Regardless, he is there and happy has a clam.</p>