<p>Middlebury’s calculator is pretty danged accurate as long as there isn’t something unusual like one’s own business in the mix. Unfortunately, you are going to find that other schools that use PROFILE are likely to come out with the same numbers as Middlebury’s. They are pretty generous aid wise and being ED, they would have been quite motivated to make this work. </p>
<p>So, now you do know that this is likely to be an issue. Hopefully, your DD’s list has some non PROFILE schools and/or schools with merit money where she is the top of the applicant pool. The need based schools really do tend to "“step up to the plate” but “tend” is not good enough if YOUR financial situation is not one where they will. You need to have other schools that use different methodologies for determining need to have a chance of getting close to what you do need or want.</p>