<p>I appreciate the help I received on my last thread and now I hope to get some more specific information.</p>
<p>I have run many selective schools through the college board's NPC and have gotten a wide range of results, but with a concentration indicating a cost in the low 30's. A couple were lower, with Penn the lowest at 27. The highest was William and Mary at 39, which is understandable since it is a public school. </p>
<p>I also ran HPY on their own NPCs and true to their FA reputation they were the lowest.</p>
<p>However, the school that really excites S15 at this time is Cornell. They do not participate with college board's NPC, so it is hard to know if I am comparing apples to apples with the others. Our financial situation is uncomplicated, and Cornell's site really doesn't appear to ask anything beyond the CB questions. Yet the cost comes out to be $43,396, the full cost of attendance for CALS for a NYS resident. This anomaly in cost seems absurd and is causing a lot of stress since S15 wants to apply ED, and I want him to cross it off his list entirely.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any insight into why the cost is so out of line with other schools? I thought maybe CALS had something to do with it, so I ran the College of AS without the subsidized tuition which then gave me some aid, but did not improve the bottom line.</p>
<p>If the finances are a true concern, just apply RD to multiple schools so you can compare financial aid offers.</p>
<p>You don’t say your particular situation, but if anyone is self employed, or the parents are divorced, or the family owns real estate other than their primary home, the Net Price Calculators can be a bit inaccurate.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the NPC ON the Cornell website would be more accurate since presumably it uses their formula for computing need based aid.</p>
<p>You say that your finances are uncomplicated. It sounds like your income is around $140-150k, if you’re getting those results.</p>
<p>Some do complain about Cornell’s aid if their income is in the above range or so. Maybe Cornell’s formula really has an uptick once you get beyond $100k?</p>
<p>Discourage your child from getting too hung up on any schools…especially ivies or top schools. They’re hard to get into and sometimes the aid isn’t enough.</p>
<p>Tell your child NOW how much you can pay each year and make sure he applies to some schools that will give him merit …those can be safety schools.</p>
<p>thumper1-
Thanks. As I mentioned our financial situation is quite clear cut.</p>
<p>The reason I am so anxious to understand the discrepancy is because D15 is so drawn to Cornell. If the cost is accurate, WHY is it so out of line with other schools? If the cost really would be 43 whereas Penn is 27, I think that spread is ridiculous and I don’t want him spending another year getting increasingly attached to Cornell, when we absolutely would not pay that type of premium.</p>
<p>The other schools apparently offer more need based aid to folks in your income bracket than Cornell does. Your income bracket is on the higher side of where schools offer need based aid. Some schools simply are more generous for wage earners above $120k or so than others. </p>
<p>If I were a guessing person, I would guess that Cornell’s expected contribution is closer to the FAFSA calculation than the other more generous schools.</p>
<p>One reason why Cornell may be out of line is the size of its endowment relative to number of students. Cornell is the largest of the Ivies but its endowment is middle of the pack Not surprisingly, HYP have very large endowments compared to the other schools - Harvard is the monster at over $30 billion while Princeton and Yale endowments are in the teens. The other Ivies’ endowments are under $10 billion.</p>
<p>I am surprised by the discrepancy between Cornell and Penn. They’re usually the most alike among the Ivies.</p>
<p>Proudmom
did you read my post? Never let your child get too attached to any school. Even if Cornell were affordable, you have no idea if he’d get accepted.</p>
<p>Anyway…each school has its own money of different amounts. Some have more money, some have less. Some schools are small, some are large (more kids to give aid to). Each decides how it can spend its money. </p>
<p>It’s like households…why does Family X spend $5k on Christmas, while Family Y only spends $2k (hey, Family Y’s kids really want to know…lol)</p>
<p>mom2-
Thanks for your advice. I know students(and parents!) are not supposed to get attached to colleges and “dream schools” are scoffed at, but how do you avoid it? It takes a lot of time and effort to hone in on the right schools to apply to. How do you not become vested?</p>
<p>As far as setting a threshold price, we are having a hard time coming up with a firm figure but I can say for certain there is a limit to the madness and Cornell at 43K has far surpassed it. Are we crazy to be entertaining the idea of paying in the low 30s? Probably, but we are…</p>
<p>You avoid it by visiting other schools with similar facilities, advantages, etc. You also keep mentioning that these ivies reject perfect applicants EVERY year…so being a top stats student is no guarantee. You encourage him to find other matches and safeties that he also likes. </p>
<p>Firmly that you’ll only pay X amount (and be conservative…every family experiences several unexpected financial emergencies EVERY year…dental work, home repair, car repair/replacement, appliance replacement, last minute travel to see sick parent, etc). So, over a four year period there will likely be 10+ unexpected big ticket expenses that you didn’t expect. </p>
<p>Tell him that you won’t co-sign loans or borrow add’l money. </p>
<p>As for being willing to pay $33k-ish for college, that’s up to you to decide. Do you have other kids to put thru college? Do you have college savings? Is either parent’s job vulnerable? </p>
<p>Remind your son that he will NOT get paid more by Company X, just because he went to Cornell. IF hired, he’d find that the other new-hire from SUNY-Bing is being paid the exact same.</p>
<p>I had a few friends at Purdue whose #1 choice was Cornell but the tuition was nearly impossible to manage, even after exploring multiple options. Ridiculous. Best of luck to you though!</p>
<p>@Proudmomx3, DS is a senior and has Cornell on his list. I have also run the calculator for Cornell along with some others, and I didn’t have the same experience. I found Penn and Cornell to be the same EXCEPT Cornell offered me $5k in loans and Penn was $0 loans. But Cornell was better than Case W, WashU, Northwestern, Tufts, RPI, and Rochester. But my income is lower, so maybe thumper1 is right. Rice, Duke, and Vandy were all lower than Cornell, but Duke and Vandy were tossed out for other reasons. Rice is near the top. Keep in mind for Cornell, in particular, that they will match all the other Ivys and Duke, which is another reason to RD Cornell. We are considering having DS apply to Duke just for that reason – throwing away $75 versus a potential $10k savings seems like a good deal. DS is my first to reach college age, so I am no expert, but we are considering having DS make it very clear in his “Why Cornell?” essay that it is one of his top choices. One reason the colleges like ED so much is because it assures a very high yield. I figure if it is clear in your essay that you will most likely matriculate, they have some assurance.</p>
<p>You have 3 kids to put thru college. Only you and your H can determine whether you can pay $33k X 4 years…X 3 kids. That’s $400k. If that’s fine, then that’s your budget. If that means your retirement won’t be funded, then other options may need to be found. </p>
<p>If your kids have Cornell stats, then they have the stats for large merit at other schools. If their career goals are medicine, law, engineering, teaching, etc…then paying big bucks for Cornell (if really unaffordable) is not a good idea.</p>
<p>Daddio-“Keep in mind for Cornell, in particular, that they will match all the other Ivys and Duke” Thanks for that information. I located an article about it. So, no pressure, just have to get into Cornell AND one of the other schools with better aid (which in our case would be any one of them). At least it gives me a glimmer of hope though and a possible way to make the price viable. Good luck to you and your son throughout the process.</p>
<p>Cornell endowment per student is lower than most of peers and it’s FA offers tends to be not quite as good … however most of the previous examples given on CC mention some loans where other schools did not include loans … or a difference of a few thousand dollars. The difference the OP mentions is unusual … especially if your case is straightforward… I’d suggest the OP call the financial aid folks at Cornell, explain the the larger difference you are seeing, and ask if they can review the Cornell estimate and if it is accurate.</p>
<p>PS - If your son loves Cornell you may want to check out UVM … very similar in many ways while easier to be admitted (similar size, similar Northeast college town, hippy vibe, multiple colleges in the university, etc) … and if your son is in the hunt to be admitted to Cornell he will get merit money from UVM.</p>
<p>Thank you for all of your input. I am a little embarrassed to admit how many hours I have logged on this site in the past 6 months, so yes, I certainly know the reality of admissions at schools like Cornell.</p>
<p>Yes, RD, I know. ED is not an option which is too bad given the admissions bump…and “one and done” would be fantastic. I applied ED many decades ago and the whole process was just so low key…</p>
<p>Our income is a little bit higher than the OP. I ran all the NP calculators to most Top 20 schools and at Cornell, we are full pay. My daughter was also considering Cornell but she dropped it since from her list because of that reason. We are also full/near-full-pay at JHU, Georgetown, Chicago, Duke, Dartmouth, Brown and MIT.</p>
<p>I only ran few LAC’s but we are full/near-full-pay at Williams, Pomona, Harvey Mudd and Claremont McKenna. </p>
<p>Our cutoff is 45K and so far we have these schools that fits that bill: All UC’s (we’re CA resident, 32K). Washington and Lee ($37K), Vassar (44K), Tulane (35K), RPI (38K), Vandy (41K), Stanford (44K), Princeton (41K), Yale (44K), Harvard (45K).</p>
<p>3togo-
Maybe I will try to speak with someone…I’ve run the calculator dozens of times and the info can’t be saved so I know I have entered it correctly. Out of all of the private colleges I have run it has been at least $5000 more than any other college I have found, averaging $11,000 more, and as much as $16,000 more than some. (And that is not including HPY because they are so well endowed it is not fair to compare).</p>
<p>Oops, had to google UVM…hey I am open to EVERYTHING, but S15…not so much. S16 is an average student and this process is going to be so much more relaxed and enjoyable with him. I will be able to say, “random U looks good and he will say, ‘sure Mom, sounds good’…”</p>