<p>I've looked around and seen that the amount of people living in your house/dependent on parent affects how much you are expected to pay, but does anyone know how big a factor this is? I have four younger siblings plus myself all dependent on my mom, and she makes about 50K a year including child support. Can anyone explain to me if this even matters and if so, how much?</p>
<p>Your parent’s Income Protection Allowance in FAFSA’s EFC calculation may increase. See <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf</a></p>
<p>The best thing for you to do is to use an EFC estimator and stick in the information, changing the number of dependents. You can then see very clearly what difference it can make in YOUR EFC. </p>
<p>As 4kidsdad says, it does change the amount of assets your parent can exclude from being considered in EFC calculation. </p>
<p>Thank you very much for this! Makes me feel a little better about this, since I’m depending on so much FA.</p>
<p>If you are depending a lot on FA, then PLEASE use the net price calculators on EACH schools’ website. Most schools do NOT give much aid no matter how low your EFC is.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is my #1, and I’ve used their’s. Plus they meet 100% of demonstrated need with no loans, so I’m hopeful actually, but who knows what that actually means for me.</p>
<p>Yes, Vandy is generous, but hard to get into. Be sure to check the other schools’ on your list…and be sure to have a couple of affordable safeties.</p>
<p>Your 2020 SAT is low for Vandy, so be sure to find some other schools. </p>
<p>Yes I know my SAT is low, but I know I have great recommendations and I’ve got an original essay topic, so I’m hoping that’ll make up for it. My GPA and classes are on par or above even since I’ve taken the most rigorous courses I could. This is where I am definitely thankful they look at everything. I’m guessing you saw where I put all my stats haha.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Well, good luck. Just be sure to be also working on alternative lists. At highly competitive schools, great LORs and great essays can help with down-selection, but they won’t necessarily make up for lowish test scores…unless there is a back-story (underprivileged background, long term illness, etc).</p>
<p>Alright, thank you! I’ve got a safety school I’m thinking of applying to, so worst case I’ll go there 
</p>
<p>What is the safety school? Are you completely certain that you’ll have all costs covered with assured aid? </p>
<p>Whitworth University. Competitive, but not freakishly, and I live in Washington so its much closer to home. I’m only completely certain about aid with Vanderbilt, but Whitworth has some automatic merit scholarships and I qualify for the top one. The main thing holding me back about applying to W in the first place is the religious atmosphere, which I’m not a huge fan of. Back to the FA part, I ran the net price calc for Vandy and it came up about $7500, and I know my parents have enough saved to cover that for four years. Obviously if something goes wrong and I can’t afford wherever I get into without massive loans, I’ll have to rethink everything, but for now I feel like I’m doing okay. </p>
<p>The only thing that is really depressing though is any local/other outside scholarships I get will go towards reducing what I need and not what I’m actually expected to pay. I talked to my counselor and she said for some of the local ones I might be able to have whatever I get given to me separately and just put into a savings account so it doesn’t “have to be used for tuition”, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily possible because I’m pretty sure they take into account any money I have as well as my parents…I’m still kind of confused about that whole thing.</p>
<p>If you and at least some of your siblings will be in college at the same time, then the EFC is divided by the number of students in college</p>
<p>Keep in mind…even if your EFC is reduced…for any reason…this is not a guarantee that you will receive additional need based financial aid at the VAST majority of colleges.</p>
<p>@thumper1 What do you mean exactly by that? That I won’t get need based aid at most colleges, or that I won’t get more than the difference between my EFC and the total cost?</p>
<p>@majorcarter Unfortunately I’m the oldest of my siblings, and my closest sister is two years behind.</p>
<p>You keep wanting to go back to the Vandy issue, but you need to focus on having a couple of financial safeties that you would LIKE to attend.</p>
<p>Sounds like W is out due to “fit”. </p>
<p>Now, you need to find a couple of schools THAT YOU LIKE that you know FOR SURE will be affordable.</p>
<p>Ya I’ve been trying to do that, even though I’m so set on these few schools. I’ve been looking for quite a while, but the only schools I could really “afford” would be the cheapest of the cheap state schools, in my case Washington State University or UW. I could get into both no problem, but I just don’t really like either one. And correct me if I’m wrong, but for people that are dirt poor like me, aren’t private schools the ones that usually end up being cheaper because of the aid they have available to give? The bigger state schools have so many students and so little aid to give in the first place that I would still have pretty big loans by the end. And I couldn’t go anywhere out of state, because of the OOS tuition costs. That’s the main reason I looked at lots of private schools in the first place, even though their “ticket price” is much more. </p>
<p>ONLY SOME private schools give the best aid… MOST do NOT. </p>
<p>And, getting into the ones that give the best aid is very difficult, so you may not get into any of them.</p>
<p>You may not WANT to go to a safety school, but WHAT are you going to do if Spring comes and you have NO affordable schools? It will be too late to apply to safety schools. Do you want to have to attend a CC since you didn’t take that time to find safeties?</p>
<p>Yes, do apply to UWash and WSU. Your state gives aid to low income students. Also…did you do Running Start? </p>
<p>What is your Math + CR score? Maybe we can find you some other safeties that you would like. </p>
<p>What is your major and career goal?</p>
<p>Most colleges do not meet full need for all accepted students. If you apply to colleges that don’t guarantee to meet full need, it is highly unlikely that you will get a huge amount of need based aid.</p>
<p>How much do you NEED annually to attend college? How much will your parents pay?</p>
<p>With a $50,000 a year income, it is possible that you will get a small portion of the Pell Grant…but not the whole amount. You will get a $5500 Direct Loan. Those are guaranteed.</p>
<p>You might get grant aid from your state, or SEOG if you are low enough income and the school awards this…some don’t.</p>
<p>At schools that meet full need, you will likely get a decent package. But as you know, your SAT score is not in the top for applicants to these highly competitive schools. But DO apply. You never know!!</p>
<p>Do you absolutely NOT have any instate universities where the price is affordable? Does your state have any grants for low income students? </p>
<p>I didn’t do Running Start at all, since it’s just a really complicated program at my hs. But one of my college-in-the-HS classes was "technically"a RS kind of thing, because my teacher figured out that if you were only taking one, you didn’t have to pay for it, unlike the Cornerstone thing we were doing. It’s all through Central WashU, and the same course that is taught there, just a different label on the transcript.</p>
<p>Math + CR is 1380, and I’m kind of liking the idea of Economics, but I don’t know for sure since I haven’t even had the chance to take an economics class. What I’ve read about it interests me for sure, but I haven’t really been exposed to it yet. Career goal wise, I’m not sure yet, but that’s why I like the general idea of Econ because there’s so many different branches of it and lots of places I could go with it.</p>
<p>As for how much I need, my family cannot afford to pay anything more than $8,000 a year. My mom has about 16K to spread over 4 years, and my dad has some from my grandma that comes out to about 16K spread over 4 years. And when I said the income was 50K, I’m realizing that was a bit inaccurate. My mom has a job during the winter that brings in 20-25, but then her farm which is the main source of income didn’t actually break even this year or last year (I don’t have any idea why she thinks she can support our family at this rate), so net income probably comes out to about 35-40. And I don’t know how much a house mortgage gets taken into account, and I highly doubt I could somehow factor in that we live 25 miles from civilization, but it comes down to we’re barely scraping by. And by the time I’m a senior in college, I’ll have two other siblings in college as well. </p>
<p>I believe the lowest price tag for universities in my state is somewhere around 18K, but that doesn’t factor in any kind of personal expenses, traveling, etc. Plus, I looked into all of them before I realized I might be able to go somewhere OOS cheaper in the long run. I just don’t like any of them. That probably sounds extremely picky, but they’re all huge and half of them are known more as party schools than for any kind of specific program. I’d rather deal with deal with the religious part of Whitworth than go to any of the state schools to be honest. </p>