<p>To the OP...is the EFC you are referring to one that is on each of your kids' FAFSA forms? You mention that your kiddos are attending Profile schools. Unless something has dramatically changed, Profile does NOT yield an EFC. </p>
<p>Please...clarify how you derived that EFC you are telling us about. </p>
<p>If it's from the FAFSA...and your kids are going to Profile schools...it is my understanding that there CAN be a lot of difference between what the FAFSA indicates as an EFC...and what the school computes as your parental contribution.</p>
<p>I do agree with Kelsmom...if you had unanticipated high expenses for a reason (medical, job lay off), it's worth mentioning this to the financial aid folks. It is up to each school to determine whether to review these cases as special circumstances...but it's worth a try.</p>
<p>thumper:</p>
<p>We filed both FAFSA and College Profile, as my D applied to public and private schools. My S's college requires us to submit the FAFSA annually as part of renewing his merit award, even though we've never received any financial aid from them. We had to submit the Profile for him when he applied as a freshman, but not as a continuing student. Since we were hoping to be considered for financial aid from his school for next year (when we'll have two kids in college), I asked them if we needed to submit the Profile again and they said it's not necessary. Coinicidentally, D is applying to S's school as well, so we submitted the Profile and FAFSA for her.</p>
<p>The EFC I've been referencing is the one FAFSA calculated. They calculated similar EFC's for both kids -- just a few hundred dollars difference. I know that the Profile doesn't calculate an EFC.</p>
<p>All of D's school's required FAFSA; some of the private schools she applied to also required the Profile. </p>
<p>We've submitted written requests to all of D's schools for special consideration, but I will call each of them this week to see if there's anything else I need to submit for this request. I also went back and made handwritten corrections on D's Profile, as there was a pretty significant drop in "earnings from wages" from the estimate we originally submitted for the Profile vs. how our accountant said it should have been done. Those went out in the mail early last week.</p>
<p>One thing I did not realize until I read an earlier reply...I thought the FAFSA EFC was the maximum a family could be expected to contribute to a child's annual COA, not the minimum. I'll admit that surprised me.</p>
<p>The FAFSA EFC is NOT the maximum a family can be expected to contribute!!! It is simply a number used in the awarding of federal aid. Period.</p>
<p>If a school does not meet need, the family will certainly be expected to contribute more than their EFC - because they will have to pay the EFC and the gap.</p>
<p>The EFC is a very confusing thing. It stands for Expected Family Contribution but can mean nothing. All it guarantees is the Pell Grant and subsidized Staffords if the EFC and COA are certain numbers. For anything else, it depends on the college and your home state. I don't know any school that guarantees to meet need that uses just the FAFSA EFC to determine need. Many time the institutional need figures calculated by PROFILE and by college's fin aid apps, are completely different for the federal EFC.</p>