<p>If you do a financial aid calculator (although very basic I know) at a need blind school and can live with EFC, are the financial aid awards usually in that range or is the EFC just an estimate that can wildy vary? We have just paid straight out of pocket for our sons at State U, but with us paying those tuition bills, our very crap stock portfolio (lol), 3 other kids at home, and now my mother living with us and other unexcepted expenses and asset hits, I was relieved by a fairly low EFC. This questions really circles around my D trying to make a choice of applying ED, and me trying to figure out if a financial aid award is typically inline with an ED applicant's EFC. If she were to apply ED and her FA award was 20K less than expected, I am not so sure it would be the best choice for us.</p>
<p>As a rule, I don’t recommend ANYONE to apply ED that needs financial aid. Too risky. Too much can go wrong. If you do so, you have to understand the risks you are taking, and pretty much be reconciled to accepting a lower aid package than expected and make up the difference somehow. If this is doable, and you are willing to do this, ED might be for you. If you can’t do this, don’t apply ED.</p>
<p>The thing about ED is that you can’t compare packages. You won’t know if the school lowballed you, if you could have gotten merit money elsewhere. There is a lot of variability in financial aid packages even among schools that are supposed to have like methodology. With those checks in place, you can get some idea what you can get in aid. With just one offer, you cannot. I’ve known a few folks who gave up their ED school offer due to unmet need who found that they gave up their best package.</p>
<p>If you used the specific school’s calculator and you’ve tripled checked it, assuming the school meets 100 % of need you should be OK.</p>
<p>Need blind is different from “meets full need”. Need blind just means that your D’s application will be evaluated without regard to financial need (if any). If the school meets full need, then typically it will meet the need that it determines you have via its own financial aid application or via the CSS Profile form, not the need that you think you have. Schools that don’t meet full need can a) offer a combination of merit and need-based aid to make up the difference between EFC and COA or b) offer need-based aid up to the Federal limits and loans for the rest or c) offer some aid but leave a gap for the rest of the difference.</p>
<p>If the EFC calculator you ran is the one that calculates FAFSA EFC, then those are typically fairly good indications of FAFSA EFC (make sure you have the latest calculator that’s available). If the school only requires FAFSA and has no other financial aid applications, then its EFC is probably the same as what you’ve calculated. If the school has its own calculator available on its website, then again your calculated EFC via the school’s website should be fairly close to theirs. For Profile schools, unless the school publishes how it uses your income and asset information, it’s nearly impossible (in my experience) to determine what the school thinks your EFC will be.</p>
<p>You can always call the school’s financial aid office to get more information if their website doesn’t give details on how they calculate EFC.</p>
<p>OP, I have sent two kids to schools that meet 100% of demonstrated need and I would say I have more experiences with need based FA than most.</p>
<p>There are a handfull of schools such as HYPS that will ask you for less than the EFC you got from the typical financial aid estimator. </p>
<p>There are about 10 schools will ask about the same as the estimated EFC. Some of them will use loans as part of FA. </p>
<p>From T20 down, I think they will ask for more than the estimated EFC and almost all will use loans as part of FA. </p>
<p>Most of the school use FA as a tool to get the best students. However, they will not need to do that for ED applicants. Because they know you are coming. I don’t have personal data on this one. But my believe is that if you worry about FA package, it is not recommended to do ED.</p>
<p>Also, unless you are claiming your mom as a dependent on your tax return, most of the school will not consider that part of your expenses for their EFC calculation.</p>
<p>I agree with vballmom, that it is difficult to pinpoint institutional EFC, and when the actual form is filed, there is always that possibility that something is viewed differently than expected. If you are willing to take this risk, that’s one thing, but if this is not something you can afford, I just would not. The only time I would recommend going ED is if the student and family are committed to make it work financially regardless of what the aid is or isn’t.</p>
<p>Also, there are other factors to consider when it comes to paying for college cost. </p>
<p>EFC = COA - Aid (grant + loans + WS). Some school such as Stanford, pad their COA with high average personal expenses. The actual COA could be $2,000 less than the official COA. </p>
<p>In many cases, the college kids could earn rather significant $$ from their summer job and/or WS. So the contribution from the parents could be far less than EFC. My DD, for example, paid the school bill for one of the three quarters from her summer earning. She had more $$ in her checking account at that time than that was in mine.</p>
<p>For a top student from a middle income family (making less than $180,000 year), the need based financial aid from H (heard) and S (know for sure) could be very generours.</p>
<p>I’ll admit right off the bat that I am fairly risk-averse, but particularly when we’re talking about FA packages that can vary by tens of thousands of dollars, I can’t see the advantage of ED over EA for the majority of kids. In our case (and it sounds like maybe your’s, too, OP) we really need to see those other offers to make the best decision. There’s no way I’d opt out of that financial competition for my student.</p>
<p>The OP has been asking about some of the more generous schools. While there schools that claim to meet need with Parent Plus loans, the ivies/peers are pretty straight forward about how they meet need, cap loans and there are few surprises if you use their calculators and call with any questions. </p>
<p>If something goes wrong, they’ll let you out in accordance with common app rules.</p>
<p>I had many students needing aid apply ED to these schools without a problem.</p>
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<p>Then ED is not for your family. It was not the right choice for us either. My son did apply Early Action so if the financial aid was not enough, he could still apply to other colleges.</p>
<p>If you are applying for both ED and financial aid, then you need to have a hard limit in mind of what you can afford. If this number is a bit higher than your EFC, so much for the better. If you want to “shop around” for FA, then ED is not the right choice.</p>
<p>
If they could have afforded this “best package,” then they shouldn’t have given up the offer. If they couldn’t afford it, then they couldn’t have afforded ANY offer and they applied to the wrong schools. If they simply wanted a more EASILY afforded option, then ED was the wrong decision.</p>
<p>If the circumstances are right–if both student AND family are committed to making a favorite school affordable if at all possible–then ED offers a win-win situation with an emergency clause to back out if necessary.</p>
<p>In collegeshopping’s case, a difference of 20k/year in FA is HUGE and very unlikely if you do your research properly beforehand. (Some people, like students with reluctant non-custodial parents, should not apply ED no matter what because it’s too risky. This advice applies to “normal” situations.) You should be prepared to pay if you end up being “lowballed,” and also prepared to never know if you were actually being lowballed or just over-optimistic in estimations. You do NOT need to prepare to pay full freight just to apply ED.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you CAN pay an extra 20k with difficulty but wouldn’t want to, then PMK is right in saying that ED is not for your family. You, as financial backers and parents, should be as equally committed as your child to making an education at the ED school possible.</p>
<p>The advantage of ED over EA is that most top schools don’t offer EA. Some of these top schools also admit openly to offering admissions preference in the ED round.</p>
<p>
The problem is that sometimes people end up paying more than they can afford for things, because they have no other choice. They bridge the gap with loans, and just hope that things turn out o.k.</p>
<p>I agree that they shouldn’t be using ED in the first place, but it just boggles my mind that people can’t understand that a person’s heartfelt, honest opinion of what they may be willing to pay in December might change when they are confronted with an array of unaffordable options in May – and that very often, lower and middle class students and their parents people pay out far more money than they can “afford.” by any reasonable analysis. The fact that loans are available to students and their parents makes this possible.</p>
<p>At the tippy top, ED makes a lot of sense for kids with need. It was a tough choice for us because I had read a lot of conflicting advice on this board. Ultimately it all worked out, and the second year aid is even better than the first. I look at it as a game of musical chairs. The chance to sit pretty while the music is still playing can be a good thing. It has to be stressed though that the number of schools where this makes sense is small, and the family finances should be uncomplicated. </p>
<p>I think the amount of need influences the decision as well. We had enough need that merit aid schools didn’t look like a good deal. It’s very hard to get real “full-rides” and half-tuition or so wouldn’t have been enough. It seemed to be a reasonable call in November that April would not offer any better financial package than the ED school. For us, the calculators proved to be accurate.</p>
<p>As long as it is a “meets full need” school, and you use a good “institutional calculator” I think you are pretty safe. Only about 40 schools do pledge to meet full need, and by the standards they adhere to, that cannot include Parent loans or other loans outside of the standard federal. Yes, they will offer those, but only to cover the EFC, not the need.</p>
<p>When my S went to an Ivy, we did not initially file for FA, because we calculated we were a little above it. When our income fell in subsequent years, we did file, and we got just about exactly the EFC I calculated we would, and full aid to meet the need.</p>
<p>It was a transparent process (and since S was already there, it certainly wasn’t done with regard to luring him to choose the school.) They simply lived up to the promise–meets full need means meets full need.</p>
<p>However, of course, few schools make that promise. I would only apply ED to one of them, if I needed FA.</p>
<p>Did you use an EFC calculator that uses federal methodology or institutional methodology? If you did use one that uses institutional methodology, the actual family contribution can be quite different since each CSS Profile school has their own way of determining family contribution. For instance, some schools will consider home equity, some won’t. </p>
<p>Even if the school says that it meets “full need,” that doesn’t mean that it will say that your family contribution is the same (or near the same) as some FA calculator. A Cornell mom told me that her family contribution was $10k higher than expected and they received no “free money” to cover the gap…just a student loan and work-study. </p>
<p>They thought that they would have about an $18k “need” and would receive $18k in grants. They thought that their child would then be able to take a student loan and part-time job to help with EFC, yet that couldn’t happen since those money sources would be used to cover “need”. </p>
<p>Needless to say they’re quite upset because they thought that they (the parents) would be paying about $25k, their daughter would be contributing about $10k (from a job and a loan), and the school would be contributing $18k. Instead, the parents are having to come up with $45k and their D has to cover the “need” with a loan and work-study. For these parents, it’s a $20k per year difference in what they had expected to pay.</p>
<p>A Tip… :)</p>
<p>Since your child seems to have the stats to have a good chance at some full-need schools, I would suggest that your child ALSO apply to some rolling admission schools that would give big merit scholarships for her stats. </p>
<p>That way if her FA packages are not good from her top school(s), she’ll have those scholarship schools as her financial safeties. </p>
<p>And, if your D does apply ED (which I don’t recommend in this case), if she applies to some merit scholarship rolling admission schools as soon as possible (now, if possible) and the school awards scholarships with acceptances, you’ll have those in hand before you get your ED results, so you’ll at least have that to compare with your ED package.</p>
<p>However, if your D does apply ED, gets accepted, and she wants to go to that school, then she must withdraw/decline any applications/acceptances she’s received. She won’t be able to go back later and change her mind.</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that when an ED acceptance is given, the FA package at that point is only an estimate. Therefore, you’re having to accept based on an estimate, not a real number.</p>
<p>That said, I would not let my child apply ED with your situation. ED works best for those who have high determined need and apply to 100% need met schools or for those who can pay full-freight. For people who have high need, they usually have little or no assets and low income so schools can’t vary much with family contribution. For people in the gray area - good incomes, maybe some assets, and decent home equity, etc, the family contribution can vary widely.</p>
<p>BTW…if you made any 401k contributions during the year, those amounts get added back in to income. Not your entire 401k, just the amount that got put in during that year.</p>
<p>
And by uncomplicated…I’d mean W-2 income only without yearly peaks and valleys, no business deductions, in fact no business ownership at all, no partnership schedules, no small corporations, no out of the ordinary itemized deductions, no farms or ranches (see no businesses above), no assets beyond the minimum that would be expected, nothing that needs to be “explained”. If you meet those criteria AND have done your EFC calculations and research on the types of institutional aid (loans, no loans, limited loans), then ED may be a good thing at a full need school that is known for being generous with aid. If anything above is not the case…don’t do it.</p>
<p>That’s the problem I have with getting those estimates. When it comes to doing the real thing, some parents then throw in that curve ball which can be any of the things Curmudgeon lists and anything else under the sun. I’ve just seen too many surprised happen when the actual FAFSA if filed.</p>
<p>Yes, this is true. We had straight W-2 income. We did have a bit of assets, but it was all cash, so again, it fed into the formula very straightforwardly. As I said, the online calculator gave me the same number as the college did.</p>
<p>(addendum–someone menetioned that not all schools count the home equity. This is true, but not a reason to worry. Since the calculators do count it, if the school doesn’t, that could only result in more aid than expected, certainly not less.)</p>
<p>Like so many others, I agree that ED is not the way to go. My son has a friend who got the full blessing of his parents to apply ED to his dream school. They told him that they would sacrifice, give up vacations, etc. He got in. Then, even though they did the math before he accepted, he was sweating the financial situation. He knew that he needed scholarships, loans, grants, etc. to cover his expenses. He told me that he will need to bust his butt at school to compete for additional scholarships. I do hope that he does have some fun along the way.</p>
<p>^-^ And if the friend above has financial need, then gets these additional scholarships, they will offset the need-based aid - thus realizing no gain! (Though some schools do reduce student work/study and loans by the amount of the scholarships, so there is some practical gain; just not a reduction in the EFC.)</p>