<p>I'm sure I'm not the first person to wonder about this. </p>
<p>My son will be applying to a college ED. It is a need-blind/full-need school that doesn't give merit aid. But the aid is pretty good in that you're left with your EFC as the total out-of-pocket.</p>
<p>The wrinkle is that his sister will be a senior at a similar school when it comes to aid. </p>
<p>So I'm assuming I can do the financial calculators for both schools with two kids in school and be fairly confident about the predictive out of pocket expenses. </p>
<p>But it is a leap in the dark to accept the ED finaid offer as something we can afford, while waiting months to see my daughter's aid package. </p>
<p>There could be the possibility--possibly slim--that after seeing both aid packages, we couldn't afford it, but then we would have to go back to the ED acceptance and ask out at a time it would be too late to apply to another college. </p>
<p>Anyone else faced this situation? I suppose I could ask daughter's college about the aid we should expect with her brother in college. </p>
<p>IMO, you are not a good candidate for ED. To many uncertainties here. If your senior daughter goes to a school that guarantees to meet full need without much in the way of Merit money, you can get some idea of what the aid will be, with the NPC for that school. You can also run the NPC with the info you used on PROFILE/ FAFSA for this junior year and see how close the results are to what her actual award was this year. You can also ask the Fin aid office what her the school likely would have given her this year had there been a sibling in college as well. With a lot of PROFILE schools, the amount you are expected to pay this year would have been multipiied by .6. </p>
<p>However, different schools do different things and negotiations by bringing up comparable school packages could bring down the price for your son. Can’t do that with ED, and by the time your DD gets her package the way it works with with ED, your son has already accepted the ED offer, aid package and all, and withdtrawn his other apps. That is the risk and there is no way around it. </p>
<p>Call the school your daughter attends. See if they can give you some indication about her need based aid package with a second kid in college. I’m sure you aren’t the first one to ask this question. My guess is they will be able to help you.</p>
<p>If not, then I would reconsider ED for your son.</p>
<p>Actually, i feel confident about him going ED. The NPCs for her school have been quite accurate, but as we get closer to the ED deadline, I recognized thst there still is a bit of a leap into the dark aspect to it, and I was just curious to see how other people have handled this situation, and its uncertainties. </p>
<p>There is also the fact that he is applying to the school where my wife is an alum, and it is her dream for one of our kids to go there: “I’d love to have someone to push my wheelchair when I’m 90 in the reunion parade.”</p>
<p>This is one of the top lacs, and it may be worth the sacrifice. It’s a crapshoot to get in of course, but his stats are more than competitive for admission. And ED has a 40% versus 18% RD acceptance rate. </p>
<p>As long as you understand the risks of ED, fine. You are not likely to get the best deal financially going that route and for those for whom it’s not the priority, just if they can make the finances work even with some stretch that makes it a go, that is just fine. </p>
<p>The thing is, schools are changing how they do that second sibling college costs. It used to be that they took what they considered was the parent’s expected contribution according to their formula and multiplied it by .6 and then added the student’s expected contribution. But now they are asking for what the parent is paying for the other student and making that a critierion in some situations. it can get complicated. </p>
<p>It seems to me that you are aware of the risks, and kid and family are sure it’s worth them. So good luck.</p>
<p>@cptofthehouse - can you explain this, please? I have a couple of good friends who may be in this boat and I’d like to understand what happens better - maybe with a concrete example? Thanks. :0</p>
<p>The way it used to be, certain full needs met school would not care what you actually PAID for another student’s education. They would simply adjust their own expected family contribution by formula and it didn’t matter if the sibling was going to a state school or another school with costs similar to the first kid’s or if the other kid got more aid or a big scholarship. They just focused on their own EFC. </p>
<p>A good friend of mine had a daughter at Duke and another who ended up commuting to Pitt. Duke expected them to pay $25K for the Duke education at that time, when there were two kids in college which was a little more than half of what Duke cost those days. That they were only paying $8K to Pitt didn’t matter as opposed to say having that second kid at a school that cost around Duke’s price. '</p>
<p>Now some school, I don’t know if Duke is one of them, are asking right out what the family is paying for that second kid’s education. So in the above example, they would be expected to $50K minus the $8K they actually are paying for the second kid if Duke had such a policy. Big difference, and the numbers are higher these days with top school costs edging towards the $70K line in COA. And in some cases, if the other college kid got a full ride, you got no benefit from the school in terms of a break. </p>
<p>This is not all schools, but, yes, they are beginning to look at this. In some ways this is fair. since in the above example, if you have a family whose kid went to say, CMU, and CMU expected the family to pay, say the same $25K (or more) than DUke, they would be paying $50K+ total for both kids, when the family whose other kid going to Pitt is only paying $33K because the second sibling took a cheaper school. It gets complicated when two schools are both trying to offset with each other’s discounts. </p>
<p>I’m glad I know this - a friend with 9 children was telling me a few months ago that I should let our D apply to her dream school because we’d only be paying full freight two years until our next child got to school. In all likelihood, our next child will be commuting his first two years to Penn State Abington or Brandywine, which will cost us less then we’re paying for his high school so it seemed funny to me at the time. But that was the way it’s worked for them (they actually pay nothing for their kids’ college, but will co-sign their loans). At one point, they had their oldest kid on full scholarship/RA’ing at St. Joe’s, kid number two was commuting to Drexel on a big scholarship, and kid number three went to Notre Dame for less than 15k per year for three out of her four years, despite the parents’ income being in the 200k ballpark. </p>
<p>Because of how their kids are spaced, they’ve got one who’s a junior at Fordham right now who really hasn’t gotten any financial aid at all (besides a smallish merit scholarship). Thanks to AP’s and RA’ing, he’s going to graduate a semester early and is trying to keep his costs as low as he can. It sounds like his high school senior brother, who’s got two siblings right behind him, and who’s been planning on going to BC, can no longer count on being in the financial aid sweet spot. I suspect he will apply ED to BC anyway, but it’s good if they know in advance what the situation may be.</p>
<p>Any idea if BC asks about siblings’ college costs?</p>
<p>No idea about BC, but they do ask about 401k balances and have out and out say they take them into consideration. But BC only has EA, not ED, so there isn’t at time crunch with an early acceptance from them. One can compare packages. Also some of the awards that your friend 's kids got are almost certainly merit awards,not fin aid/ ND, I know, would give fin aid, no merit, but the other two schools Drexel and St Joes gives out a lot of merit money. Also catholic schools also give some consideration many times for tuition paid to K-12 catholic school tuition which can help. </p>
<p>^^^No question, the St. Joe’s and Drexel were merit. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that was financial aid at all. They didn’t qualify for financial aid when the oldest was going to school. When the second got to school, he got a little bit of aid from Penn, but since Drexel’s merit left a much cheaper net price and his girlfriend was going there anyway, he just decided to commute to Drexel. It was only when the family hit the third kid and she was trying to decide between Penn State and Notre Dame that they became aware of the sweet spot they were in financial aid wise. They definitely were and are paying Catholic school tuition for the ones still home. Not sure how much that affected the Notre Dame aid. </p>
<p>I agree. Likely, the family contribution at D’s school will not be cut in half. It will probably go down about 40% (since CSS schools seem to expect a 60/60 split). So if you have been paying $30k per year for D1’s school with one in college, then the school might expect you to pay $18k. If S1’s school has similar aid, then they may expect you to pay $18k for him ($36k total for two) and $30k per year once sister graduates.</p>
<p>So, ask D1’s school, but also run the NPCs for both schools using both scenarios of 1 and 2 kids in college at the same time.</p>
<p>The tentative financial aid package given with ED is subject to change – that is true in all cases, but it gets more complicated with a sibling enrolled in college. </p>
<p>Think long and hard about what you will do in the event that the financial aid offers come up short. Are you willing to take out extra parent loans to make up the shortfall? If not – then please reconsider whether ED is the best choice for your family. I really think that unless you can say that you, as a parent, are willing to commit to financing your child at the ED school, on a “whatever it takes” basis – then you shouldn’t be allowing your son to apply ED.</p>
<p>It certainly is not fair to your son if he gets the rug pulled out from under him in the spring because of a shortfall in his sister’s financial aid award. (But be aware, it is possible that the ED school may give you a tentative award that does not include an allowance for his sister’s college, pending receiving proof of enrollment and a COA statement from the financial aid department at his sister’s school.)</p>
<p>I am very much against ED for those who need financial aid, because of the pressure it can put on a family to agree to an award that is below what they could have gotten at even a like school. Because the award is presented in a vacuum, it’s truly a take it or leave it proposition.</p>
<p>But this is a parent posting who is aware of how fin aid works, knows the school, is willing to stretch. A whole other story than someone doing this the first time around getting caught in the momentum and excitement and fear that the kid isn’t going to get into a “good” school and wanting to make this work too badly. </p>
<p>If the ED school does give an estimated award without taking the sister’s college status, discussion of that has to be made and if this is indeed a school that meets full need and a school similar to the sister’s, they might make stipulation and give estimates based on substantiation of the sister’s enrollment at the given college. That can be negotiated, if it is indeed a school that does make this consideration. If it’s not,…if it’s a school that does not guarantee to meet full need, that’s a whole other story. </p>
<p>This is a perfect example of a calculated risk. It’s very likely that it will all work out just the way the OP wants it to. I would not recommend forgoing ED for the small chance that it will blow up. I agree with getting more information to clarify the calculation. Investigate a plan B, whether it requires taking out a loan, or whatever. You make the best decisions with the best information that you have. </p>
<p>@halfemptypockets BC does ask about siblings COA but does not ask about what parents are paying. However they do ask whether the siblings are getting any merit or athletic scholarships. Although we reported not so insignfiicant 401 balances, It doesn’t appear that it affected our aid. On the other hand, we have significant home equity that drastically reduced our aid.</p>