<p>mythmom,
Yes, I definitely think endowment was a large factor in our case too. Two of the schools said we had 0 need, not hard to guess which ones those were :).</p>
<p>We are definitely on the cusp of fiancial need, so I suspected that some schools would find that we have no need, but the range was more than I ever expected.</p>
<p>I think it's great to hear everyone's experiences with FA from need only schools, as it is not as cut and dry as some people think. The calculators are good for getting a ballpark figure, but they can be far from the final word.</p>
<p>Of HYPBrown, which offered the best financial aid package, and which offered the worst? Can you rank these schools in from most generous to least generous? Thanks.</p>
<p>Because of the "special circumstances" and wide discretion permitted in putting together financial aid packages, the 568 schools can still vary by large amounts in their offerings. I have seen the same situations as Entomom. That is why you don't want to apply ED if you want aid. You cannot be sure that your offers are going to be that similar even when the schools are swearing to use the same methodology.</p>
<p>Here's what Northwestern's Financial Aid office replied to this question:</p>
<p>"Thank you for your email. When awarding institutional assistance, we do consider home equity and
will cap it in some cases. However, we look at each file on a case-by-case basis and cannot
guarantee that we will cap home equity for each family at 2.4 times income."</p>
<p>Some other schools I queried specified the cap, others were vague (as above).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Calmom: can you please explain the "income is assessed at a rate of up to about 45%
[/quote]
Under the FAFSA formula, after a certain income level, an increase of $1000 in income will result in an increase of about $450 to EFC. So, all other things being equal, the family earning $70,000 will have an EFC that is approximately $4500 more than the family earning $60,000. It's a little bit more complicated because you have to account for taxes as well - but that's basically how the formula works-- but it makes sense if you look at that number as a cap -- i.e., if you earn $10K more, at most the EFC will increase by $4500. </p>
<p>In contrast, if two families have the same income, but one has $10,000 more in savings than the other, the EFC of the family with the extra savings will go up by only $560 (at most) -- so if your kid was a high school junior and your employer offered you a generous severance package if you would agree to early retirement, then you might do well to take the money and the hit on your income, at least in terms of how your financial aid is calculated.</p>
<p>entomom, I'm sorry, I should have been more clear in my post - I meant that they all start from the same formula -- that used to calculate the FAFSA EFC. From there they make their own adjustments for whatever other factors they may consider. I'm well aware that there are huge discrepancies from one college to the next. </p>
<p>I was responding to Monydad's comment which implied that Barnard had treated his daughter less favorably than mine. I know from working with the Barnard office that they are very formulaic - but the FAFSA formula is going to penalize income much more heavily than assets. I was coming in with a FAFSA EFC of $5K - Barnard expects me to pay roughly $10K above the FAFSA EFC, but obviously we are going to qualify for some aid no matter what.</p>
<p>"which implied that Barnard had treated his daughter less favorably than mine"</p>
<p>huh? </p>
<p>Barnard DID treat your daughter more favorably than mine, that's not an implication that's a fact.</p>
<p>I did not state or imply that there was anything "improper" about that, which seems to be what you decided I meant. Or that you don't deserve the amount of aid you're getting. Or that you don't deserve more aid than we're getting.</p>
<p>Obviously they have formulas. (Though clearly there is more than a little art in how they are applied.)</p>
<p>I was whining because the formulas they use did not alleviate our flight towards potential financial peril. There are aspects of our situation that I do not believe their formulas capture; an evident discrepancy between "need" as a formulaic definition and actual "need" given real-life circumstance.</p>
<p>I expressed that it was fortunate that these formulas recognized your need situation. That's all that meant. I was not comparing.</p>
<p>I did not suggest that, even given a formula I was satisfied with, you actually were more or less needy than we are.</p>
<p>Just do me a favor, ten years from now(or less) when we have no jobs anymore and want to/ are forced to retire, and no cash because it was spent on colleges, please sell me your house at a "capped" price of 1.2 times our current income. After all, we have to live someplace. That wouldn't buy us a trailer around here. Not that we'll be able to pay it then, in any event.</p>
<p>calmom,
I made my comments because the OP is addressing schools that use the Profile. I guess I always considered that the FAFSA calculations are pretty set, but that Profile formulas vary from school to school and within a school from kid to kid. While I would like to think that every family is treated with the same formula within a Profile school, my experience tells me otherwise. From what I have seen, if your child is 'desirable' based on a) whatever characteristics the college is looking for that year and b) competition for the student by other peer schools, you MAY get a better FA package. </p>
<p>All I am trying to say is that there is variation in the the Profile system and it may be narrow (like mythmom) or large like our experience. My 'message' is that students and their parents need to approach Profile FA as strategically as they do the academic aspects of applying to colleges.</p>
<p>
[quote]
From what I have seen, if your child is 'desirable' based on a) whatever characteristics the college is looking for that year and b) competition for the student by other peer schools, you MAY get a better FA package.
[/quote]
That may be true for schools that leverage aid, but I don't think that any of the colleges that guarantee to meet full need (as they define it), are making aid decisions based on "desirability". That is, I don't think that Barnard simply liked my daughter more than they like Monydad's daughter, I think that the numbers came out differently applying the same formula to both.</p>
<p>Of course Barnard's formula is different than any other schools -- hence the difference. Anyone who thinks the 568 schools are all using the same formula hasn't read the 568 consensus methodology reports -- at most they have only agreed on a handful of common issues with the rest left open to debate. Chicago did not offer my daughter less than Barnard because Barnard liked her better; Chicago offered less because it has more stringent financial aid policies. I knew before I ever saw an aid package that Chicago had a reputation for giving insufficient aid, and Barnard had a reputation for being very generous. </p>
<p>There are some differences that occur because some families are more sophisticated in applying for financial aid than others. I know now to be very proactive in informing the college about certain kinds of expenses; and I know that talking about other expenses is a waste of breath. So let's say a family has an outstanding medical bill of $50,000 they are struggling to pay. If they know to write letters to each of the colleges detailing the bills, including attached documentation -- they may end up with a far more generous aid award than another family with the same income -- whereas another family with similar circumstances may get a weaker award simply because they did not know that the information would be considered or that they needed to provide specific documentation. </p>
<p>There are schools that do leverage their aid -- they don't promise to meet full need of everyone, they use merit aid to sweeten the pot for some students, and they give preferential packaging to some students. But that is a different issue than use of the CSS Profile, as that is the incorporation of a whole other set of policies and practices.</p>
<p>Actually, S got a phenomenal financial aid package from Chicago. The only school that exceeded it was Williams. Chicago actually gave more money, but since the COA was higher than Williams Williams was less expensive. That is not why S chose it, however. </p>
<p>So, maybe there is some "wiggle room". I don't know.</p>
<p>Monydad, I'm not trying to start a dispute with you. I mean that Barnard did not exercise some sort of personal favoritism when they gave my daughter a huge award. They applied an objective set of rules that happen to favor those of us who earn something close to what most people in America earn --it doesn't help those who are earning in the top 5-10% and it doesn't look at the history of earnings or job security. </p>
<p>Many of their rule do NOT work in my favor, particularly the rule about non-custodial parent income and Barnard's insistence on receiving the full tax returns form the NC parent. My d's father does not contribute at all to her college so we do not benefit in any way from his income, and he has been very difficult about the required documentation. Barnard will not write an aid award without that documentation, so every year is touch-and-go for us. The Barnard financial aid people told me that they have seen students forced to withdraw because of the failure or refusal of the NC parent to submit required documents.... so as far as I can see, the system "favors" kids from intact, 2-parent households. I know that a large chunk of what I pay over and above my FAFSA EFC is due to the income of a person who is not paying any part of the college expenses. </p>
<p>But the point is... it's a system of rules. None of us is forced to send our kids to these colleges if we can't afford it. My daughter had very nice offers from our state university, and my son has been paying his own way through a state college without significant hardship. </p>
<p>I guess my advice to anyone who doesn't like the uncertainty of the system is to simply stick with their in-state public. Any kid who could win admission at a college like Barnard would probably be in line for strong merit aid at many other colleges. The idea that a college meets "100% need" is simply untrue - if they don't follow the FAFSA, then they aren't meeting that standard no matter what they say. All colleges set their own policies as to financial aid -- the main difference is that the 100% need schools are more likely to apply the same equation to all their students, whereas the other schools are more likely to leverage aid in favor of their most-favored applicants.</p>
<p>Mythmom, I think that Chicago got a big boost from a donor the year after my daughter applied, specifically targeted to financial aid, so the situation with financial aid might have changed.</p>
<p>I think in strategizing living expenses should also be factored in. For example, we are spending over $1000 a year less on books at Williams than Barnard because FA students have books make available to them through special libraries and vouchers.</p>
<p>There is NOTHING to spend money on in Williamstown. Plus or minus depedning on who's looking. But since S is happy, so am I. He and his friends (some rich beyond my imagination actually) scheme to spend nothing and find creative ways into free pizzas, etc., everything above board of course. Creative use of dining points the way the school works. Of course, I'm sure none of that pizza tastes as good as what D can get.</p>
<p>This thread is about experience with financial aid at 568 schools...568 schools... Barnard is not a 568 school....therefore this thread is not about Barnard and their financial practices are not germain to the topic...I hope you guys receive some form of tuition reduction for your marketing on behalf of Barnard...but really, not every topic is about Barnard...</p>
<p>My post #14 was in response to your erroneous assertions about Barnard in post #13, windy.</p>
<p>If you had not taken it upon yourself to comment, erroneously, about Barnard I would not have posted to correct your erroneous information, for the record.</p>
<p>And the rest is history.</p>
<p>The digression was, in part, your doing. If people post errors about a school, it is likely that they will be responded to as correction. Thereby extending discussion about that school. If you do not wish to see discussion extended about a particular school I suggest that you yourself do not make posts that refer explicitly to that school. Particularly when the information you post is wrong.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell there is nothing particularly meritorious about the fact that Barnard, like everyplace else, gives financial aid, so I don't know how you see where there's some sort of "marketing" here.</p>
<p>There is certainly a digression from the thread theme, which was,once again, caused and/or prolonged by you.</p>
<p>The other posters connected in some measure with Barnard were merely sharing their actual experiences, comparing its offers vs. 568 schools offers they received, which was not wildly out of context. The aid packages discussed were viewed, variously, as: good, comparable, or, in my case, bad. I don't regard those posts as highly off-topic. Or highly valuable as "marketing" material. Or intended as such.</p>