Yes and they’re my safety schools in terms of finances. Continue reading that thread if you’re interested, it’s irrelevant for the type of financial aid mentioned in this thread.
My answers above apply to the schools on this thread.
Unless you haven’t posted something…I personally don’t see anything that would make a college on your list give you more need based aid than they award you. See my response on post 17 above….to each of the things you mentioned.
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To this I would add to the OP that the FA offices I have had extended conversations with are very concerned with equity and treating everyone fairly. They are willing to provide consideration of specific special circumstances, but would not just provide more need-based aid for a generic “appeal” based on standard circumstances that a wide range of applicants fall under and for which they have already accounted in their methodology and calculations.
I addressed that claim in a previous post, saying “the appeal in my case would more likely be to account for the discrepancy between the EFC and the actual possible contribution based on the previously mentioned factors, if any universities would actually grant an appeal on those grounds.” I understand that the likelihood of any university granting such an appeal is low, which is why I’m looking for others’ experiences in the FA appeal process that were successful and the conditions/institution that allowed for that success.
“I can’t say for the css, but the fafsa does not typically include independent siblings in household size, and often fails to accurately account for mortgage/debt payments”
standard circumstances for most applicants does not typically include supporting 5 students in undergraduate and professional schooling, and it is not entirely accounted for in need-based aid applications.
I’m sure @kelsmom will state again. Successful renegotiation of financial aid awards are because of unforeseen financial hardships a family has experienced between the income year for the forms, and the actual year of college. Things like loss of main income, unforeseen high unreimbursed medical expenses, large unreimbursed things like your residence burning down with no insurance. Things like that.
Some colleges have the discretion to and might take multiple undergrads into consideration. But the professional school siblings…not likely.
@aunt_bea do you have any ideas?
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CSS Profile/ Institutional Methodology schools will take into account other siblings enrolled in undergraduate institutions (but this is not likely for sibling in professional schools if you mean post-undergrad). It’s in the standard data entry for the Profile, so it wouldn’t be an unusual circumstance.
Whether or not individual schools “fully account” for it in your view, they have the calculations to account for this, so an appeal for professional judgement wouldn’t be bringing new information to the table.
In order to see how much they are accounting for this, you can easily do multiple runs of the NPCs for one school (pro tip: if you log in using your College Board account, you can auto-fill most information for these from a previous run). Just plug in different numbers of siblings to determine the sensitivity of their algorithm and how much of a discount you’d be getting for each. Since this is a straightforward calculation, I wouldn’t expect that there would be significant differences between these NPC estimates of your discount for siblings and what would be in the actual FA award (unlike some items that would be worth further inquiry, such as home equity vs income).
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Your parents have given you a hard budget if $30,000 per year. Is that correct?
It sounds like you do have affordable transfer options that come in at this price point, and that is good.
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Then…perhaps these should be reconsidered in terms of applications.
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I think it largely depends on the school.
I know that Caltech asked about siblings in our son’s sophomore year and they gave a “discount” on our son’s tuition by ½, but tuition & fees, at that time, were about $72K.
When middle child was admitted to her med school, son was still in undergrad and Caltech again asked and we submitted the paperwork. We got ½ off again but it’s interesting that they didn’t ask us before son’s sophomore year-daughter’s senior year. It helped with the expenses and savings in the 529.
So, I really think you need to run those NPC’s at each school, where you will apply. (Note that Caltech is a private institution, with lots of dollars. I think they could afford to be generous. I don’t think that’s the case at any publics or with non-similar schools.)
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Update: I just found this document: “PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT, TOPIC: Siblings’ College Costs”
While this does discuss the standard treatment under the IM (“If two are enrolled, the parent is expected to contribute 60 percent of the calculated contribution to each child; if three are enrolled, 45 percent; if four or more are enrolled, 35 percent”) it indicates that there may be a basis for professional judgement in some cases:
“WHY PROFESSIONAL JUDGMENT MIGHT BE APPROPRIATE
The standard IM treatment does not take into account the cost of attendance and/or financial aid for each of the enrolled siblings. The actual parent contribution for a sibling might be lower if that child is attending a low-cost institution and/or is receiving significant aid.”
The example they provide is for a lower than expected PC for a sibling, but presumably this could apply to a higher than expected PC too.
So, contrary to my previous statement, it looks like could be the basis for an appeal.
Some schools may be accounting for this already though rather than using the standard deduction. As the document states: “An institution using software that utilizes the College Board’s IM may establish a global option to allocate the parent contribution based on the type of institution attended by each child and the relative cost of that institution.”
This document has the same info, but provides two examples of professional judgements for cases where a sibling was enrolled in community college (which is not usually eligible for a sibling reduction):
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OP- none of us are telling you that you don’t have the “basis” for an appeal. Anyone can appeal anything.
The issue is are some factors (like high medical costs for a sibling with a chronic disease) more compelling during an appeal than others. And the answer is clearly yes- professional judgement doesn’t mean “anyone who has high expenses will get more aid”, it means "we can- in certain circumstances- override a formula, as long as there is evidence of hardship.
Just make sure you have some options which are affordable. And hope for the best!
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We appealed our financial aid for our D23 for Emerson and Chapman. She was initially not awarded any, and ultimately did not receive any, but the schools increased her merit scholarship by $10k and $5k, respectively.
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Here are three schools that we have experienced FA appeal for our D22.
NYU wouldn’t even want to hear the word ‘appeal’.
Amherst increased its FA offer by $10,000 a day after my email.
Georgetown reviewed our appeal, but no change, however, FA was increased by $20,000 for her sophomore year.
Georgetown had just expanded its financial aid program by 5%, I don’t know how much of that helped, but we’re happy now.
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What reasons did you have for your financial aid appeal? That matters too.
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Of all schools with FA offer, NYU and Georgetown offered less than 50% of most of the other schools.
I had asked them to see if they can match offers from other competitive schools.
Based on just income, we should qualify for more, but our real estate assets, 2nd house, was the factor and schools must have used different formula for that.
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I had asked them to see if they can match offers from other competitive schools.
and some colleges will do this for peer schools.
Based on just income, we should qualify for more, but our real estate assets, 2nd house, was the factor and schools must have used different formula for that.
*yes, there are varying formulas.
The OP hasn’t mentioned peer schools as a reason for a financial aid reconsideration. They say that their income etc would not probably make them eligible for (much) need based aid…if I read their post correctly.
This is what the OP wrote…