<p>How helpful is the financial aid office in helping students out?</p>
<p>Claremont has a very large price tag, and from other schools that do as well, I have gotten the response that "most students don't need the financial aid" and that's why they don't offer it. I was wondering if that was the same situation at Claremont?</p>
<p>CMC has a large endowment so they meet all displayed need. </p>
<p>In 2011, 42% of students received need-based aid with an average financial aid package of $38,394 per student. The school gave a total of $20 million in financial aid. In 2008, the college eliminated loans from its financial aid packages, meeting every student’s demonstrated need with grants.</p>
<p>The financial aid is fantastic, depending on your income level, it is the same as other top schools probably the only schools that would give more are the ones that can afford to give super aid, as in full rides for low income students, such as Harvard and Stanford.</p>
<p>Although, the school is ending their loan free policy next year, so I guess it won’t be as good for future students. It would still be one of the colleges with the best financial aid though.</p>
<p>I was just admitted this year and my family could only afford about half the tuition. My initial financial aid offer was not nearly enough, but the Financial Aid office was very helpful. I made an appointment and spoke with them about my family’s predicament, and they agreed to completely re evaluate my financial aid award, taking into account new information that wasn’t reflection on my FAFSA. I worked with them to more than double my financial aid award and make the college affordable for my family. We live in an area with a high cost of living, so while all federal grants refused me anything due to my family’s income, the CMC financial aid office was very understanding.</p>
<p>eperfect1 did you use their net price calculator? I really want to go to Claremont but it puts the EFC for just one person at third of our income, even though I put in that my parents will be paying for a second person to attend college as well. I guess what I’m asking is did the calculator say you’d get anything before you talked with the financial aid officer?</p>