Hello, I have two twins, a boy and a girl, and we are going to apply for financial aid. If I were to apply for FA for both of my twins, will it affect the chances of getting FA or the amount of FA?
It probably depends on the school. In our experience at PEA with siblings, we found that the school believed you could contribute a certain amount for education for your family. We found that value remained constant regardless of number of kids enrolled.
So for example, if we could afford x tuition for 1 student, we would pay that same amount for 2. Assuming all other factors remained constant (salary, other kids colleges etc…)
Otters might have more experience on how this could affect admissions. In our circumstance we were just adding a sibling with an already enrolled student.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I am not sure if they are applying for the same schools will bring a negative or positive influence.
I expect to get around 50-70 % of tuition per student as a fa.
Think of it from the schools point of view. IF you have two kids at the same school, if they give even $1 to the first one, that means that the second one will be free. So, that will affect admissions. Then again schools like to keep families together. If they are applying to two different schools, there’s more variability. Not all schools are going to come up with the same number. One might say you have to pay $1 and the other might say $10,000. So it will come down to figuring out if the packages fit and you can pay the amount stated. For some families with low income it’s easier, there is no way they can pay any amount or the amounts are so small to be negligible. But when you get into middle class and upper income the numbers can vary a lot.
I had twins at the same school. They didn’t get exactly the same amount of financial aid (one started first and had a merit scholarship that added to his aid), but the total was based on what the family could afford. I don’t know how it would work if twins attended different schools, but I suspect that (if the schools were generous and well-funded) the result would be similar but probably a little more costly per child, the way the EFC for each two for some colleges is 60% of the total, rather than 50%.