<p>@larmonely: I don’t think you sound like a whiney brat - good luck with everything : )</p>
<p>As of now, we have talked to the supervisor (who was much friendlier), and the financial aid office is currently reviewing my application with further information that my parent’s added.
I know that Yale does not go solely off FAFSA EFC. Assets are added in as well. My parents own their own business; however, the supplemental information helped to explain that the business does NOT have much value to it, and neither does our home, because of all the debt owed on them. Otherwise, my family has no other assets. Nevertheless, I think the supervisor seemed to understand that (better than the first girl!), so hopefully I will hear back soon. I am just hoping they can match Columbia’s aid package. A 17k difference is a HUGE deal!!!</p>
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<p>Sorry, I should have stated that my post #19 was addressing larmonely, not the OP.</p>
<p>WOOOOOOOOOOW! Right now I am just in shock. This morning I just got an email from Yale saying they have reevaluated my aid and reduced my parent contribution to 5k a year!!! Earlier it was 27k for those of you who haven’t read the whole thread! This is amazing! I just want everyone to know that Yale is an amazing institution and if anyone feels like their aid is incorrect, just contact Yale and talk to them about it. Yale is awesome! Go Bulldogs!</p>
<p>That’s great news. Enjoy Yale!</p>
<p>Wonderful news!</p>
<p>That’s wonderful, it seemed odd to me, they exceeded every package my daughter received by quite a bit.</p>
<p>Same here. Yale exceeded my Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt, JHU and Vassar packages by far… They basically gave me a full ride :D</p>
<p>Now I’m wondering whether Harvard will match their offer…</p>
<p>My dtr was admitted early to Yale 2014, but waited to hear from the other schools to accept the offer. She’s got wonderful choices and she’s leaning toward Yale. None of the schools offered her FA because we received a large lump of family income last year, a one-time event that will not be repeated. We projected 2010 income at normal levels and included a detailed Statement of Special Circumstances, but that seemed not to matter.</p>
<p>My concern is this. We have the cash to pay full load this year. We won’t be able to pay full load for future years. Should she start at one of the Ivy’s, when we know she won’t be able to stay unless they come up with FA in future years? I spoke with a very nice FA adviser at Yale, who says that they re-consider applications for FA each year, but it is rather scary to me.</p>
<p>Questions:
+ Has anyone received a significant increase in FA?<br>
+ Has anyone gotten financial aid in years 2,3 or 4 when they didn’t get aid in year 1?</p>
<p>PS. Her non-Ivy options are UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego (Regent’s Scholar).</p>
<p>My income dropped between year 2 and 3 due to retirement, and resulted in a drop in our EFC of as well. I believe that Y does consider each year separately and offers FA accordingly. However, if you have substantial assets (over 200k including home equity), the % that you are likely to pay based on your income is increased, and they don’t publish the formula they use. Truthfully, I have no idea how they actually use the next year projections, as far as I can see, FA is only based on the last year’s information anyway, so why ask?</p>
<p>You might want to give Y a call with your concerns. Perhaps you can ask them to give you an estimated FA package based on everything being the same except the reduction in income. </p>
<p>I agree with you, that it’s scary to go int a 4 year plan without a good indication of how much FA will be offered, particularly when your D has the Regent’s at a great school.</p>
<p>Thank for the information, entomom. </p>
<p>I am thrown by your comment “including home equity” as I thought home equity wasn’t a consideration. Being in California and having owned a home for more than a few years, we have quite a bit of home equity – as well as a substantial mortgage. Do you know when they consider home equity and when they discount it?</p>
<p>Home equity = fair market value minus mortgage. FAFSA does not consider home equity an asset, but that is only for Federal funds. Institutional funds are distributed using information on the Profile. I can’t think of any Profile school that don’t count home equity as part of assets (in addition to savings, checking and investments); although some schools do cap home equity, for instance, S:</p>
<p>[FAQ</a> : Stanford University](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/finaid/site/faq/index.html#faq_2]FAQ”>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/finaid/site/faq/index.html#faq_2)</p>
<p>There is no such wording in the new Y FA initiative:</p>
<p>[Yale</a> University Financial Aid > Our Philosophy and Policies](<a href=“Welcome | Student Financial and Administrative Services”>Welcome | Student Financial and Administrative Services)</p>
<p>However, it is possible that they cap it, I’ve just never seen anything in writing one way or the other.</p>
<p>Ascender: After dd received her financial aid offer from Yale, I had some questions about how it might change in future years. We had savings that we could use for her first year, but I needed to know what her financial aid might be like when we had only our income and home equity but no savings (outside of retirement) They looked at our expected contribution, and told me how much of that was based on income and how much was based on assets. That helped us figure out a little better how it might change.</p>
<p>Maybe if you asked them for that breakdown it would be helpful. </p>
<p>I would also suggest using their financial aid calculator on their web-site and plugging in your same info but without the inheritance and see what it tells you.</p>
<p>They certainly don’t want to make any promises about future years, but they are very forthcoming about why your current award is what it is.</p>
<p>I just wanted to send an update to you guys: Yale price matched Harvard’s offer, and now they’re virtually identical cost-wise! I am ecstatic, though my decision is now going to be much tougher.</p>
<p>I wanted to thank you all for the encouragement! The financial office was very nice (and I’m not just saying this because they gave me money, cough), and were especially polite. I would personally recommend checking up with them to see if your fax went through, as my first one apparently didn’t.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update, glad everything worked out. Now for the tough decision, go with your gut and know that you have only great choices!</p>
<p>The Yale FA office is awesome. My offer was about 20k lower than the other Ivies I had gotten into, and they further reduced my parent contribution by about 5k after a review. Extremely helpful and polite people - they seemed genuinely interested in helping me.</p>
<p>Well, my Yale offer was minimally better than Harvard(4,000$ difference) and significantly (15000<) better than Stanford, Columbia, Vanderbilt, JHU and so on.</p>
<p>So in my experience, they had the best offer in financial aid. :)</p>