Hi. I just found this forum recently and have been pouring over it. I am most concerned about finances with affording college. I have so many questions floating in my head but I will start with a couple.
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based on what I have been reading here I have started doing NPC for some of the schools D is interested in. Some of the schools send me to college board for something different, CSS or something like that.
What is the difference between NPC and CSS? Is it possible to do the one at college board as a guest? So I can get an idea?
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my next question is sincere; not meant to start trouble. Financially we fall in the same place as many people, in the middle class. Someone called it a donut. We have saved some and are prepared to live frugally to help as much as we can. We will also be sure that D applies to all level of schools including ones we can surely afford. That said my question is about the top notch schools. What I am understanding is the Ivies and the top LACs don’t give merit. If I run the NPC and there is a $15000 gap between what they feel we can contribute and what we can do is it absolutely game over? Obviously we don’t know if D would get into an Ivy or say Tufts or Wesleyan but should we not even have her apply? I guess what I’m asking is if there are ever pleasant surprises with financial aid beyond what NPC says.
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does major matter? She wants to major in English. Will that hurt her chances?
Thanks in advance. So happy to have found this group
The CSS is a second financial aid application used by most of the more generous and elite schools. It collects information about your finances and assets, and the schools then pick and choose what information to use before awarding financial aid. The FAFSA is an application the spits out a standard evaluation and an Estimated Family Contribution (EFC) and federal aid (grants, loans) can be determined from that.
The most generous schools meet need as they determine it (not off the FAFSA EFC). If Harvard costs $65k and they think you can pay $15k, they’ll award $50k. If the NPC for that school says you’ll have to contribute $15k, believe that number (assuming you entered correct info to the NPC). You can borrow some for that EFC but only you can determine if it is worth it.
Major usually doesn’t matter for financial aid, but may for admissions. Some majors are harder for admissions, like acting at NYU or chemical engineering at RPI, but that’s admissions. Also, some departments have scholarships that you can apply to that might get you a few more dollars, but not at ‘need based aid’ only schools.
Thank you! That helps. So when I tried to do NPC for a school it took me to college board for CSS. Now I get it, that’s the real deal that I’ll do in the fall.
As for affording how do schools get a diverse group of students in terms of socioeconomic? How is it that the top schools are not filled only with people who have high need, and get a lot, and people with no need who can afford to pay?
Do regular families making $125,000- 200,000 really afford to send their kids to the top schools?
While I feel we can afford $35,000, and that includes loans, we can’t afford $50,000. So is it off the table? Or does it sometimes work out? I haven’t known about these boards long enough to see how it worked for people in past years
Don’t sign in as a guest. make an acct and put in your info…then you don’t have to keep doing this over and over again for each CSS profile school.
When you say that you can afford $35k with loans. Do you mean a loan for you? Or your child. The FA pkg will already include loans for your kid…unless it’s a rare school that doesn’t give loans.
Don’t be misled by the results that HYPS will give…they give super aid w/o loans for students. Other schools are not anywhere close as generous.
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What I am understanding is the Ivies and the top LACs don’t give merit. If I run the NPC and there is a $15000 gap between what they feel we can contribute and what we can do is it absolutely game over?
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Maybe…but also maybe let your child apply to a couple of favorites with those results, but with the understanding that if the results are like that, those schools will be off the table. And make sure she understands and agrees with that.
And, right, no merit at ivies…or other schools that have no-merit policies. Even the few that do give merit, often only give to tippy top stats or kids that they want because they add diversity. These kids get merit because those schools assume that they’ll get ivy acceptances and the school wants to poach them.
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Obviously we don't know if D would get into an Ivy or say Tufts or Wesleyan but should we not even have her apply? I guess what I'm asking is if there are ever pleasant surprises with financial aid beyond what NPC says.
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Very occasionally. I wouldn’t count on that. Sometimes the results are worse because people weren’t accurate on the NPCs (forgetting to “add back” their retirement contributions, or forgetting an investment they have or underreporting equity)
There are many schools that don’t cost $50-70k., and many of them give merit aid for top grades and scores. Make sure you have a few financial safeties on the list.
I wouldn’t rule any school out until you figure out if you can afford it, but be prepared to walk away if it proves to be too expensive at the end of the process. One of the first schools we looked at was $50k (then, now it is $58k!) and we almost walked away. It really wasn’t even in the ballpark. But daughter went on the tour and we started finding little grants that would help, then found out about the big merit awards, and it worked. Other schools just didn’t work out that way. You just have to work every school’s NPC and look at the financial aid webpages.
Ok good advice. Am I the only parent that feels guilty that we haven’t socked away huge sums so we can send her to her dream school?
I didn’t know if I should discourage her from even applying. But I think to let her apply to a couple as long as she has many others on her list will likely be how we go.
I’m not even far along in this process and already have made ‘parental errors’. We have visited 4 schools so far and aimed high. If I could start over I would start at target schools, not reach schools. So she wouldn’t see and fall in love with Weslyan…
No, I don’t feel guilty that my kids can’t attend dream schools. Kids can be very successful w/o spending over a 1/4 of a million dollars for a 4 yr dream. 
FWIW, applying well takes time. I would not have her devote a huge amt of time to schools that you already know are unaffordable. If the school is strictly a meets need/no merit school and the NPC says it is way over budget, you are simply wasting her time and your $$. (Application fees and sending test scores can run about $75-$100/school.) Far better to generate a more appropriate list that leads to more real options in the spring.
Have the budget conversations frequently and often. So many kids just apply assuming it will all work out somehow and then are devastated to get into a school only to be told it’s not affordable. Or the parents feel horrible and contemplate raiding their retirement and mortgaging their future rather than disappoint their child. Best to set realistic expectations and then hey, maybe there will be a pleasant surprise somewhere along the way.
Re parental guilt: Yup I had that.
But I also knew that our family had other goals and responsibilities that had to be balanced into our total budget. College isn’t the only thing we had to think about.
It is OK to feel guilty. But please do focus now on looking forward rather than backward!
I would not let my Ds to apply to any school if the NPC says it is not affordable tonus and there is a very chance for merit aid cover the gap. Why waste the time and application fee. Unless you can afford stowing away $10k+ per year per kid (or ~20% of EFC) since he/she was born but did not do so, you should not feel guilty.
Bingo on your post #6, OP. Do some comparison of net price calcs first. Get more info. Learn the vocabulary (need-based, merit, EFC, etc). Have the first of many many talks with your D and explain how much she has to work with. Form a strategy together. Get her in on the financial part ASAP, because she needs to know this before she falls in love with a “dream school.” Many of us went into this cluelessly. You are getting very good feedback (look again at #7, #8 and #10 to name a few).
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Am I the only parent that feels guilty that we haven’t socked away huge sums so we can send her to her dream school?
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Don’t feel guilty. You don’t owe your child a dream school education. What next? You owe her a dream wedding? How much will that cost?
You don’t owe your kid pricey dreams.
Do you realize that the dream is her future life, career, marriage, kids, etc. it’s NOT four years of college that wipes out a family. That’s no dream…and shouldn’t be.
I would get to know the gap at the school before I waste money applying there. From what I could see schools like Smith (sub Ivy I believe) also had to have SAT2s etc. Presumably all of these additional College Board tests cost money for each school you send them to. If you end of spending an extra few thousand dollars on places you’ll never be able to afford anyway, what is the use? Just so you can pad an ego to say “My darling got in”?
I’m sure you are not the only one, I did too. Though what mom2 said is also true: “You don’t owe your kid pricey dreams.”
I ran the NPCs for every school D was interested in and made sure there were a couple on her list that we could definitely, 100% afford and that she would for sure be admitted to. We visited them, twice actually, so she could be sure she felt good about going if it came to that.
Then she applied to other schools. Some would be affordable if she got in but were very hard to get into, some were easier to get in but we didn’t know what the scholarships would wind up looking like. Of the latter group she understood she could only go there if the $ worked out.
You can start a thread, in the college search and selection forum maybe, like:
D loves Wesleyan because [reasons she loves Wes]. What colleges would be similar but potentially offer enough merit aid to get to $35k/yr for a student with [whatever stats]. You’d get lots of suggestions.
I think I owe it to my kids to get them through college but my help doesn’t need to be all financial. I think I’m pretty good at getting all the aid to work to our advantage including state aid, AOTC, finding cheaper books (although my kids are good at that). I don’t feel guilty at all. They are getting very good educations at the schools they are attending. Do they wish they could go to Cancun for spring break? Yep, but I feel no guilt over that either.