Financial aid ratings: help me narrow it down!

<p>Hey, all!</p>

<p>I'm trying to narrow down my college list, and I could use some good ol' CC advice :)</p>

<p>I come from a middle class family (about $90k) but one that pays for 3 of my siblings to go to prep school (on a partial scholarship....but still) and gives 10% or more each year to the Christian church. As such, the amount my parents are able to pay for college tuition is next to nothing.</p>

<p>Therefore, I'd like to know which of the following universities/colleges have the best/worst financial aid (merit-based or need-based) among the group. Obviously Harvard probably has the best, but I'd appreciate knowing the "next-best"s as well, considering admissions to Harvard is well...less than certain :p
Thanks in advance!!</p>

<p>Harvard
Yale
Stanford
Penn
WUSTL
Williams
Amherst
Duke
Georgetown
Vandy
UNC-CH
Davidson
Claremont McKenna</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

<p>Claremont McKenna has really good financial aid, they dont offer student loans in their financial aid packages, starting this year, and they replace it with grants/work study. They also guarantee to mee 100 percent of students need. A lot of the top schools will also have better financial aid primarily because they have the funds to offer it to students in need.</p>

<p>I think it depends on what you mean by "next to nothing" in terms of what your parents can pay. The CSS Profile schools (and most or all of the ones you listed are Profile schools) do take into consideration private school tuition of siblings, but exactly how they consider it can vary from school to school. Some may accomodate it at 100%, but they don't have to. These schools apply their own methodology to the FAFSA and Profile data, so it's hard to generalize too much.</p>

<p>I highly doubt the 10% to the church will factor in, though. That is a personal choice in insitutional eyes. Your parents may feel it transcends the same catagory as vacation spending or a nice car, but school will likely not treat it any differently.</p>

<p>$90K isn't really middle income, exactly, it's rather high, but it's obviously not enough to pay the bills, the private school tuitions for your siblings, AND pay the full cost of you attending an expensive private college. Really, the only thing you can do is apply widely and see what kind of aid offers you get back.</p>

<p>I would think the aid at any of those schools would be great-to-decent, but it's hard to predict. The richest usually have the best aid; Harvard, Yale, Stanford. That's just need-based though. Merit aid is a whole other kettle of fish and is even more unpredictable.</p>

<p>thanks so much, guys!!
and yeah, rent, I understand colleges won't care about tithing, but I just thought I'd mention it to further explain why my fam's upper/middle class income won't cut it when it comes to paying for college. any other advice?</p>

<p>bump? anyone else?</p>

<p>bummmmp...</p>

<p>Look, lots of us with upper middle incomes can't pay for college for our kids because of other honorable commitments (in your case tithing and private school tuition, in other cases supporting grandma and grandpa in another state). What you have to do is get your paws on your parents' financial information and run the FAFSA and Profile calculators. This will give you the Expected Family Contribution (EFC) that very nearly every single one of the colleges/universities in the US will expect your family to pay BEFORE you are awarded a nickel in financial aid.</p>

<p>For example, on the Happyfamily income of $90k, with one child, the FAFSA calculators yield an EFC of roughly $20k. So if Happykid goes to a college/university that promises to meet full need, then we will still have to come up with $20k even though the financial aid package of grants/scholarships/waivers/loans etc. might be a total of $30k because the Cost of Attendance (COA) is $50k.</p>

<p>Since there is no way we can come up with $20k, Happykid has to go to a cheap school, get some kind of massive merit scholarship, or study part-time while she works full-time. This may be exactly the situation that you will be looking at.</p>

<p>The vast majority of students in the US are studying at community colleges and public universities. Texas has a whole bunch of excellent public universities that are, relatively speaking, dirt cheap. Take a good hard look at them and find one that you can be happy at to use as your financial safety school. Then worry about filling in a wish list of private and out of state universities.</p>

<p>Wishing you all the best.</p>

<p>bump 10char</p>

<p>hookem168...The schools on your list are mostly highly competitive. The ones which give the best need based aid to higher income families are the MOST competitive...</p>

<p>As I've frequently said...the first hurdle with all of these very highly endowed and generous (and highly competitive for admissions) schools is to get accepted. </p>

<p>To be honest, it doesn't matter how fine their financial aid is if you don't get accepted...or have a reasonable chance at being accepted. I'm hoping you think you do...or you would not be posing the question as it relates to these schools.</p>

<p>Have you had a discussion with your family about how much they are willing to pay per year for you to attend college? If they are currently paying for prep school, perhaps that amount would also be available annually for college?? You would need to find that out from your parents. They probably have a dollar number in mind for your future studies...have that conversation.</p>

<p>Harvard , Yale, Stanford, Penn, Williams, Amherst, Georgetown, Davidson, Claremont McKenna all guarantee to meet full need as THEY calculate it..all use both the Profile and the FAFSA. Most of these schools do not award merit aid.</p>

<p>I'm not sure about WUSTL, Duke, Vandy, UNC-CH. I do not think that Duke, Vandy or UNC-CH meet full need.</p>

<p>hookem - You might also want to think about travel costs from Texas which could eat up a few thousand a year if you like to see your family!</p>

<p>Hookem, </p>

<p>You have some very good advice and should reread HappyMom's post 10 times. I also think that if you have top credentials, you should consider some schools that give considerable merit aid.</p>