<p>Please share your opinions about applying for financial aid. This family didn't need aid in the past, but now both parents are unemployed. They have saved quite a bit of money and now they rely on that for income. They own their house. Would they qualify for aid? or would they be expected to dip into the savings to pay for school?</p>
<p>Someone posted a survey that tells whether you are eligble here in the past. Maybe they can repost the link/.</p>
<p>Found it:</p>
<p>FinAid</a> | Calculators | Expected Family Contribution (EFC) and Financial Aid</p>
<p>Savings are up for grabs by the schools, but are considered differently than income. Would you really want an unemployed Bill Gates (for example) getting financial aid? It is probably worth doing the calculator Princess' Dad posted above.</p>
<p>Thank you! I'll give this calculator a try.</p>
<p>Ahhhh I just did the quick calculator and it says our EFC would be 49000! How can that be true? Does anyone know if the BSs take into consideration that I work 2 jobs and my DH travels and does over time to make our reported salary?</p>
<p>PA-C: make sure to double check all of your numbers. There was a recent post about someone who filled out the calculator, and a few small errors made a change in the calculation.</p>
<p>Some schools will give you more than your EFC, some will give less. As to whether to apply, hard to say. On the Exeter web site, you can put in some figures about your income and family size to see what aid award Exeter gives to similar families. I think that Choate and maybe Hotchkiss last year sent out charts of average aid for different income levels. Obviously, these are not aid decisions, but they may be helpful to see where you fall in the general picture, before the individual schools consider your own special circumstances.</p>
<p>Good luck to you in the process!</p>