<p>Clariano, I loved ASP so I think it’s safe to say that I’ll be a Mudder. :)</p>
<p>Does anyone here have much information on how HMC aid compares with that of Caltech?</p>
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For us, with EFC around 22K, Caltech was slightly better, maybe 1-2K per year. Caltech (and Rice) also offered Perkins loans instead of the need-based Stafford loans, which struck us as odd at our income level. But essentially Caltech, Rice, and Mudd, which all “meet need”, were the same within about 3K. They all gave mostly need-based grants, plus 3.5K Perkins/Stafford subsidized, plus 2K Stafford non-subsidized, plus work-study.</p>
<p>GeekMom, thanks for the info. That is great that your son got to choose from among those three wonderful schools. We are early in the process, but when my son applies in a couple of years, he hopes to be so fortunate as to be able to make a choice from among those same three.</p>
<p>I just noticed that on the College Navigator site there is an anomaly with regard to net price for HMC. The numbers there provide that those in the 48K-75K income bracket would have a higher net cost (25K) than those in the 75K-110K bracket (20K). I looked around and could find no other school for which this is true, as the net cost always goes up with the income bracket. Is this an error (maybe the 25K for those in the lower bracket should be 15K?) or really evidence of an unusual feature of HMC aid?</p>
<p>@austin I guessing that that’s just related to the small class size. I’m not sure exactly where the data comes from, but if it came from a single class, that is only 250 students. Perhaps the few individuals in the 48-75 bracket happened to be somewhat more financially comfortable, than their higher earning peers, or perhaps that year more of the 75-110 families had multiple students in college. I’m guessing it’s just a fluke based on size, and will probably look different when they update it.</p>