Yes there IS room for “negotiation”, depending on circumstances that may not be immediately clear on the FAFSA or PROFILE (though there is room for explanation on the PROFILE). An admitted student can ask for what is called “professional judgment” if there are special circumstances about their financial situation that needs further explanation and consideration. This doesn’t guarantee that the reconsideration will get a different outcome, but it is worth asking as it can sometimes have a positive outcome. Many of the elites do not give any merit aid, but can be very generous with need based aid. And things can happen during the year that affect a families financial situation and is worth explaining to the schools. It may not help but it couldn’t hurt.
Professional judgment is what the rest of us are talking about upstream. This is done when there has been a change in financial circumstances that the family wants the school to review.
If you have NO change in financial circumstances, there will be NO professional judgment and no change to your need based aid.
In other words, there has to be a good financial reason for seeking this. “We can’t pay our family contribution” is not considered a good reason UNLESS there has been a significant change in your finances.
Even with that. PJ is done on a case by case basis…and you might net nothing anyway.
Correct if there are no changes in one’s financial situation, but stuff happens- people get sick, they have to help family, they lose their job etc. after they have filled out their information. And yes there is a large probability that it will make no difference in the in their EFC. Or the difference it makes if they readjust it is minor. But to say it’s impossible seems to be a bit of an overstatement if one doesn’t consider other variables. Perhaps this is simply a restatement of what was apparently said earlier up thread, but is a response to a statement that there was no room for negotiation which isn’t completely true.
Please don’t let yourselves become unprotected or not fully funded for retirement. Sometimes that can come earlier than you thought due to health issues, etc. My H thought he’d work until he was 70, but he had to retire at 59. Thankfully, we have a nice retirement.
We, too, put our kids thru private K-12, so I understand the expense. There is a place on CSS Profile to indicate that. I don’t know if the NPC asked that. However, to be honest, I don’t think it’s going to make much difference since it sounds like income/assets are too high. Colleges often view private K-12 education a luxury choice. (Ha ha, we didn’t think so, but…)
Your story reminds me of a mom of 5 kids who let Child #1 to to NYU (also very expensive). That was her doings…because at that point, she believed in letting kids go wherever they wanted. They had a high income, so would always be full pay. Soon she realized that her generous philosophy was not sustainable to all 5 kids. THEN, she was faced with a VERY TOUGH DECISION!! She had to tell the younger kids that they had to find schools that would give them enough merit scholarship dollars so that the net cost was about $20-25k per year. Yes, it was awkward to do this at that point.
So, tell your kids NOW, how much you can safely pay per year for each child (even when there are multiples going to college at the same time). Think about it…if you can pay $25k per year per child without hurting retirement funding or other household needs, then that’s still spending $400k on college (maybe a bit more since you probably will have to adjust that $25k for future inflation).
I can also tell you this…you may be thinking, “we’ll help them for undergrad, but they’re on their own for grad school.” It’s a nice thought but really hard to do unless you’re impoverished! Lol. We’re still helping our younger child (age 27) because he went to med school, and is now a physician resident in extremely expensive Boston. Residents just don’t make a lot of money and his share of the rent is $2300 a month plus utilities. I imagine that we’ll be helping him at least for 3 more years.
Anyway, admission to ivys are a total crapshoot no matter how high your kids’ stats are. So this may all be moot.
Keep in mind that the undergrad name is meaningless for all professions except maybe Wall Street investment banking. For other careers, doctor, lawyer, engineer, teacher, nurse, physicist, etc, etc, it really doesn’t matter where the student goes to undergrad. There are many, many very fine undergrad schools that will fine for your kids’ career paths AND will give your high stats kids generous merit scholarships. :).
OP, this has been said a million times before on CC, but there are many fabulous and well respected schools they will give excellent merit scholarships to a strong and desired student. Balance your finances carefully. There was something going around ffacebook recently about a relatively young couple who lost their home (hard to believe they even got a home) as they had over $600k in combined student loan debt!!!
I ran the numbers again with my income and with 2 kids in college I pay like 53k for each kid. With one kid it is full tuition. The Harvard site seems to be the only one that says I have to pay full tuition with both kids in College.
I thank you for all of your help and suggestions. My son is interested in Biology and possibly medicine later and we do understand that the college name is not that important to get into med school which would be the ultimate goal.
We will have the conversation with all of our kids asap. I understand the issue stated about the mom who sent the first kid to NYU and then had to tell the other kids they could not get the same amount of funds and how that must have been extremely difficult for her and her children.
“The Harvard site seems to be the only one that says I have to pay full tuition with both kids in College.”
Okay, so that’s why I couldn’t find any Harvard FA info regarding 2 kids in college for folks over $200,000 in income, while others do in my post #12 above.
Here’s my 2 cents 
If you’re going to be full pay for the kids, there’s no bachelors degree worth $250,000. That’s more than medical school. You’ll get a lot more value for your money sending them to a state flagship school. Even an out of state public is less than half the cost of a private school. That’s not settling, it’s just being financially prudent.
You don’t have to send the kid to a state flagship if the kid can get a big merit scholarship from a private school. Some kids don’t want to attend a huge school, and if the parents are in a financial position to contribute to a private (NOT talking about full pay 250K), they can consider fit (eg if the kid wants a smaller school or private U or LAC). It isn’t one or the other.
If your son is interested in medical school, you’re way better off (and HE is way better off) with your state flagship or a 20-50 ranked college with merit aid.
Seriously, if the goal is med school, do not go to a tippy top undergrad. I cannot tell you how many sad stories I ‘e encountered from students/parents who had been top high school students, who went to a tippy top univ, and then ended up with GPAs that weren’t med school worthy…or were just borderline worthy.
There’s a parent here whose child went to UChicago. She was a top student at her high school. Her GPA at UChi was an issue and she didn’t even get one interview to a MD med school.
There’s a student who posted here who took the big NMF scholarship to UT-Dallas, and got straight A’s as a frosh. Unfortunately he thought that med schools would frown on UT Dallas, so he transferred to Vandy…and soon had a GPA that wasn’t med school worthy. My premed nephew also went to vandy and soon had a GPA that wasn’t med school worthy.
A parent recently contacted me about her premed at Duke. This student had a perfect ACT and SAT and GPA in high school. Was accepted to Harvard, Princeton, and Duke…and chose Duke because of merit. Now is worried that her Duke GPA will keep her out of med school. She applied this cycle. No interviews yet.
The issue is that all schools weed their premeds. All schools have too many premeds so they limit the A’s in the premed prereqs. Being premed at a mid-tier school isn’t easy, make no mistake…it’s still a race, but at tippy top schools, the premed race consists of “Academic Olympians.”
Thank you all for your encouragement. We just had the conversation with son. We told him we will give him and all of his other 3 siblings the same amount per year 30k. We told him that way all children would be equal and there would be no strife when they are older. Also we made the key point that you all have said , go to a college where you will get the GPA and Mcat to get you in med school because getting into med school is the number one goal.
He is disappointed and it was a tough conversation and hopefully he will soon realize the wisdom of this decision of his parents. Thanks again. You guys are great.
Best wishes.
And we can help identify some great schools that will have that net cost.
This is so important, and we’ve been there. When my kids were looking at colleges, many folks wondered why they weren’t applying to Ivys and similar. Not only was cost an issue but GPA since we knew son was set on med school. He graduated from college with a 3.99 cum GPA and a 4.0 BCPM GPA. We doubt he’d have had that if he had gone to a tippy top school. His same-aged same-high-school-stats cousin, who was also premed, went to a tippy top school and his GPA was not med school worthy. My nephew’s dad regrets pushing the big school name.
(BTW…to be fair, since you have 4 kids, the younger ones may need an inflation boost to that $25k. 
Surely you’ve noticed that their private K-12 schools increase tuition regularly. There should be no strife with such a plan since surely there’s no strife that younger one’s current tuition is probably higher than when older ones were in that same grade. )
Thank you again. I have started another thread on the site to identify great schools in this net cost.
We are in PA and son would rather stay in PA. We have Ursinus Juniata Mullenburg Washington and Jefferson Messiah Bloomsburg Univ of Pittsburgh Allegheny West Chester Moravian Alvernia on the list.
University of Scranton may be too high. And unfortunately Franklin and Marshall Dickinson Gettysburg Hamilton and Skidmore don’t give any or much merit aide so they are too high. Thank you for your help.
@d87d87 the U of Delaware would worth a look your son. Good opportunities there for a high stats student to shine, yet challenging academically, too, with a nice honors program. They offer merit aid to OOS students which may meet or beat your target costs. We have two family friends with recent UD graduates who are currently in med school. They were both able to graduate from UD early with AP credits, further saving $ for med school costs.
As a PA resident, Temple U is another good choice for a premed, also with a nice honors program. I have a D who is a junior at TU in the business school, in the honors program, and she loves it there. She had an awesome summer internship at a pharma company. The campus is in north philly, definitely not every one’s cup of tea, in a gritty area which is on the upswing, and the campus takes student safety very seriously. My D has had no issues and loves the easy access via subway, train, lyft, to shopping, historic sites, museums
great restaurants, especially Reading Terminal market. TU students also seem to have a lot of achool spirit. TU was D’s safety, but merit aid has also made it a bargain.