<p>So I have used CC's and CB's college search portal, sorted colleges by 100% Of Financial Need A School Can Meet. Is this the only way to find a college which will be most cost effective to you. Of course provided they will accept you. or there is more to it than this. I would like to hear from the CC community.</p>
<p>Look at the threads above for merit awards. You may find you qualify for one of these…and a school will become affordable.</p>
<p>Remember, those schools that meet full need for all do their OWN computation of your need. And with the exception of Princeton (which has its own form in addition to the FAFSA) they all require the Profile and FAFSA. </p>
<p>Since we don’t know how much YOUR FAMILY can afford, it’s awfully hard to give advice!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>So how much CAN your parents contribute to your college education annually?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you really have the stats to be a competitive applicant to those schools which reject 90-95% of applicants? </p></li>
<li><p>Are you a senior now? If so, get moving! Many colleges giving significant merit awards have a December 1 application deadline for consideration of scholarship awards.</p></li>
<li><p>Have you targeted any affordable options? Are you planning to apply to only schools that meet full need for all accepted students?</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>Ok…here is your school list and stats. </p>
<p>Things you need to know…there are several schools on this list that do NOT meet full need for all students. Since you have this list, run the Net Price Calculator for EACH of these universities. This will give you a ballpark of potential aid. If your parents are self employed or own a business, are divorced, or own real estate other than your primary residence, it might not be so accurate!</p>
<p>Are you retaking the ACT or did you take the SAT? That 30 ACT is not going to be a standout at Penn, Georgetown, Cornell, and maybe even Rice, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Hopefully you are instate for Pennsylvania. If so, why not add Pitt?</p>
<p>***Are you retaking the ACT or did you take the SAT? That 30 ACT is not going to be a standout at Penn, Georgetown, Cornell, and maybe even Rice, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Hopefully you are instate for Pennsylvania. If so, why not add Pitt?***</p>
<p>Yes I will be taking Dec OCT to improve my chances. I’m NY resident. My family can support 20-25K annually. </p>
<p><<<<<3. Are you a senior now? If so, get moving! Many colleges giving significant merit awards have a December 1 application deadline for consideration of scholarship awards.>>>>></p>
<p>Yes, do you have to submit application by dec1 or you have to fill out their financial aid form by dec 1st. The colleges I have in my list, they have application deadline anywhere from 1/1/2014 - 1/15/2014.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, you will not receive financial aid based on what your family feels that they can support. The schools will look at your family’s income and assets to determine your financial need and how they are going to meet that need.</p>
<p>Please, please, please add a couple of SUNY schools so that you will have a financial safety.</p>
<p>Okay thanks for your input. Let me go back to my original question. </p>
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<p>No, that’s the point people are trying to make. Searching for average need met, even if it’s 100%, doesn’t apply to you. You have to use the net price calculators on the school’s finaid web pages to see what applies to you and your family’s financial situation. And that’s only an estimate and only accurate for more routine income/asset situations. The need even the 100% schools are calculating may not be the need your family thinks it has. The NPCs will be less accurate if either parent is self-employed, owns a business, has rental properties etc.</p>
<p>Income/assets are very standard, no business, rental property etc. I have run some NPCs on college’s website. The reason I’m asking is even to run NPC for your particular situation, for a particular college, you still need to zero in on handful of colleges. Right? My question is, the method I have used in OP, is that good enough to zero in and then run npc for each college? or there is a better approach to narrow down to 15-20 colleges for which you can run npc. </p>
<p>I now do understand the point people are trying to make. Thank you</p>
<p>After you’ve run NPCs for the schools on your list, take a look at the results. If there’s a gap between 1) how much the schools expect your family to pay and/or take out in loans and 2) how much your family can pay, that’s telling you to look for schools that will offer you more merit aid. Those schools might be ones that don’t meet a lot of need on average. Doesn’t matter–if the school is affordable for you, that’s what you’re looking for. </p>
<p>As others already said, take a look at the merit award threads in this same forum to look for schools that will like your 30 ACT.</p>
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<p>You can run the net price calculator on every school’s web site (or use <a href=“http://www.collegeabacus.com%5B/url%5D”>http://www.collegeabacus.com</a> to web scrape multiple schools at a time) to see what the net price looks like for your family’s financial situation. This is better than relying on generalizations. Note that schools that “meet full need” may have (a) different student contributions or self-help (typical range $4,000 to $10,000 of direct loans and/or work earnings), and (b) different ways of calculating expected family contribution, so their net prices can vary widely for you.</p>
<p>You can also check the sticky merit scholarship threads in this section.</p>
<p>It’s too bad that one can’t type in one’s financial information once and get the net price results from all the schools in the country. So, back in Spring 2012 I spend hours doing it for a lot of schools. Our EFC was about $27K so if that is what yours is this list might be helpful for you. Keep in mind these are 1.5 years old, they are all higher now and some I’m sure have adjusted their formulas. Also, I adjusted each one for expected travel from the DC area. BTW I loved collegedata.com, collegenavigator.com to make lists of schools based on different criteria:</p>
<p>Yale University 14473
Harvard College 18500
Vanderbilt University 18650
Washington and Lee University 20619
Stanford University 20691
Princeton University 21330
Swarthmore College 21400
University of Pennsylvania 21764
Colby College 22525
Bowdoin College 22858
Wellesley College 23436
Columbia University 24269
Amherst College 24898
Haverford College 25317
Ithaca College 25364
SUNY Genesco 25477
University of NC – Chapel Hill 26863
Carleton College 26978
Vassar College 27357
Davidson College 27406
Williams College 27535
Pomona College 27696
Claremont McKenna College 28307
Gettysburg College 28380
Bates College 28565
Colorado College 28566
Tulane University 28584
Colgate University 29042
University of Richmond 29370
DePaul University 29421
Duke University 29680
University of Delaware 29932
Kenyon College 30207
Cornell University 30479
St. Olaf College 30591
Johns Hopkins University 30816
University of Rochester 30860
University of Chicago 31016
Middlebury College 31024
Lawrence University 31371
Dartmouth College 31534
Macalester College 31722
Oberlin College 31760
Georgetown University 31825
Wesleyan University 31859
Franklin and Marshall College 31876
Dickinson College 32310
Barnard College 32534
Bucknell University 33840
Tufts University 34008
Boston University 34030
Northwestern University 34143
Connecticut College 34393
Brown University 34743
Lafayette College 34870
Boston College 35078
University of Virginia 35584
Emory University 36257
Washington Univ in St. Louis 36346
Union College 36659
College of William and Mary 38275
Hamilton College 39700
Grinnell College 40314
U of Michigan – Ann Arbor 46000</p>
<p>Just keep in mind that the above list is for this ONE student! There are colleges on that list that do NOT guarantee to meet full need for all students. The need based aid at those schools can vary from one student to the next even with identical FAFSA EFCs.</p>
<p>If your family can pay $20-25k per year, there are schools you can afford with no financial aid at all. I’d think SUNYs would be in this category. You might also be able to get merit aid that would make up the difference between $20-25k and whatever tuition/room-board is. </p>
<p>Some would be guaranteed merit, like if your ACT came up to 32 you’d be good for full tuition at Temple and half to full at Miami OH…there are a lot of schools that would give you that full tuition right now. See the automatic merit thread others have mentioned.</p>
<p>I assume you like your ACT better than your SAT?</p>
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<p>Yes, factors that can result in different financial aid and net price for the same FAFSA EFC:</p>
<ul>
<li>Schools using additional information beyond FAFSA can have different institutional methodologies to calculate their EFCs.</li>
<li>Some schools have combined need and merit in their financial aid calculations. This is often indicated by the net price calculator asking for GPA and/or test scores.</li>
<li>State schools can obviously produce different results for in-state and out-of-state students.</li>
</ul>
<p>When I run NPC numbers on collegeabacus, their numbers come out cheaper by 10K on average when compared with running npc on each college’s website. Abacus asks lot more questions. When you expand it also tells if a particular college is part of CB’s npc. So I don’t know what they use. Anyone with similar experience?</p>
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<p>Question is why would you go to SUNY if for the same or in some cases less amount you can go to a private institute. Of course one caveat is, Private schools are nondeterministic till you get offer. </p>
<p>I think for my stats, I should be able to go to University of Rochester, Syracuse University
for the same or less amount. Right?</p>
<p>Not Necessarily.</p>
<p>The only thing that the FAFSA does is determine your eligibility for federal aid. Syracuse *(which does not meet 100% demonstrated need) and Rochester both require the CSS profile, which will look deeper in to your parent’s financial aid picture. Both ask what kind of car(s) they drive, how much they paid for their home, what is the remaining mortgage, money in the bank, how much money they contribute to their retirement, how much is in the retirement account and all other assorted questions.</p>
<p>I have personally seen HEOP students (very low income- 0 EFC) accepted to Syracuse, this past year with almost 10k in student loans as part of their financial aid package</p>
<p>With U Rochester, don’t think that they will stack merit and financial aid because they won’t. We also didn’t find their offer particularly generous.</p>
<p>*I think for my stats, I should be able to go to University of Rochester, Syracuse University *</p>
<p>All you’ve told us is what your parents will pay. We don’t know what their income/assets will indicate that they SHOULD pay.</p>
<p>Are either of your parents self-employed? Is there a non-custodial parent? </p>
<p>When you used the NPCs, did your parents help you with the numbers?</p>
<p>Yes my parents helped me with their income/assets part. Like I mentioned earlier, my family’s income/assets are very straight forward. No business, no rental property, single primary residence and income is from salary. No divorce etc. Very straight forward.</p>