"Full need" are they kidding

<p>My EFC on Fasfa is $12,000... I got accepted and Holy Cross is $56,232. They gave me a $5000 Holy Cross Scholarship. $56,232 - $5000= $51,232 . I know they use their own formula for financial aid but this is a complete joke. Anyone else dealing with something so unrealistic?????</p>

<p>wow, that’s disappointing to hear. They bill themselves as need blind and therefore they’ll meet 100% of need. Sort of false advertising…</p>

<p>I would call ask and them. They unlike some schools like Yale, meet need with loans also, but that disparity seems odd.</p>

<p>My daughters applied to various full need schools with different results, but they weren’t more than 10,000 difference and a mixture of grants, scholarships, parent loans and government loans.</p>

<p>Thanks for your responses.</p>

<p>My EFC is$0 and I still have to pay $17,000 a year plus more loans…Holy Cross was a nice thought</p>

<p>Has anyone had any luck visiting the college and asking how they calculated there “full need” awards?</p>

<p>I would be curious, this was on US News:
[College</a> of the Holy Cross | Paying for School | Best College | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/college-of-the-holy-cross-2141/paying?int=a-local_navigation-local_navigation]College”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/college-of-the-holy-cross-2141/paying?int=a-local_navigation-local_navigation)</p>

<p>I know Bryn Mawr didn’t give us as much as others in the same income category, or they got less loans. Each school does use what’s available to them, not just fafsa. Holy Cross has CSS Profile which has assets, etc. One parent told me she thought I received more, (same number of children, income, etc) because our assets were much less, including 401K. But that said, exactly how they figure it is individual. We had 3 or 4 full need, different in how they gave packages.
Colleges that met only 70 or less were unworkable for us, except those that gave a generous merit award.
They have the calculator also:
<a href=“Net Price Calculator”>Net Price Calculator;

<p>I admit, they didn’t give the most generous “full need” but close enough for me to say “ok”…I will never totally figure it out.</p>

<p>I’m actually kind of angered by the HC Financial Aid policies. My S got in there and it would be his first choice. He also go into St Lawrence, Elon,. Loyola (MD) Fairfield and UConn. All of the schools except HC offered him Merit money and the out of pocket price for all of them for us would be about 33k a year which would leave him with a worst case scenario of $60k in student loan debt after graduation. Not great but manageable for a kid with a decent job.</p>

<p>HC offers no merit money and S would be left with a “worst case scenario” of $160,000 in student loan debt. That is insane and irresponsible to expect a kid to pay.</p>

<p>My question is: Where does the money at HC go? Their endowment HAS to be larger that either Farirfield or Loyola, both Jesuit schools that offer merit money? Does the HC football program really suck up that much money, are they mismanaging their endowment portfolio? It just doesn’t make any sense to me and seems to be out of line with the Jesuit phiklosophy and other Jesuit institutions.</p>

<p>Forget the Jesuit principle when it comes to colleges and schools. They do not meet full need by a long shot other than GTU, BC and allegedly HC. The need formulas of the Catholic schools are different from the main privates too. </p>

<p>But, no school that is need only is going to fare well at times when you start mixing merit and need. HC does offer merit but it’s very limited. It also guarantees to meet full need, but it does define the need,’</p>

<p>I would call with other schools numbers in hand and find out where the difference is in HC’s calculations, or if it’s a mistake. The FAFSA EFC is not going to come into play here, other than accessibility to federal money. All that EFC does is give you a maximum over which you cannot get federal aid and assess PELL eligibility. That’s it. Trying to hold any school to that EFC is a losing endeavor. None of them guarantee to meet it and if you have NCP, home equity, a business, just to mention a few things, it can blow up that EFC easily. </p>

<p>Did you try the Net Price Calculator for HC and compare it with other schools’ for how it plans out that way? If the numbers are not jiving, it’s another issue one can question.</p>

<p>My son’s school has a lot of kids going to HC each year, and they do seem to be satsified overall with the financial aid packages, but very few get merit money from them. In fact, I don’t know anyone who went there in the last few years that got merit. Those offered it ended up at HPY et al type schools, and many of them went full to those.</p>

<p>Probably preferential packaging, for students they really want to enroll and who are in the very top of the applicant pool, a very attractive financial aid package is offered. If the applicant falls into the middle of the pool or is in the bottom of the pool, then their FA package will be less attractive, less grant money and more loans. When you apply, you do not know where you are going to be in the applicant pool, even if you feel your stats are a match.</p>

<p>Catholic schools like Holy Cross, Boston College, Georgetown, Notre Dame, all seem to have their own quirky formulas. Colleges determine your need and they can tinker with the numbers, the assets etc, and determine how much they will offer. With CSS PROFILE schools your financial situation is under a microscope basically.</p>

<p>Actually, I did a quick look at what HC does in terms of merit and financial aid. VERY few merit awards. Like a half dozen kids get merit money, so that is NOT the place to look for merit, which goes along with what I have seen in that the only kids who got offered merit from my kids’ school were those who were the top of the top, and I don’t think any of them ended up going there.</p>

<p>But what is interesting when you look at HC and you ask what they are doing with their money, it looks like 75% of their kids are on financial aid. That’s a lot. And the average award is $33K, with the average grant about $30K. At most schools of that category, about half the kids will get that kind of aid.</p>

<p>Both Fordham and HC are jesuit schools and their models are very different. Fordham hardly gives out ANY financial aid but is very generous in terms of merit money. HC does give out a lot of financial aid, relatively speaking, but very little in merit. </p>

<p>Slumom, no idea about the preferential packaging for that school. Most of the kids I know who ended up going there were full pay. I was surprised at the aid distribution numbers when I looked them up.</p>

<p>IF I am to appeal the FA award would I do that by phone or send them a letter?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>I would call and talk to someone. They can give you clear directions on what to do in this situation.</p>

<p>I got about $1000 more than my efc</p>

<p>Interesting thread…</p>

<p>I agree with you OWUKID that I am very upset with HC need based program. Holy Cross is my D number one school too. We just got our FA letter two days ago and she receive $0 money. She only received $7,500 in loans and $1,800 work study. That is a joke! $7,500 loans is still debt. We are very upset. We make good money over six figures but not a lot of money. We will still have to take loans out to pay for her college. I think middle and upper middle income people get screwed with this need-base aid/scholarship. Poor people get money (FA) and rich people do not care because they can pay the bill. I would love for my D to go to HC but $56k a year is way to steep. She got $18,000 a year ($72,000 total) merit scholarship from Providence College. HC is higher rank school then PC but not worth $72,000 more. It’s paying $56,000 at HC or $38,000 at PC. What would you pay?</p>

<p>If you feel being short changed on FA, I strongly suggest that you contact FA office for an appeal ASAP (as in TODAY). Let them know HC is your top choice. If you have a better offer elsewhere, send them a copy of make your case. HC is very keen on improving yield. Given how much effort your family put in, you owe it to yourself to appeal. It ain’t gonna improve if you don’t try.</p>

<p>Is it tough getting FA from HC if you own rental property</p>

<p>Short answer…yes. If that property is worth a fair amount of money and the income earned is additional to an already generous salary. But this is not the case just at HC but at many of the schools that offer only need-based aid. Students and parents also often forget that while FAFSA only requires financial data from a custodial parent, CSS Profile schools want information from both biological parents. When the non-custodial parent is pulling down a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and owns a condo in Scottsdale the paltry size of the FA award can come as a big surprise to those who haven’t done their homework.</p>

<p>They do give full rides if you are very needy. I met a young woman today that said she trying to figure out her study abroad options…she gets a full ride so she gets a full ride in UK. They will give her a check for plane… She was very grateful as were others my daughter has met. How they come up with the numbers is influenced by the CSS profile.I wish we had more but I didn’t think it was unfair.</p>