Hah. Is this a sign of things to come?

Paying for College
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<p>pancaked, I think you got criticism because the OP was dismissive of Drexel after a $20K scholarship and you slammed Bama even though they gave you a scholarship covering tuition plus $3K. I don’t want to pile on that but would point out that any time you say something negative about a school on cc you should be ready for responses. Sometimes I post light-hearted replies, and some people lol while others do not. </p>

<p>As far as your question about what is coming, one question will be how many loans they include in a package and that may vary according to the school and how much they want to throw your way in grants. A place like Princeton has a lot of resources whereas some of the other places may want to be more strategic in their use of FA to get certain students and it’s impossible for us to know whether you are one of those students. I think the best answer to your question is, we can’t predict that, but others who know FA better may give it a shot. At this point a lot of people are waiting.</p>

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<p>I know I sure got scolded here for trying my best to point this student to some important topics. There does seem to be some major info gaps – of the sort that can’t be covered in an internet forum. There is too much variation and too much that depends on personal details (like having siblings in college – how was I supposed to know?) </p>

<p>Sounds like we’re just supposed to offer happy comments and everything will be rainbows and unicorns. Hope it works out that way.</p>

23

<p>Olymom you are incredibly immature. I’ll respond to you over PM. Please do not continue posting on his topic. I have made it clear that I just want a realistic opinions, whether that news is good or bad, but instead you have offered zero information and instead insulted myself/ my parents and suggested I buy a book to cure the plague of ignorance that has infected my family. And, rather than apologizing, you pretend like it’s my fault that you had to be so incredibly rude, because I did not provide enough information to testify otherwise. Wow. Haha.</p>

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<p>When my D applied to schools, we were more concerned about financial aid offers as well. She was lucky enough to get accepted to all her schools. However, financial aid offers varied my as much as 20K per year for “100% need met schools.” So, a quick answer to your question is that there is a good chance another school will be more generous than Drexel and a good chance one will be less generous. You really just have to hang tight until all the financial aid offers are in.</p>

25

<p>Because your other schools will be using PROFILE in addition to FAFSA in coming up with your need, it’s not possible to say how they will look upon your family financial situation. As others have said, that can vary from school to school since PROFILE does not use a set formula as FAFSA does. </p>

<p>However, whatever need figures those schools compute for you, they will meet 100% of need, from what I remember. </p>

<p>Let us know how you do. You have a good back up school, so you are not in a bad place. All the rest is gravy and dessert.</p>

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</p>

<p>Wow, that’s really interesting! That’s the kinda info I was looking for though. Thanks very much (same to cptofthehouse).</p>

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<p>I am self-employed with two businesses. One makes what most would consider a lot of income the other loses what most would consider a LOT of money. My husband has a regular, perm job now that there is no daily work with home construction business. We had EFC of $202 for incoming freshman and $0 for 2nd year kid. I also thought it was unbelievable given our holdings and guaranteed tuition 529 plans. Maybe I made a mistake but, I don’t think so. I answered all questions truthfully and completely down to the balances on the EXACT day I was submitting for all holdings.</p>

<p>I guess I need to stop reading these forums because there are only three possibilities for us:

  1. We made mistake and EFC will increase and we will not get aid.
  2. We didn’t make mistake but, given a further review our EFC will increase and we will not get aid.
  3. We didn’t make any mistakes and we get some aid this year due to large amount of negative income on tax return. </p>

<p>I am hoping for #3 but only time will tell! All comments are only hypothetical answers to any given situation really. What I really want is for the acceptance letters and aid offers to come. The waiting is KILLING me.</p>

28

<p>*OP, I suspect there was a mistake on you FASFA form. There is no way a 110 K income even without assets and savings is 8K. *</p>

<p>*In fact I just ran through Collegeboard’s EFC estimator and with rough numbers these were my results:</p>

<p>Parents’ Contribution for Student = $ 8,548
Student’s Contribution = $ 40
Total Estimated FM Contribution = $ 8,588
Institutional Methodology (IM) Results
Parents’ Contribution for Student = $ 5,689
Student’s Contribution = $ 1,800
Total Estimated IM Contribution = $ 7,489</p>

<p>So it is really beyond me why you all think 8000 is totally unreasonable. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to never have to run through the EFC calculators with absolutely nothing in savings and are merely making assumptions. *</p>

<p>the fact that your family has nothing in savings is irrelevant. Based on INCOME alone, with 2 kids in college (you and a sibling - since 2nd sibling dropped out), your EFC should be about …</p>

<p>EFC about 10,000 if there are 5 in family with 2 in school with income of 110k. However, if your family has overestimated how much income tax it paid, then you may have gotten a lower EFC (which will get adjusted up later when the numbers are finalized).</p>

<p>Again, keep in mind that your EFC will double when your sibling leaves school. And, CSS schools do not split family contribution in half 50/50…CSS schools use about a 60/60 split based on their findings. </p>

<p>*I’m not saying I’d ace my classes/not be challenged at Bama. I am saying that practically every other school applied to has a proven more highly-qualified ChemE program and higher overall school rank. Only thing I’ve done with Bama is talk to a MechE alum who said that his grad degree at New Mexico State made him severely regret choosing Bama as an undergrad. Granted, that’s just one guy, and things have surely changed, *</p>

<p>Not only would I not base an opinion on one person’s experience from years ago, I know for a fact that Bama’s engineering (particularly ChemE since my son is ChemE there) has made leaps and bounds in recent years due to investing mega millions into new buildings, new profs, new equipment, new research facilities, new grants…and those fabulous scholarships to attract the best and brightest. </p>

<p>It is irrelevant that many kids got accepted to Bama …Bama has about a 55% acceptance rate. The fact remains that high stats kids are largely found concentrated in about 6-10 majors…engineering, math, physics, chem, bio, business, nursing, the classics, and a few others. </p>

<p>So, the student who couldn’t make it beyond Algebra II in high school isn’t going to be your classmate in your engineering classes. People don’t seem to understand that. Who cares what the stats are of some kids in lighter majors in buildings across a campus? How does that affect you? Did it affect you in AP Cal AB class that some kids at your high school were struggling to get thru basic math? No. </p>

<p>I really think you need to schedule a visit. I guarantee you that it’s not what you’ll expect.</p>

29

<p>To answer your question, it affects me bcause I am not 100% sold on engineering.
I totally agree that Bama has a good engineering program. I’m merely saying that UTA has a better engineering program, and UTA should come out to a very similar price. Plus UTA is also strong in my other possible areas of interest (business, law). I know rankings aren’t everything but UTA’s programs rank significantly higher than Bama’s. Not to mention, UTA’s graduation and retention rate is significantly higher (for whatever reason).</p>

<p>Bama= 10k tuition + 6500 room/board/books/mealplan - Full Tuition Scholarship - 2500 scholarship = 4k/year</p>

<p>UTA Austin 4.5k tuition + 6000 room/board/books/mealplan -5k engineering scholarship (so far) = 5.5k/year</p>

<p>UTA’s price may go down further if I am offered any scholarships from the university. Also I would be sharing an apartment with several friends, which would cut those costs down.</p>

<p>Bama is the better deal on paper, but I think the education at UTA plus the convenience of being closer to home just makes it a better place for me. Bama is a great school, and I would definitely be considering it if I didn’t have UTA in my backyard (well 150 miles or so), but because I do, Bama just falls second.</p>

30

<p>By the way, UT Austin is just “UT”. UTA is UT-Arlington.</p>

<p>$5k is the per semester (not annual) tuition for engineers at UT. </p>

<p>Tuition for Liberal Arts is around $4.5K/semester.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.utexas.edu/business/accounting/pubs/tf_flatsemf10.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utexas.edu/business/accounting/pubs/tf_flatsemf10.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

31

<p>Pancaked – congrats on your acceptances, with sufficient aid, to two fine schools. That you are focused on cost only shows how mature you are. Best of luck.</p>

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</a></p>

<p>Ah, I see, I was looking at just average tuition I suppose. Thanks for the acronym correction as well, should save some future embarrassment hah.</p>

33

<p>I also wanted to point out that the tuition will be $10k/year so that you could factor that into your decision. Unless you receive addl offers from UT, Bama will be that much less expensive. However, while you are comparing costs, be sure to include transportation expenses-especially if you plan to visit home often.</p>

<p>That said, my S can’t imagine receiving a better education (and college experience) than he has in Cockrell at UT!</p>

34

<p>Oh yeah that was some stupid math. Used semester prices for both schools.
So its more like…</p>

<p>Bama
21k Tuition + 10k Room/board - full tuition scholarship - 2500 scholarship = 7500/year</p>

<p>UT Austin
10k Tuition + 10k room/board -5k scholarship = 15k/year</p>

<p>Makes Bama more competitive, but still, UT Austin’s cost will have to factor in additional scholarships, transportation costs, and reduced room/board due to a shared apartment. </p>

<p>Who knows. I’ll just wait and possibly beg for help in a new topic when it’s time to make a decision.</p>