How accurate are these net price caculators?

Am I seeing these numbers right? Whew! Overwhelmed by the cost of what is coming at us, as I am sure all of you are. I have a junior who has worked really hard and in the final list of colleges for next year after long year of touring schools. His stats are: ACT 36, GPA 5.255. No sports, but plenty of extracurriculars. He is a strong candidate for National Merit Semifinalist and Finalist, but nothing is certain. We make too much for aid, and not enough for paying for it all. We are still looking at paying anywhere from $15-20,000 per year. Holy cow! Where is the tipping point with colleges? You would think with his stats he would get better numbers on these net price calculators. Will the aid amounts magically improve when the final packages get on the table? Or are these net price calculators painfully accurate?

Ok…not enough info to really help but a few points I can make.

  1. It is possible that your high achieving student can get some merit aid at a few schools. For example...if he is a NM finalist, I believe he would be eligible for very generous merit aid at University of Alabama. Very generous. @mom2collegekids can explain the awards.
  2. I’m a little confused. You say you are not eligible for ANY financial aid, but you will be paying anywhere from $15,000-$20,000. Who is paying the rest? What colleges cost that only $15,000-$20,000?

Many middle income families would be thrilled to find a college that costs $15,000 a year…so do share.

  1. Need based financial aid is largely based on parent income and assets. Some colleges have more generous aid and deep pockets and families with incomes in the $150,000 a year range still qualify for some need based aid. These tend to be the most competitive colleges that guarantee to meet full need for all.
  2. MERIT aid is based on the strength of your kid’s application...his SAT or ACT score, GPA, letters of reference, ECs, etc.

5.now…the loose cannons out there. Are you self employed or do you own a business? Do you own any real estate in addition to your primary residence? These things can really make a difference in terms of need based aid from school to school.

Unless your situations is as described in 5 above, they are fairly accurate. If you tell us what your son wants to study, what type of school he is interested in (big/small, urban/rural) we can suggest schools where he has a good shot at merit.

Not all net price calculators include merit scholarships in their estimates, though some do. Most of the time, they estimate need-based aid, whether or not they also estimate merit scholarships.

http://nmfscholarships.yolasite.com/ is an older list of National Merit scholarships. Check on college web sites because some may have changed.

Outside of your high school, it is best to use unweighted GPA with some description of course selection and rigor for most purposes, since no one else knows what a weighted GPA of 5.255 means.

Our EFC is 15k a year and that’s about what we have paid out of income for our eldest and going to pay for middle (a little less for eldest who picked up departmental and endowed scholarships starting sophomore year.) My kids got into schools that meet full demonstrated need and they receive a boatload of aid to bring our cost down to 15k. There were a couple schools that weren’t full need but surprised us with enough merit and financial aid to make them do-able (15k-20k.) Our state schools Were only truly competitive if our kids commuted from home, surprisingly enough.

Now, our kids weren’t candidates for the few full-tuition or full-ride merit scholarships out there. Your kid sounds like they could be if they cast the right net. Getting under an already relatively low EFC is pretty tough outside of that and it’s difficult to find a college that’s full price is actually cheaper than 15k unless it’s a live at home situation… at least that is what we found.

Thank you for your responses. I believe it’s just initial sticker shock. We are getting it in perspective with spreadsheets and plans for payment. 15-20k is after merit package, but we make too much for need based. Just wanted to make sure I was reading that correctly. Looks like at the State University he could potentially be walking away with $30k in debt after tapping our savings which I see is statistically average. Thank you so much for the list of National Merit friendly schools. We are examining those now. As for SC GPA… Theoretically if one were to take all AP classes (does ANYONE do that?), I believe the highest average one could achieve would be a 6.0 as they moved to a 10 point grading scale in 2016. South Carolina uses a Uniform Grading Scale Conversion where Quality Points are assigned each earned grade percentage. SO GPA=sum(Quality Points*units)/sum of units attempted

University of South Carolina and College of Charleston are both excellent schools for you…instate.

Your son likely would get at least some merit aid at both schools…reducing the costs even more.

Our New England kiddo liked both schools…applied to SC, and got a great merit award with far lower stats than your son had.

I know,…he probably thinks staying in state is not a good idea…but for the money, you can’t beat these two schools.

Looks like https://ed.sc.gov/tests/tests-files/assessment-information/sc-uniform-grading-policy-2016/ describes the South Carolina high school GPA calculation.

However, you still need to recalculate an unweighted high school GPA based on A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, F = 0 when considering colleges other than South Carolina public universities.

Well if you are in sc you should be eligible for palmetto fellows scholarship with is $6700 ((more 2nd year and if STEM). If you are NMF then that’s guaranteed 10k at UofSC. Instate COA is around $25? Good chance of honors college and maybe additional scholarship. UofSC with stack NMF with other stuff. I don’t think Clemson is as generous but still pretty reasonable

Adcoms at top holistic colleges will look at the transcript, course rigor and grades (letters or a 100 or scale.) Not the weighting scheme. So for discussions here, just convert those grades per post 7.