<p>How accurate is the NPC compared to the required family contribution (including loan) in a college financial aid package? What would be your experience with respect to the difference?</p>
<p>I kept careful track this past year and we found the NPCs to underpredict the school’s aid. However, my kid is a musician and received music scholarship $. All the schools were out of state publics.</p>
<p>The requirement to have an NPC is new, so its accuracy varies from school to school. Accuracy willl also depend on having a less “complicated” family financial situation. Divorce, self-employment, etc etc aren’t always well represented.</p>
<p>Try asking on the forums of the specific schools (or on the parents forum) to find out how the NPCs are matching up with FA awards.</p>
<p>Some of the NPCs are ridiculously simple in that all they ask is generic information. You will then get an generic answer. If 100 families ran their numbers, perhaps on average, the answers will be right on. But the problem is that you are not an average and what the averages are, make no difference to YOU. It’s the specific, individual number that is all that matters.</p>
<p>Some of the NPCs are being rather dishonest by indicating “grant and merit aid” awards without asking for GPA or test scores. </p>
<p>And, some seem to be assuming that all “eligible students” will get a SEOG grant, when in truth, schools run out of SEOG grants, so many eligible students don’t get this grant. </p>
<p>There was a 0 EFC student whose NPC indicated that he would get over $9k in grants, but in truth, the student only got the $5550 Pell grant. So, it seems (to me) that the NPC just slapped on a $4k SEOG and indicated that the student would receive $9500 in grants (without specifying grant source). </p>
<p>After getting the much lower award, the student did the NPC again, and sure enough, it indicated $9500 again! Ugh!</p>