<p>My D received the estimated financial aid package in March and the official award in May, and yet, it has been revised 3 times afterward when other scholarship information came in as that would affect the financial aid. At the end, everything was settled by the end of July.</p>
<p>My DD received her early estimated awards for two EA acceptances and one rolling admission. These were based on the Profile for one school, and info the school requested early from the other two. The ones NOT using the Profile asked for their form to be completed, and for tax returns from the previous year to be sent as well.</p>
<p>Well…our estimates for income were “off” by $2000. One of the EA schools (not the Profile school) reduced her aid by $9000 a year…no you are not misreading that. The other two schools (the rolling school and the Profile school) didn’t change her aid one dime. </p>
<p>As noted above, you have no way to know your actual financial aid award until you receive the actual award from the college. Any awards based on estimates are estimates…and can change based on your actual numbers from your 2014 tax return.</p>
<p>To the OP…run the Net Price Calculators for your schools. That will give you the best guess on potential net costs for your schools.</p>
<p>You also may not know how much the tuition and fees increase until sometime in the summer. I didn’t find this out for either school my kids attend until the bill arrived. At one daughter’s school, R&B also increase substantially.</p>
<p>There were a lot of expenses this past summer that I was surprised were so high. Travel costs, books, dorm set up. We tried to keep it as low as possible, but there are some things that are just not optional.</p>
<p>^ Yes. The actual CoA is not final either.
On the estimated financial aid package my D received in March, there were loan and work study. But the official one received in May turned both into grant. Then the tuition and boading were updated in July and they sent a revised award letter reflecting the changes with increase in grant to cover the difference. Then, for each external scholarships coming in, they reduced the grant amount accordingly. YMMV.</p>