<p>I'm a tad confused. When we completed the FAFSA, the submission confirmation page let us know instantly the amount of our EFC. Where do we find that number for our PROFILE? Our son's applicant status links indicate that the PROFILE has been received by his colleges but we still don't know what its magic number was. Is that number determined by each school?</p>
<p>Yes, it is.</p>
<p>The way I understand it, Profile calculates your EFC by the IM method and that is sent with the underlying data to each school you designate. </p>
<p>What happens at the schools, however, is kind of murky. Since the schools use the Profile to decide how much of their own money to give away, they are free to follow or ignore the Profile EFC as much as they want. </p>
<p>For example, there is a consortium of schools that have agreed to ignore the home equity contribution to the IM EFC and substitute in a more generous provision. So each of those schools just ignores the Profile EFC and makes their own calculation. That consortium of schools is publicly known.</p>
<p>The rest of what individual schools actually do with the data is not publicly known, and as far as I know is kept guarded like it was trade secret from applicants and other schools. If a school really needs a tuba player that year, and you are national tuba honoree, the IM EFC may be ignored in your case and you get a windfall. Or if you are one of 10 tuba player applicants that year and in the middle of the pack, you may get nada or a sack of nasty loans.</p>
<p>Thanks, dt. If past experience with my firstborn means anything, we're expecting a sack of coal.</p>
<p>The use of the information on the Profile to determine your aid is determined by the institution...(institutional methodology), thus the variation in awards from place to place.</p>