<p>Although I am not sure how much financial aid I will be offered by UChicago, I have heard that their financial aid is not good.
If I have really good offer from Swarthmore, could I use this offer to get more money from UChicago? It seems like at some colleges this works, but at others it does not.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>This approach did not work at UChicago for me. I got a better offer from Northwestern and told them. They said they would not match. You should still try. Good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice. I love uchicago, but I really will have to base my decision on financial aid.</p>
<p>What if the FAFSA EFC and their EFC show a 20k difference? One of my friends at UChicago right now told me that that’s a legit reason to call, but I was wondering if this has happened to anybody else and if they’d tried yet.</p>
<p>(My FAFSA EFC = 15k, Chicago’s EFC from EA = 35k. Big difference, eh?)</p>
<p>Obdurate comes to mind.</p>
<p>Chicago’s aid was amazingly generous for me. My FAFSA EFC was 31K while Chicago’s is 23K.</p>
<p>Yea Chicago has good FA. I just got my official statement and am very happy with it.</p>
<p>^Blanket statements are no good when it comes to Financial aid. 
I just got my official statement and am not happy with it.</p>
<p>That aside, the general feeling I’ve gotten from other posts on the Chicago board is that in general, Chicago won’t negotiate - which is why I’ve now ruled it out as an option.
Hope your package is good!</p>
<p>FAFSA EFC and PROFILE EFC (which Chicago uses) use different things to calculate need. We found that at the schools that used PROFILE, our EFC was about $7k lower than the FAFSA EFC figure.<br>
Profile has a little more flexibility and professional discretion, so if you have unusual expenses, it can work to your advantage.</p>
<p>This might be the wrong place to post this, but:</p>
<p>I got my UChicago financial aid package today . . . The thing is, my parents just sent out their 2008 tax return yesterday and it most certainly has not gotten there yet. So, I’m assuming the aid is based on what the information we gave UChicago back in the EA round (and, sure enough, the grant amount they’re giving me is the same, though they’ve added some word-study, which I’ll admit I’m happy about). Should I call them and tell them that my parents’ 2008 tax returns are getting there and then ask for them to re-evaluate my aid? Or should I just let it go?</p>
<p>And if I were to try to make a case about them raising my FA, how would I go about this? Their EFC vs. FAFSA’s EFC still shows a 15k difference (though not a 20k difference anymore, thank God) . . .</p>
<p>Also, when we first completed FAFSA, we found out we had made a mistake; my parents somehow reported that I made an income of 60k (ahahaha, I wish?). We’ve corrected it and even updated FAFSA two days ago with new information off the 2008 tax returns. I don’t know if they’ve gotten the corrections as of yet . . .</p>
<p>I spoke with Chicago FA office a few days ago. My issue was that they received my 2008 taxes a day after they sent out the FA packages. I was told that if my PARENTS can send in (fax/scanned email/mail) a letter asking them to recalculate the package based on the new information, they have a 10-day turnaround for recalculating the package based on the new tax information provided. Note that the letter asking for recalculation has to be SIGNED by a PARENT. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>