<p>To give you a picture of out family's financial situation, if I went to HYP, my dad would pay less than 10k a year based on the new 10% policy. Of course, those three colleges are <em>big</em> reaches for anyone. Unfortunately, FA is a huge factor in choosing a college because I have two younger siblings who will go on to college as well. How are top-LACs such as Wellesley, Williams, and Amherst with <em>need-based</em> financial aid? I'm not expecting it to be just as good as the 10% policy, but any information would be welcome!</p>
<p>Williams and Amherst have their own online calculators at their websites. My experience is that with clear, precise data entered, they can give you a pretty accurate estimate.</p>
<p>However, Williams and Amherst, at least, are only slightly less reachy than HYP. I don't know about Wellesley.</p>
<p>remember that schools where your stats are a match, may be so competitive that they are a " reach" for everyone.
( don't know anything about wellesley- but wanted to remind students & parents , something to keep in mind)</p>
<p>Just did the calculator thing for both Williams and Amherst...the FA is definitely good, but still nowhere near as good as HYP's aid...GAH! Maybe I did something wrong? Ah well, still haven't applied yet, so we'll have to see if I get in first : )</p>
<p>Although Williams and Amherst are very generous schools with ample endowments, their endowments aren't anywhere near the size of HYP. </p>
<p>Good luck with your college search and applications. It sounds like you are really doing your homework on that most important detail: If I got in, could I even go? </p>
<p>Learn the specifics of FA awards at the schools you are interested in. Does the school meet 100% of need? How is EFC calculated? Does the school require supplemental FA forms, and how are they used? Also, is home equity considered an asset? There are quirks that can change the FA package, for better or worse. In your case, what happens when multiple kids are in colleges? FAFSA cuts EFC in half; Profile reduces EFC by only 40%.</p>
<p>Then there is the question of how the school meets need. How are FA packages put together in terms of grant, loan, and work-study. If you get outside scholarship money, how does that impact the FA package? Is loan reduced first or is grant reduced? The more you know up front, the less the likelihood of being disappointed at not being able to attend your dream school for financial reasons.</p>
<p>In our experience, Swathmore was close to HYP. Amherst and Williams were not. Smith, MHC, and Wellesley were behind HYP also. There was quite a range from top to bottom.</p>
<p>re: Project</a> on Student Debt: Promises and Covenants, the site must be dated, right? Because for HYP, students with families earning under $60,000 were still expected to contribute, so I'm guessing it must be from at least a couple of years ago? I certainly HOPE it's dated.</p>
<p>For anyone reading this, which do you think is more accurate, the Project on Student Debt site or the school's own calculators? I looked at my specific income bracket and my financial aid was <em>definitely</em> better when I used the school's (namely, Williams and Amherst) own financial aid calculators.</p>
<p>I have some friends ('08, '09) who chose Amherst BECAUSE their FA packages were better than Harvard/Yale/Stanford. I thought this was a little bizarre. I don't know how it is now that policies are shaking up.</p>
<p>I'm honestly kind of wary of the term "meets 100% of need" now, well-intentioned as it may be. I'm hoping that the actual FA applications are more in-depth and detailed than the online calculators...such as, what if my dad donated a huge sum of money to help my grandparents build a house? That they definitely needed?</p>
<p>little galaxie, if your dad was actually supporting your grandparents (food, shelter, medical care, etc.) then many private schools would take that into account in determining your aid, but giving them a lot of money to build a house would most assuredly be looked at as a choice, not a necessity. Paying their rent if they couldn't would be a necessity.</p>
<p>So, while you may think it's a college's duty to cover the shortfall from your dad's generosity to your grandparents, I would venture that no school, regardless of how generous they might be, would feel the same.</p>
<p>And it's only fair, otherwise people with high income and assets could just redirect them to family or other purposes in the interest of getting better aid.</p>
<p>Don't know where you found your dated info; this is from the Harvard page on the Project on Student Debt: Promises and Covenants :
"How is EFC determined and used?
Institutional Methodology. The parental portion of the EFC is waived for students with family income below $60,000. Between $60,000 and $120,000 the parental contribution averages between 1% and 10% of income, between $120,000 and $200,000 the parental contribution averages 10% of income. Regardless of income the student portion of EFC, an expected contribution of between $1,200 and $1,500, is still required. "
The site keep pretty up to date.</p>
<p>It is tough to know where your best bets are for fin aid/merit aid. Though a school may guarantee meeting 100% of need, as you can see,the definition of need can vary widely. THe definition of "meeting" can vary too. There are schools that give out some very loan heavy packages. I was a bit shocked to find that Wesleyan offered a huge loan package to a young lady whose family cannot afford to send her to such colleges and where a large loan would be ever so inadvisable. I don't consider large loans "meeting" financial need, but just delaying the inevitable.<br>
Some schools that do NOT meet 100% of need, and are not need blind often have packages that are very generous to those they want the most. If you apply to schools where your academic stats put you in the top 5% of applicants and if you have some geographic diversity, you can do well in the merit awards. It is crazy to apply where your app is nothing special in the stack. BC, for instance, gets so many NE catholic high school kids applying with high stats that you really have to be a superstar to get one of their merit scholarshps. If you were from Iowa, however, mmmm, there would be some consideration of that fact.</p>