<p>My S is a rising senior and a recruited athlete for D3, which means there are no athletic scholarships. I believe he can get into most of the LACs (this is based on feedback he is getting fom coaches; he also would have a very good chance of getting into most LACs just based on his academics alone). I am concerned about COA and I have already had "the talk" with him. We will be applying for FA. From what I have read on CC, there is little predictability regarding FA packages. So my thought was to have him apply to about 10 schools and see where the FA numbers come in. Theoretically he could apply to 20 or more schools, but that would start adding up in application fees, and it would be impractical to visit that many. If my goal is to get a reasonable "portfolio" of FA offers, does 10 seem about right?</p>
<p>The number of schools is not the important thing. </p>
<p>What matters is the aid policies of the schools, your finances, and your son’s stats. If you apply to 10 schools with similar aid policies and student stats, you may not get a big spread in the answers.</p>
<p>But I have read elsewhere on CC that aid can vary significantly even between peer schools.</p>
<p>For starters, pull out last year’s taxes and run the net price calculator’s for the ten or twenty you are thinking about. If you have not done so run your estimated financial cost (EFC) prior to starting. It will take you awhile but you will see there are differences between colleges. Another thing to look at is the common data set for the colleges and look closely at the financial aid lines. That will give you an idea how the colleges dispurse institutional funds. There can also be differences between the 300 or so colleges that use profile and the rest of the colleges that use only FAFSA. profile looks much closer at assets and business income.</p>
<p>Peer schools may indeed have very different aid policies. Investigate the aid policies compared to your situation to determine which ones make sense for you, rather than the “shotgun” approach.</p>
<p>How accurate are the EFC calculators at predicting the actual packages? I seem to remember some posts a while back where EFC was not accurate.</p>
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<p>Not true for us. DD applied to several peer LACS with similar aid policies and they varied widely. However, I do have a small business which complicates my finances. But the difference was as much as 15K/year. Despite that, I would not apply to more than 10 and would cut that 10 school list down to 7-8. For D’s 7 LACs she applied to, there were about 3 similar aid packages. The 3 least generous was about the same as were the 2 middle and the 2 most generous. Of the 100 percent no loan schools, Williams and Davidson were the most generous and Haverford and Swarthmore were both 15K lower. </p>
<p>Despite your son being a recruited athlete, make sure you have a financial safety as well. For DD it was our wonderful state flagship.</p>
<p>Like GT alum, there was a huge spread in the financial aid packages, even among peer schools that met 100% demonstrated need.</p>
<p>During my D’s cycle, she applied to 7 schools, all required the CSS profile in addition to the FAFSA. She was ultimately accepted to every school that she applied to.</p>
<p>I can only talk to how it played out in our house…</p>
<p>We received packages from Amherst,Williams, Dartmouth 3 top womens colleges and Tufts.</p>
<p>We had 7 different EFCs and none was equal to the EFC on the FAFSA
3 schools were approximately 2,000 to 3,000 LOWER than the FAFSA EFC</p>
<p>Our EFC from 4 schools were much higher and the loan componet was much larger than it was at the other schools.</p>
<p>In the end, the Dartmouth was her first choice but the Williams gave a better FA package (we used the Williams offer as the basis of a financial review to get a better offer from Dartmouth). However, the Williams package was not the overall best package, we were just looking at 2 peer schools. </p>
<p>Williams gave more grant money, less loans ($0) and this was before they instituted their no loan policy (now gone again), a smaller student contribution, smaller work study obligation, and a smaller parent contribution than Dartmouth.</p>
<p>The difference between Williams Financial aid package and the Amherst Financial aid package</p>
<p>parent contribution (EFC) was 2251 higher at Amherst
student contribution(EFC) 975 higher at Amherst
grant money 4906 lower at Amherst
loans 3500 higher at Amherst
Workstudy 100 higher at Amherst
11,732 If all things would have remained consistent over her 4 years we would have had to come up with an extra $46,928 </p>
<p>You need to sit down with your son and let him know how much you are willing to pay/borrow for his education. If you have a pretty straight forward situation (income from job, primary residence, no non-custodial parents/stepparents) you should get a pretty good read. </p>
<p>However, if you own your own business, own property other than your primary residence, have a non-custodial parent or step parents, your situation could be a little more complicated. Financial aid does not take into consideration debt, someone’s unwillingness to pay, your divorce decree, upside down houses, or that you live in one of the most expensive places in the country. </p>
<p>There can be adjustments for unreimbursed medical expenses (not a lot).</p>
<p>I agree with GT, that you should have a bottoms up approach and have a couple of schools on your list where</p>
<p>Your son stands a good chance of being admitted (early action/rolling)
Perhaps even has a good chance of getting merit $$ (even if it means you have to go deeper)
Has is interest
If it were the only school on the table, he would be happy to attend
and is a financially feasible option for your family.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend applying to 20 schools - that’s too much work and a lot application fees - you should narrow your field -to schools he would want to go to and do the research on the financial aid polices of the school. I would say between 6 and 10 target schools - schools that he has a reasonably good chance of being accepted to and have large enough endowments to give you the grants you need - after your EFC.</p>
<p>Once you have your list of schools prioritize them in groups of 3 or 4 balanced for overall appeal and financial aid considerations, look at the essays required to refine the grouping and then finish all the applications within one group before beginning the next. That way you don’t waste too much mental effort on the big picture up front, you are sure to complete the applications to your favorites/best bets and you can decide when enough is enough as the semester and deadlines unfold.</p>