<p>Thank you, sybbie.</p>
<p>I’m weighing all my options. It can be overwhelming but I know, in the end, I’ll belong somewhere and be happy.</p>
<p>I worry more about my friends who are in the same financial boat and don’t have the options that I do. Many are contemplating huge loans for very middle of the road schools.</p>
<p>Financial aid award letters are often very difficult to decode - sometimes intentionally.</p>
<p>I view your aid package just a bit differently than Sibbie since in my view the unsub stafford is not really self-help as it is an unsubsidized loan with interest accruing while you are in school. By standard definitions of need-based aid your unmet need is 8004 for which they suggest a 2000 unsub stafford and a 6004 PLUS. </p>
<p>Your actual PLUS eligibility, if you take the unsub (and your parents pass the credit check), is 6004 + 4124. Your upfront family contribution (as opposed to the federal EFC) for this school is 12,128. Your full contribution (including self-help) is 19,628. </p>
<p>Your full ride elsewhere seems a very good alternative.</p>
<p>Packaging a PLUS loan in a way that looks like it is meeting need is not considered “best practice”</p>
<p>BTW - a review of their common data set shows that they don’t CWRU does not meet 100% of need. (I don’t think they claim to meet full need.) For 08-09 they met full need for 86% of the fin aid applicants.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>“sometimes intentionally” </p>
<p>How can we tell when it’s intentional? Is there a list of schools that do this intentionally?</p>
<p>I view any loan that the school provides as bona-fide aid, e.g., Stafford sub and unsub (the only difference is the interest), but not PLUS (where parents must qualify). I agree that counting PLUS as aid is a foul.</p>
<p>shoould icon receive an outside scholarship, the first thing to be reduced in his/her FA package would be the stafford loan, followed by the workstudy.</p>
<p>Case is a school that does not meet 100% of your demonstrated need, most FAFSA schools do not meet 100% demonstrated need.</p>
<p>According to the college board they meet ~88% of your need.</p>
<p>icon’s package is ~87% need meet ($30,430 +9500)/45,934</p>
<p>[College</a> Search - Case Western Reserve University - Cost & Financial Aid](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>In Case’s world they did pretty much what their stats said they would do.</p>
<p>Sigh. It appears they do not meet need. I was misinformed, unfortunately by someone in their FA office who claimed that they did, indeed, meet need.</p>
<p>Thankfully, the application was free or I might be requesting a refund!</p>
<p>mmd – I understand what you’re going through, I got a similarly bad FA offer from the U of Chicago, my former first choice school. My federal EFC was about $33,000, but the U of C thought $55,000 in loans would be perfectly acceptable for my family.</p>