@thumper1 Yes, kiddo is 100% clear on this. He is very easy going and I don’t think he would be upset if we just fundamentally said we can’t afford it. He is fully aware of our financial limitations. We are still not anywhere near determining if he has an absolute first choice b/c still have 5 schools to visit in the coming weeks, but I’m trying to get a handle on all this in the event that he starts saying he wants to apply ED at one of them.
@sybbie719 Yes, I know how it works and respect the spirit and ramifications of ED (for our family and also for HS). And I would never knowingly enter into a prospective contract like that if affordability was not in range. My original question was what constitutes due diligence and how to determine estimated EFC if the college’s own website offers varying estimates and a broad range of aid possibilities. I’m asking b/c I want to make sure we don’t, in fact, enter into something that would put college, HS, and/or us in a bad situation.
For Pomona, by way of example, I just did a few “calculators” as test, and their NPC says $52k (sounds like this is the # I should go by?), then their My InTuition calculator says $34k/low-$46k/best-58k/high estimates (followed by “And it’s accurate for approximately 90% of families with your financial profile”). I entered same info for both and we have a very straightforward financial situation with no special income/business/farm stuff that would be different on various calculators. The CB institutional methodology calculator comes back with $39k EFC (fed method = $43k).
If we’ve determined that we can afford, say, $45k, is that a reasonable affordability factor to make a decision to apply ED to Pomona (in the scenario above)? If they come back with $52k, would it be reasonable of us to say that it’s too much and can we withdraw if we can’t get an additional $7k in aid? I realize this may sound picky. But for many families $7k can make or break affordability if you’re already maxing out. And thus I’m trying to determine best case scenario before allowing S to consider this as an option.