@tutumom2001, We found the NPCs to be in the ballpark, but our situation is fairly straightforward with none of the things that throw them off. Even the NPCs that are a couple years out of date will give you a general idea. But I don’t think they’re accurate for divorced families, people with lots of assets, business owners, or people with complicated situations.
My daughter has 6 scholarship offers in so far, I will say those schools net price calculators were surprisingly accurate with what she was actually offered. Now we know, all schools don’t use reliable net price calculators and I think this is intentional. NYU is on my daughter’s list, their NPC says they should give her over 30k. They have a reputation for being horrible for aide. If the NPC said 70k, no soup for you, we probably wouldn’t have applied. They want those apps, they want you to get emotionally invested and try to make it work. We’ll see what their offer is if she’s accepted, but I doubt they’d offer her 30k like their NPC suggests.
I agree with @mom2and. I think the predictability of admissions, while not completely accurate, is not totally unpredictable, either. I think the biggest angst is amg those students and families who straddle the less predictable acceptance range and aim high and don’t pursue lower. If you take those same competitive students and have them apply to lower tier schools, the scholarship rate is going to be higher. It is the aiming for the scholarships at the high end amg the possible/probable admissions but less probable scholarships that you probably witness the greatest disappointment.
Re: holistic admissions
Some colleges describe their admissions processes and make it obvious that they are non-holistic. The 23 campus California State University system is an example.
Other colleges may be opaque about how they do admissions, but that does not necessarily mean that they are holistic (or non-holistic, or holistic only for those found to be borderline by stats).
It would not be surprising if many colleges did most financial aid processing by computer, with only those applications with unusual financial circumstances flagged for human review.
Yeah, not much clarity. I assume outside of tippy tops, holism is a nice way of self soothing. And popular large publics that require essays? I don’t think there is anyone reading those essays. Let’s stop torturing the very vast majority of college applicants.
@Sybylla And let’s not get started on this new experiment whereby certain UC’s offer applicants the “option” to submit LOR’s (I see you, Berkeley). I like to think that in their “holistic” approach, the admissions gods use a good essay or LOR as a tiebreaker, in addition to a mere checkbox item (is it here, or is it not? is the applicant capable of following basic directions?) to weed applications out.
@undercrackers According to this YouTube, the essays are used:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=M-4pi-zlk8g
@socalmom007 I pm’d you…
“It would still have to be contingent upon all your information being correctly entered. It seems complicated, what with the NCP issues, larger than usual assets, etc. Are you assuming a computer could crunch all the data and make a decision absent any human element? And what about merit scholarships? Granted, for Ivies and others which don’t award any, it’s easy enough.”
Isn’t that how the revenue service works? I’m not from the US, but certainly my country’s does that. Any inconsistencies are flagged for human overview. Why not give colleges access to tax data, pure and simple?
It would also help if there were some unbundling. Have room and board covered by a mixture of federal grants and loans, guaranteed for four years, as long as the student remains enrolled in good academic standing. Yes, that would mean a sort of federal cap on what colleges could charge for a bed in a tiny triple and 14 meals a week, and yes, colleges would totally cope.
Public colleges could be required to commit to a net tuition amount that corresponds to whatever the system comes up with, sticker price minus financial aid.
Private colleges could do whatever they like. Or, how revolutionary, have to commit to the same rules as long as they receive public funds and tax breaks.
Colleges that want to offer merit aid could be transparent about it. We are looking for these test scores, GPA, musicians, athletes…without guarantees, because there isn’t unlimited money to go around, but commit to the amount IF awarded. So there would be some transparency just how far you’d have to go down the food chain with your qualifications in order to afford the net tuition the college has quoted to you.
Compare the college financial aid process to the process of buying a house. Many house-buyers are pre-qualified with mortgage financing up front or at least they have a good estimate of how much house they can afford. Imagine going house-shopping without a sense of which houses are affordable. Net Price Calculators have made the process better but the college financial aid process can still be improved.
We were more concerned with FA than merit aid, and in our case the NPC’s were pretty accurate. There weren’t any when S applied other than the FAFSA itself, but that ended up being predictive anyway.
However, it seems to me that predicting merit aid isn’t at all easy. For one reason, we can’t know what EC’s or personal qualities a college will like. D17’s college just bragged about their incoming class, and one of the accomplishments of an admitted student the adcoms thought was really great, we didn’t–maybe because DH is familiar with the field and how that accomplishment would have had to happen. Also, it seems to me that private colleges are going to be more strategic than formulaic with merit aid, rendering an analysis of test scores and GPA guidelines to the student’s not totally helpful. For example, let’s say student A and student B have roughly the same profile of rigor, GPA and test scores. But student A would be full pay, while B would get half of the COA in FA. Since aid is usually not stacked, wouldn’t it make sense that the college would prefer to use the merit to discount tuition a little for full pay kids with good stats over FA kids who are already being helped? Also, D’s school publishes GPA and score guidelines for their merit aid, yet on the forum there are students who admit to having lower scores than the guidelines yet still getting that particular merit award.
The NPCs, EFCs, and the info on automatic merit scholarships for incoming freshman (on the school web sites) gave us fairly accurate estimated costs.
What I did not account for, the first time I did the calculations, was a projected increase in income, inflation, and going from 2 in college to 1 in college. But once I got better info into my spreadsheet, I got a clear picture.
A comment on athletic recruits and merit. D will go Div. III, but could go Div. I. Looking at stats, she is a really top recruit for her school and, barring injury, will have immediate impact on the team. Thus we could have assumed that some talent scholarship merit aid would come her way. Yet it didn’t. Again, when we read the college’s list of the accomplishments of some of their incoming class, we saw why. They recruited 2 nationally ranked athletes in a less common sport. Now, that’s not D’s sport, because in that sport no national champion in her right mind would go to this school–she’d have far, far better options. So that outcome was also unpredictable.
@TheGFG Div III doesn’t have athletic scholarships so what talent scholarship are you referring to?
The requirement for the NPC (to put one on the website) is very simple. A college can comply by making the calculator show that every student is full pay, or maybe showing unsubbed loan amounts. The schools turned it into more of a marketing tool by adding their own merit awards (especially if they are totally stats driven), state aid like Bright Futures or Hope, federal financial aid like Pell, SEOG, loans, and finally by showing institutional need based aid. Similar to a car dealer having to show the MSRP and of course being willing to sell the car at that price. Everyone is allow to pay full price.
How many people post on CC that they asked the schools for more money, even though the NPC showed they got what they could expect? If the schools have to stand by the NPC, shouldn’t the families also have to stand by that ‘agreement’? If the student applies knowing that the NPC says the family will receive $40k, should the student be banned from asking for more, or even accepting more? A deal’s a deal, right?
@itsgettingreal17 It’s not that uncommon for D III athletes to earn merit scholarships. Awards can’t be for athletic ability, but athletes can still earn money for test scores, leadership, or department awards for a major, etc. same as other students.
Right, but they can’t get money for having played or excelled at their sport. If an athlete has a 3.0/1200, he can only get the merit aid if others with3.0/1200 are getting the merit aid. If the family’s EFC is $40k, he can only get the need based aid if other EFC $40k families get it.
The school’s website describes the merit scholarship criteria like this: “demonstrate exceptional talent in any of a variety of areas, including the performing or studio arts, foreign-language acquisition, independent research or writing, leadership on a regional or national level.” I suppose I mentally added athletics to those examples of talents, though admittedly I saw D’s sports accomplishments as mostly icing on top of her strong achievements in an unusual extracurricular academic involvement.
Even though I think twoinanddone is correct in theory, in practice there are lots of CC parents and people IRL who claim that Div. III schools “find merit money” for top athletes. I was never sure if that was just them bragging about their skill in working the system, or if it was reality.
I think many parents believe the schools are finding merit money (or need based aid) for athletes. I believe those parents are incorrect. Coaches and athletic directors will do everything they can to make sure the athletes get the aid they deserve, and athletics certainly helps the students get into the schools, but the NCAA is pretty serious about D3 schools (and the Ivy league) following the ‘no athletic scholarships’ rules.
Leadership is an interesting question for the athletes. Many do have leadership through their sports, having been captains or leading the team in practices and activities. Should that count as much as a boy scout who leads his group or a MUN participant who leads the team? I think it should, so if there is a merit scholarship that requires leadership that athlete should get credit for that. Maybe that’s what is confusing?
Yes, that’s the way I understood the parents’ claims. At top schools especially, athletes are not one-dimensional in their EC involvement. They, like all the other students, demonstrate several areas of excellence. So let’s say a top athlete is also a great debater. Voila, the school can then award him one of those vague talent merit awards for his talent in debate, even though in reality that particular ability is not what they find most attractive about him as a candidate. Apparently, as the rumors go, coaches tell athletes that admissions will find them some money somewhere. I can’t tell you how many people told me that when I said my D was going to go Div. III. If false, it’s a pretty entrenched urban legend.