<p>I've done the online financial aid calculators for many comparable schools (Rice, WashU, Cornell, Northwestern, etc.). Most of them left me with an expected contribution of ~$25-35k/year.</p>
<p>However, I did Duke's FA calculator and my estimated contribution was only $6k/year. I used the same numbers for all of the schools, obviously. This seems almost too good to be true! I'd really like to apply ED if that estimate is right since I'm not going to get close to that much aid anywhere else.</p>
<p>My family's income falls below that golden $60k mark, but our assets are fairly high and our home is paid off (I did include that in the calculator though...)</p>
<p>Has anyone else had a similar situation? Receiving a considerably more generous FA offer from Duke than from other similar schools? Thank you for all input!</p>
<p>You might want to ask this question on the Financial Aid discussion board - there are a number of experts there who know FA systems well.</p>
<p>My impression, based on twins who will be freshmen next week (yikes!) and applied to a number of highly selective schools, is that Duke is, on average, slightly more generous than all but HYP. However, every school has a different formula that makes each application unique and reputations can vary even from year to year. Your assets might be the determining factor here, or it might be something else of which you are not even aware.</p>
<p>I found Duke’s NPC to be accurate. I also was politely rebuffed by the FA office when I appealled our offer. </p>
<p>If the NPC estimate will work for your family, and Duke is clearly your top choice (based on more than just finances), I would definitely encourage you to apply ED.</p>
<p>Duke’s policy is that with less than $60k (including retirement contributions, if any), the only aid given would be the student summer contribution ($2.1k), work-study ($2.2k), and loan (between $2k-3k).</p>
<p>I found Duke’s FA (for a family making ~$75k/year with 401k contributions added back in) to be average for schools it competes with. Rice gave me less, WashU gave me more, Wake Forest gave me about the same.</p>
<p>However, with such a drastic difference, I stronly suggest running the numbers again.</p>