Famiky friend just received word her S got accepted into Stanford (34 Act, 6 aps, probably a 4.0 - no awards but a ton of volunteer experience - is also native American (like 1/32). She had an EFC of $28K - Stanford gave them $46K, plus $500 to visit the campus in April. Williams’ offer even better - $57K. How rare are these type if offers? I can understand colleges wanting the URM, but was pleasantly surprised at the amount of money the schools were willing to give her S. Thoughts? Want to be prepared in case my DH thinks this is the type of aid our D will get – I think these #'s reflect a student in high demand.
Yes, some schools do have merit within need, but I’d be surprised if Stanford and Williams do. Neither give merit money. It’s rare that an institutional formula would be that much higher than the FAFSA EFC. A school is not permitted to give a dime over the FAFSA EFC if it also wants to give out federal money including work study and subsidized loans. By giving out more than the EFC, it loses the option to give the student any federal funds and has to full y fund that student themselves. Something doesn’t add up here.
Giving money to visit is not unusual. Schools often offer this, even to a parent to accompany when looking for a student for geographical diversity purposes. My son and DH were offered the cost of plane tickets to come visit a school when we did not even qualify for financial aid.
cptofthehouse - thanks. I am just beginning to learn about all the financial aspects of college and always believed that at a minimum, colleges expect folks to pay their EFC, so when she told me that her S’ GC told her that her son’s cost of attendance would be in the neighborhood of $8k at Williams, I am really confused.
I know people who swear they know someone who got merit awards from schools that don’t give them. You can’t believe everything you hear. It is possible that the student got some outside scholarship, perhaps referred to by the school to bring the cost down by that much, but it would have had to have been one heck of an award for the school to give up all federal money for that student. Some schools do that–my college allows stacking of scholarships for the freshman year, and all you lose is your federal monies. The school will not cut back on their grants. But it’s federal law that you can’t go below EFC and still use federal funds.
Some schools, like Harvard, have guarantees that a family with an income under $X doesn’t have to pay tuition. I don’t know if W or S have such a policy. This is regardless of EFC, and the school does forego federal funds if necessary to make it happen.
Stanford is one of the places that offers “super aid”, so the FAFSA EFC may have little to do with how they calculate need.
The practice of giving better “need-based” financial aid offers to students that the school really wants is sometimes called “preferential packaging”. It is basically a hidden merit scholarship.
However, it seems unlikely that Stanford does that. As noted above, Stanford has unusually good financial aid in general (not sure about Williams, but you can use net price calculators on hypothetical situations to see).
@carlson Is your friends DS official recognized.by the tribe?
Gearmom - yes, he has tribal papers.
Stanford has fabulous need based aid that has NOTHING to do with the FAFSA EFC. For income earners below a certain threshold, the cost to attend is 10% of their income.
But free advice here…I would suggest you stop talking about college money with your friends. You will never know the whole family financial story, or the whole college story. And really, it’s not your business anyway.
We heard some very “tall tales” during our kid’s college admissions round. Our favorite was the girl who got a $20,000 merit scholarship from Wellesley. Wellesley doesn’t give merit awards.
Thumper is absolutely right . You can be led on quite a chase if you try to count other people’s money and deals. Not worth it. People lie and leave out parts of stories. Even if true, it doesn’t mean another student is likely to get some fluke award. You takes your chances with your own apps and see where it pans out.
When you’re talking about a NA applicant, there are issues at play that may have no bearing on any other students. NA students are US citizens, but they are also citizens of their Indian nation. Does the tribe have a casino? If so and it produces revenue, there may be money available for registered members to attend college. There used to be BIA money, funds not available to other students. As others have said, don’t even try to count other people’s money because the situations are just too different. And honestly? People aren’t really straightforward about their situations because…I don’t know why. It’s not that they’re all intentionally dishonest, either. Some really don’t understand. How many times do we see people on this forum truly believing they have a full ride simply because they will not be writing checks to the college. How did they not see the word “LOAN” in big letters? I worked out with a woman, a banker no less, who for four years said they were going to “transfer” their PLUS loans to their son when he graduated. Imagine her surprise when she couldn’t. Hello? I’ve been telling you that (but then I’m not a banker so of course I don’t know what I’m talking about).
Though I very much doubt it is the case with either of the two school mentioned, I have seen cases where people consider a PLUS loan as well as other unsub loans and self help, financial aid. Because the school listed them on the fin aid letter. SOme sadly, thought some of those loans were guaranteed and when they could not get them, their kids could not go to that college. My one son’s “girlfriend” a few years ago was in that situation.
We can guess all day, but given the uncertainties that go into the black box of other people’s personal busineess, I would not bother.
Thanks all. I don’t think I know the whole story, and I’m guessing I never will, and that’s fine.
- Williams and Stanford use a combination of both the Federal Methodology (using information from the FAFSA) and the Institutional Methodology using (information from the CSS Profile) in determining need based aid.
Federal Methodology is used to determine eligibility for all federal funds, such as Federal Pell
Grants, Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (FSEOG), William D. Ford
Federal Direct loans, Federal Perkins loans, and Federal Work-Study. If a student is eligible for federal aid, they will receive that aid (keep in mind that FSEOG grants Perkins loans and Federal work-study budgets are different at every school and often a school does not have enough funds to give to every one who may be eligible for these awards).
The college may determine that due to certain circumstances not accounted for by the FAFSA, a family’s
financial strength is different from that reflected by the Federal Methodology calculation. They will
use an Institutional Methodology and their own professional judgment to determine eligibility for
their own institutional scholarship funds. This will make it possible for a family’s EFC to be less than the FAFSA EFC (since neither school is hurting for $$, they have the latitude to make up the difference if they choose.
I agree with Thumper that you should not count other people’s money because you are not getting a complete picture as to what the situation is that prompted the award.
- Williams College offers" merit money" in terms of the William Tyng Scholarship.
The donor of the scholarship requested that the money be used to provide scholarships and career development for students receiving financial aid. The Tyng Scholarship is awarded to approximately 10 students each year. (one student could very well be your friend’s son).
(I remember when the Tyng Scholarship paid for gradate/professional school, but that is no longer the case).
Do schools give preferential packaging? Absolutely!! In fact, I remember my D receiving a financial aid package from Williams that had no loans before they had a no loan policy (we used the Williams package as the basis for a financial review from Dartmouth, which was her fist choice. Dartmouth increased their aid, removed the loans and met the William’s package).
Muhlenberg is one of the few schools that comes straight out on post on their website that they give preferential packaging.
There was an article a on Boston University, where their financial aid person straight out said that need blind does not meet talent blind and they award money accordingly.
In the press this morning there is news about Stanford’s revised financial aid policy. That 46k scholarship looks like the family qualifies for free tuition under the new policy.
I guess the takeaway for me is that there is a huge variability about what colleges can / will offer, and it will depend on the kid and what s/he brings to the table-- for my friend’s D, this ranged from $6k (OSU) to $57k (Williams). Most of the offers came in the $27k-$33k range. This was helpful for me in terms of planning purposes so that I could get an inkling of what I could hopefully expect to see for my D. I appreciate all the input from the folks above - thanks!
cptofthehouse, could you elaborate on this statement you made? “A school is not permitted to give a dime over the FAFSA EFC if it also wants to give out federal money including work study and subsidized loans” I have never heard that and I’m trying to figure out what scenarios this comes up in. Does that mean they have to limit the amount of institutional scholarships/grants they give out so they don’t dip below the EFC?
My son’s FA package at need based only school was considerably more than our EFC suggested (approx $15K/yr more.) His package every year has also included the Stafford loan - but not work study. He is a URM at this school and it’s my opinion that he was given such a good FA package because of that. His stats, etc., were typical of admitted students.
I firmly believe that schools practice “preferential packaging” (aka “show the love” packaging!) when they can. What I’m not sure about is whether a school that offers no merit-based need whatsoever (for example, an Ivy) can deviate from its FA formulas for different applicants based solely on the desirability of the applicant. Can anyone comment on that?
Yes, my son’s school offers no merit aid at all - in their own words “everyone who gets accepted is meritorious” or they wouldn’t be admitted. As I mentioned his package was a lot more than our EFC suggested. Whether it was just their formula I really can’t say, because I don’t know their formula for calculating aid.