<p>Hello,
Are there any rankings based on Finacial Aid among the top 25 colleges (Ivies/Duke/Stanford etc). It is known that Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford are the best for Fin Aid. My parents make between 100k to 110k with no significant savings. In fact when I calculated Net Price for Yale, it said it would only cost me 8k per year. But I am not going to apply for HYPS, as they are all high reach for me. I have reasonable chance for Duke/Columbia/UPenn/Cornell/Dartmouth/Brown based on my SAT scores & school rank. I want to do ED for one of these. I will appreciate if experts here on CC can rank these collages based on Fin Aid. I know that aid is not the only criteria for selecting college, but assuming all other are same, I want to know about aid since this would play a significant role in my decision.</p>
<p>Please help me, especially if you have admitted to or your children are admitted to multiple Ivies, how was their aid, if you could rank them in terms aid that will be appreciated.</p>
<p>Since you are on the Columbia board, since you have separated the schools as “high reach” and “reasonable chance”, and since you based your classification of the two tiers of schools on “SAT scores & school rank”, here are the data for class 2015:</p>
<p>Percent of admitted students with SAT >700 in CR, M, W, and percent of admitted students within top 10% of high school class:</p>
<p>Columbia: 79%, 80%, 78%, and 98%
Yale: 78%, 79%, 81%, and 97%
Stanford: 68%, 76%, 74%, and 94%</p>
<p>If you need financial aid, I do not recommend applying ED. You really need to be able to compare FA offers.</p>
<p>With respect to your question though, I can tell you that my D was accepted RD at Brown, Columbia, Penn and Cornell. Columbia and Penn were the most generous with FA, but when asked, both Cornell and Brown matched the Columbia/Penn FA packages. Before matching, the Brown package was about half of the Columbia/Penn package, and the Cornell package was a little bit more than that. I did not know this before my D applied, but apparently most schools will match peer school FA packages. </p>
<p>Thanks camathmom. When we asked Columbia & Penn about Fin Aid, we were told that applying ED vs RD has no effect on amount of aid one receives. Aid received would exactly be same. I am assuming this is true. When I am unable to decide between these schools, I am using Fin Aid as criteria to decide which one to pick for ED. </p>
<p>Your reply kind of confirmed our conclusion that Penn/Columbia will give better Fin Aid than Cornel/Dartmouth & Brown. Off all Ivies, Brown would offer the least, HYP would offer the most.</p>
<p>Our conclusion is below.
HYP (First)
Penn/Columbia (second)
Cornel/Dartmoth/Duke (third)
Brown (last)</p>
<p>The above rankings are purely based on amount of aid they offer for a typical upper middle class household. Any parents out there, please share your experiences if your sons/daughters have been accepted to multiple of these select colleges.
Please include UVA/NWU & CMU to this list if you were accepted there.
camathmom,
Do you mind disclosing who gave better aid between UPenn & Columbia?
Thanks</p>
<p>^ Columbia and Penn gave essentially the same financial aid package.</p>
<p>Just so you know, by applying RD and being able to compare packages (and having colleges match the better FA offers), my D was able to make her acceptance decision based on which school she like best NOT which school gave the best FA. She is now a very happy student at Brown with the same FA package as she received at Columbia/Penn. </p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand why you are applying ED if you need FA.</p>
<p>Its not 8k. Your PARENTS pay 8k. You pitch up more like 14k for yale. Friend supposedly got a full ride because he’s Po’. But yale told him to take a work study and work in the summer for like 5k. He has to pay for some other costs such as going out, travel, and that good stuff. </p>
<p>I feel Harvard and Yale does have the best FA though. Princeton and Columbia has like similar aid. I got the same FA at both places lol.</p>
<p>Thanks for the Info CCsniper & slipper1234.
When I used Netprice Calculator on college board it showed higher NPC for Dartmouth compared to Penn & Columbia for our Income/Assets. It does includes loan component.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add that Columbia’s tuition is $5,000-6,000 more expensive than comparable schools and Manhattan has one of the highest costs of living in the United States.</p>
<p>You’d need approximately $8,000-10,000 more of financial aid at Columbia to make it cost the same as Harvard or Stanford.</p>
<p>Schools give financial aid based on expected family contribution. It doesn’t matter how much more a schools tuition is. If they calculate your EFC to be $X, You pay $X at pretty much all schools of that Caliber.</p>
<p>In our experience, Columbia came very close to the EFC. Cornell was more ($5,000ish?, more loans). This was in 2006. There were no surprises in Columbia’s financial aid offer in subsequent years.</p>
<p>Sybbie, that’s incorrect (and not supported by your link). Columbia offers financial aid packages with no loans (i.e. work-study and grants) to all students receiving financial aid, and these packages guarantee what Columbia calculates to be 100% of need. That said, some families choose to take out small loans to help them meet the Expected Family Contribution they’re required to pay. But Columbia itself doesn’t require students to take out loans as part of financial aid.</p>