<p>We are self employed middle class [ $80k/yr] Calif. parents of 1 child who is applying to a wide range of schools-from Stanford, Dartmouth, Brown to Vanderbilt, Boston U and Whitman and Lawrence. He is a National merit semi, gpa 3.9, SATs 1570/1600, talented pianist, has taken 7 ap's[all 5's] plus 4 honors courses at a very competitive west coast prep school. My questions is, can/ should he apply for fin aid ONLY at some colleges [those that are need blind] in order to help his chances of acceptance? If we fill out the fafsa, which we need to do for the possibility of his receiving Merit aid, will all the colleges he is applying to see that he applied for fin aid at some, but not at others? On the fin aid calculators we come out with a PFC of $ $17-$25. Hubby's thoughts are don't apply for fin aid this year, get loans, and apply it for his soph year in order not to jeopardize his chances for admission. Your thoughts/advice is much appreciated.</p>
<p>It seems like most of those schools have a COA of $30-$45k annually, if your EFC would be $17-$25k, wouldn't you need the fin aid?</p>
<p>Rumour has it that most packages are "best" the first year, so you may not find yourself with a workable package in later years.</p>
<p>We could handle it without fin aid,[ requiring lots of belt tightening] but don't want to reduce his chances at acceptance. We are part of the stuck between a rock and a hard place middle class. Scottaa/Sybbie would love your input too.</p>
<p>MenloMom: As self-employed people, you may be able to shift your income to a degree to have a lower AGI in the year which counts, which could be helpful to the overall package.</p>
<p>I do not know much about the financial aid vs admissions issue, as in it has certainly been discussed, but none of us are sure how they determine it...do they look at your finaid forms? Do they go by zip code? High schools (private)? Does a private HS cause admissions to assume you can pay?? Occupation? </p>
<p>One thing I was told by a HS GC who used to work in admissions at a top LAC....admissions admitted as they pleased with no look at finances, but they ranked the admits into three groups, A, B, C, based on the desireability of that applicant in the pool. FinAid used that ABC ranking to help detemine packages, mainly loans v grants. In that case, the finaid had no influence on admissions, but admissions had an affect on aid!</p>
<p>Good luck and keep us informed!</p>
<p>Many of the schools are need blind. Given your finances, you would be making a big mistake in NOT applying for aid.</p>
<p>Stanford, Dartmouth, Brown and Vandy are need blind (dunno about the other three schools), so I would not be concerned with checking the FinAid box on those apps. Definitely apply for finaid.</p>
<p>I think it is always best to apply for financial aid. What is the worse that can happen? The schools says you are not eligible for aid.</p>
<p>If this is the case, they will help you to get low interest loans and offer different financing options to you. If you were looking to borrow anyway, it is a no harm no foul situation. Unless you are sitting on millions of dollars and money is no object, I don't think that any family should simply count themselves out and not apply for aid.
Different schools use different methodologies to determine aid. </p>
<p>Dartmouth uses the FAFSA to calculate EFC and the CSS to negotiate the Insitutional funds.</p>
<p>Please understand that if a school is need blind and you are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident your son needing or not needing aid is not a factor in the admissions decision.</p>
<p>At some schools you at least need to file the FAFSA even to be considered for merit aid. I believe that Thumper has a son at BU so maybe she can give some insight on their financial aid, BU I do know offers merit. </p>
<p>With a combined income of 80k, you would get some aid the business ownership would be a tricky thing and not I am not sure how to advise on that.</p>
<p>Right now Dartmouth is $43810 per year. </p>
<p>If you apply for FA even with with a $25000 EFC, the school will meet 100% of your demonstrated need of approximately 18,810 ($2650 for your son a student loan, about $1500 in work study and about 14,660 in grant aid-money that does not have to be repaid).</p>
<p>Also take into consideration that it is a long time between now and next september. Life happens (not that anyone is wishing anything bad on you) but if you apply, should you have a set back, you can always go back and have the school give you a financial review.</p>
<p>Your best bet would be to apply for a wide variety of schools. You already know that he probably has a safety in the UC system at Berkley, so if you have the application fees let him case a wide net of need based, and schools where you know he is in line to get good merit money. </p>
<p>Some schools (Dartmouth) would be open to negotiating need based aid against other need based packages but Brown does not negotiate unless you can show that you left something out. Need based schools do not negotiate with merit based schools.</p>
<p>There are many schools where your son could be in line for some good merit aid. He should definitely toss his hat at </p>
<p>Vanderbilt
<a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/meritaid.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.vanderbilt.edu/admissions/meritaid.htm</a></p>
<p>Rice
<a href="http://www.futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/Merit_Scholarships.asp?SnID=728823656%5B/url%5D">http://www.futureowls.rice.edu/futureowls/Merit_Scholarships.asp?SnID=728823656</a> </p>
<p>Duke</p>
<p>If interested, he should even apply to Penn where he could be in line to be a Ben Franklin scholar</p>
<p>I hope this helps</p>
<p>"Your best bet would be to apply for a wide variety of schools." AMEN to that. Always make sure you have options.</p>
<p>I also think it would be a terrible mistake to not apply for FA this year. From what you described, I would expect that you should get generous packages from each of those schools.</p>
<p>The only time I recommend to skip the freshman filing is when you have made substantial changes to the student's finances that would adversely affect subsequent years' awards.</p>
<p>One thing in particular to keep in mind. When I have worked with business owners, I have found that they over-value their businesses for FA purposes. Talk to your accountant (assuming you use one) and ask what is the lowest reasonable valuation for your business. This is normally what is sometimes referred to as the "fire-sale" value. Any accountant will tell you there are at least a dozen different ways to value a business. You don't want the one you show the bank when you go for a loan or the one you talk about at parties.</p>
<p>Since you also live in CA, I assume your home equity is pretty over-inflated. Go to the federal housing index calculator at finaid.org and get a more reasonable valuation for your home (normally about 5-10% over the federal index).</p>