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You know, I think I've sensed that all along. I have a few more things to share as you ponder the situation at America's Top Colleges. </p>
<p>My personal scenario was not as simple as the dentist in my example. I knew that my personal grabbag of indecipherible numbers and issues was enough to confuse everybody so I just chose some high points to discuss. I actually set down with two FA officers , and spoke on the phone to two more. I received glassy stares from the first two, dead silence from the second two after their fifth "I have no idea how to treat that." I had decided in our case that since our Fafsa EFC was X and our institutional EFC (Profile) was likely to be X + $3K to X + $13k (literally as close as I could figure) , and since we could afford with struggle our Fafsa EFC we'd let the kid take her shot at some need based aid schools. </p>
<p>Celloguy, do you know that our EFC varied from need based college to need based college by as much as $8k, and that at three primarily need based schools the self help component was removed and then of course, offered back for an out of pocket difference of as much as $16,000? Per year? Of course she was the recipient of those school's highest "award". Penn has it (Vagelos), I believe Brown has it (Sidney Frank?), Colgate does (Alumni Memorial), Hamilton does (Schambach - a need award), Scripps does (any scholarship recipient, a merit award) . It is what we (or at least I ) call preferential packaging where the top applicants at 100% of need schools are given treatment that is more fair. As in "everyone is treated fairly, it's just that some are treated more fairly than others" (my homage to Orwell ;)). Some colleges consider it "merit within need" while all the while eschewing pure merit awards. Several of the schools mentioned also add to the costs of attendance items for their star applicants that they don't add to others to raise the grants, while others eliminate the Profile number if the Fafsa is more favorable to their selected students.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, under what I know about the process, Yale and Amherst were the least generous to my D as they were the most selective schools to which she applied to attend. </p>
<p>Again, merit aid is alive and kicking at many of what you may have thought were need-only schools.</p>
<p>Oh, and the FA guy from MIT everybody raves about on the FA thread for being so clear and helpful -I gave him just a small slice of my "problem pie" and he went screaming away like a scared bunny. ;) AS my profane Aunt Gert would've said "Left so fast I couldn't see nothing but a$#@#$@# and elbows".</p>