Ok…I apologize in advance if this is obvious, but I have a few questions in regards to schools that “meet full need”. D2 is dreaming of Boston College or Vanderbilt. Both are reaches. However, we did the NPC for both, and both came in below 10K. Doable for us financially. So IF she were to get in, is this around what we would pay? How does this tie in to early decision? If we need the aid, should we take a chance with ED for Vandy, knowing that most of their admits come from that round? Or will we not get much aid and then be bound to ED? Really confused as to whether to steer her away from these two now, or give them a shot. Thanks for the insight!
There is debate concerning merit aid in the ED round. Need based aid should not be affected by ED. If you feel that you cannot afford the school with the aid provided you can be released from the agreement.
Remember that it is the need determined by the college, not what you feel that you need. NPC’s work best for families whose income derives from wages and salaries. Situations such as divorce, owning properties other than your home, self employed or business ownership complicates the situation. Also the met need will include loans at all but the topmost schools.
Yes, if the NPCs are reasonably accurate, and if you entered all the requested data correctly.
At a true meets-full-need school, there shouldn’t be any difference in the amount of need-based aid offered between an ED acceptance and a RD acceptance.
See the answer above. If the aid offered with an ED acceptance isn’t close enough to what the NPC predicted, you can first bring that to the attention of the school’s FA office. If the result isn’t satisfactory, you can always decline the offer of admission as unaffordable.
BC does not have ED, only EA, though BC does not allow the applicant to apply elsewhere ED. Vandy has ED2 - I wouldn’t know whether the Vandy acceptance rates for ED1 vs 2 are available, but worth a look. Perhaps apply to BC EA and then, if that doesn’t work out either for admission or FA, apply ED2 to Vandy? (I presume applying ED2 would require turning down any BC offer, but at least you’d know what it was before deciding to do that. Or, you could still decide to sit tight and apply RD to Vandy with a BC EA offer in hand.)
BC pledges to meet the full need of accepted students…and it doesn’t matter if they apply EA or RD.
So does Vandy.
Both schools are not heavy on merit aid awards…in fact BC gives precious few concentrating mostly on need based aid.
When you did the net price calculator, you just needed to be accurate in the info you provided.
But…if you are self employed or own your own business…or parents are divorced…or you own real estate in addition to your primary residence…the NPC might not be as accurate. Do any of these things apply to your family?
Here is the BC early action guidelines.
https://www.bc.edu/admission/undergrad/process/freshman/deadlines.html
Thanks all…we DO own a cabin, but the CPA husband was spot on with all the details when doing the net price calculator. Such a tough call, especially since BC only allows 15 into her major at the end of Freshman year. That seems like a very high bar.
You can be spot on with the details…but BC will look at that cabin as something that is a choice…and the full equity of it will be viewed as an asset.
I’m not going to pry into your income lvel, but most CPAs I know would be at an income level that would generate a family contribution of more than $10,000 and that is without the equity in a second home.
Please check your numbers carefully.
You can file your FAFSA now…and you will get your FAFSA EFC almost immediately. Maybe do that?
Your second home equity will be an asset in th FAFSA.
Do you have more than one kiddo who will be in college at the same time? If so! Perhaps that is why the net cost is $10,000. But what will you do when the first kiddo graduates?
On that case, I’d have no regrets applying to Vanderbilt ED since it’s affordable.
I agree 10k seems mighty low for a professional’s income, plus a 2nd home. Is he working for his own business? If so, business expenses he excluded or subtracted in his math will be added back in. (Very different than how the IRS looks at things.)
And the only “retirement” that can be excluded is that in Qualified Retirement Plans. That means, not funds you may have earmarked, in your own minds, but in ordinary investments.
We’ve been talking costs and aid on CC for a long time. Over that time, some have shared their income and the need-based aid they got. A net 10k cost is so highly improbable. Your income would need to be quite low. Plus you have the second home.
Read up on how FA works.
@Buchholt What major only allows 15 in at the end of freshman yr? I hadn’t heard that there are any capped majors at BC.
Prep your kid for the fact that they WILL need to turn down the ED offer if it comes and the school is unaffordable. Don’t have her stop preparing her apps and submitting them to other schools by their deadlines until she has a workable ED FA package in hand. You can ask for an extension on the ED offer if you need to appeal the ED FA offer. Do not withdraw her other apps until you have an offer you can live with. Warning, it is very stressful to go through this, especially if you end up turning the ED offer down – just so you and your kiddo are prepared for that possibility.
@evergreen5… she is looking at Enviromental studies with a concentration in Sustainability
Yes, we do have 1 in school now, then 2 more right around the corner. Income level is what is is with only one of us working and an accountant in the service industry 
and the cabin isn’t really that much of an asset(trust me) Anyway, thanks to all of you for the help. Now that we see BC is more selective in EA, we got some big decisions to make!
OP- go through the course catalog with your D and make a list of the courses that are required (and suggested) for the Environmental/Sustainability major. These names are nice, and zippy, and appeal to 17 year olds-- but it is TOTALLY not necessary to major in environmental studies to work in sustainability if that is her goal. It’s like the specialized e-commerce tracks which were announced with great fanfare in the late 1990’s- the tech bust of 2001 killed off most of them. Tens of thousands of people get jobs in e-commerce every year and they don’t need a major that specialized.
Plain vanilla mechanical engineering, earth science, geology, geography, agronomy, climate science, economics, finance, history, chemistry, nutrition, political science, forestry, math/statistics-- all of these can get her launched depending on her specific interests (which of course will develop in college).
It’s great if she gets into her ED/EA choice with an affordable package, but having a balanced list is important too. Who wants a mopey teenager Christmas week who is dealing with either rejection from her top choice- or worse- getting accepted with a package you just can’t afford??? And rather than licking her wounds- she’s got to move another 6 applications out the door???
Focus on helping her with Plan B.
Also, it sounds like finances are a significant consideration for your family. You will have no chance to compare net costs amongst colleges with an ED application.
You might want to do the EA applications…and Regular decision applications instead. That way…you will have the ability to compare net costs amongst a number of acceptances.
What will happen if she gets accepted to BC, but then does NOT get accepted into that major? What is her plan B for THAT?
I agree with @blossom. The name of the major doesn’t matter that much. In addition to the majors @blossom spelled out, she will benefit from relevant internship or work experiences during college.
The BC NPC sounds wrong, even with 2 in college. BC is notorious for lousy aid even with “meet needs” claims.
If your CPA husband put in “depreciation” when he figured things out, that depreciation will get added back in. Assuming that the cabin is also on land that you own, that also has value. So even if you don’t think the cabin is that great, the land might be.
Vandy gives super aid, so perhaps with 2 in school it might be that low…
Do you have much equity in your home?
We’re retirement contributions added back in?
Do you have any other assets/savings/investments?
Is your husband self-employed?
How much aid does your current college student get?
Yes, please answer @mom2collegekids questions, which will help to know if that 10k number sounds right.
Your situation sounds, on the surface, very similar to ours (D is a senior at Vandy), and that EFC sounds right for 2 in college.
Anecdotal: We have a simple financial situation (no cabin), We ran the NPC and then called Vandy financial aid, who also looked at our numbers and said it all looked correct. So we went with ED2 because D had decided Vandy was her favorite and we could afford the calculated EFC. The aid we received matched the calculator almost dollar for dollar. I stress again that we had a simple financial situation.
Also, be sure to factor in any increases to salary or assets over the entire 4 years, as this will obviously affect your aid package from year to year. We took an older child out of private elementary school in D’s second year (not very expensive tuition at this school btw) and Vandy literally added the exact amount of tuition onto D’s EFC. We were not expecting that. When we asked, they told us that “if we could afford x for other kids’ private school, we could afford it for Vandy.” Ironically, one of the reasons we took kid out was because we actually found paying for both schools financially straining.
Both Vandy and BC have friendly and helpful FA departments willing to work with families before they apply. They will be upfront with you and answer your questions about how they view their applicants.
In our situation, BC made it clear to us that, all other things staying fairly consistent (DH’s salary, assets being reduced by the last year’s college costs), they would expect a huge reduction in FA after older son graduated - they hit us for the fact that the money that was spent on him would now be available, too, and the fact that the family size was much smaller - even if older child remains a dependent and attends grad school, they feel that would be a choice.
If you own a house AND a cabin, BC is notorious to factor both into financial aid (and will basically expect you to sell the cabin to pay for college). They use the full equity for the primary residence and full value for secondary housing.