<p>Must you apply for FA to all the schools on your list, or can you do some for FA and others as FP?</p>
<p>granny2: You can pick and choose which schools to check that FA box.</p>
<p>It might be worth bringing up for new readers here who are weighing whether or not to apply for FA that, for most schools, if you don’t apply for FA in the first year your child attends, you will not be able to apply for FA in succeeding years unless there is some drastic financial change, like a death or both wage earners losing their jobs with no prospects in sight. The reason for this is that the FA budget is allocated per incoming class; if you are FP that first year, they expect you will be FP for the remainder of your child’s time there. If there is any doubt, please verify with each school. We’ve seen posters who try to use “no FA” as an admissions edge expecting to apply for FA in subsequent years; that can backfire very, very badly.</p>
<p>You should be estimating from gross income, not AGI.</p>
<p>@Periwinkle: I think we may go with #3. That plus, any combination of getting a second job, working more hours, or finding a better-paying job. I know… this won’t be easy.</p>
<p>That was meant as a compliment, Choatiemom!!
We have a 2 acre vegetable garden. And our own chicken and duck eggs… :)</p>
<p>^^^Well, then, you’re MY hero. :)</p>
<p>I agree w Classicalmama. Exeter profiler actuall spells it out as “Choose a Gross Family Income”.</p>
<p>I figured as much but just thought I’d check. I’ve seen some people use AGI and “taxable income” synonymously, and they are not the same thing at all. </p>
<p>So is there a place to report pretax expenses (insurance, retirement, etc). on SSS? As you can see, we have yet to start it. I am thinking after first look that it’s pretty tough to do before the end of the year when you’re starting to gather info for tax return.</p>
<p>@ChoatieMom, Thanks for the information.</p>
<p>Has anyone tried this tactic…Divide you school list, apply to half of them for FA, apply to the other half with FP…ranking each group with “your” Tier 1,2,3 schools…wait and see what Fate hands you.</p>
<p>Yes there is a place to add all that stuff back, but exactly where is confusing the first time through–my best advice, learned the hard way, is to open every single help window for every line, even if you think it doesn’t apply to you. Not all expenses get added back in–for example, mandatory retirement and insurance deductions don’t; supplemental retirement and HSAs do. Still, while it’s not your gross income that ultimately gets counted, that’s the number school are using the calculator.</p>
<p>Ok…color me stupid. What is FP. I get the whole FA (financial aid) thing, but this FP? Help…with one in college, one in BS and one in thank goodness for charter schools, still in free elementary, not to mention a husband who just got forced out of his old company and is still in the process of starting a new one…this is a thread that I am watching with both eyes.</p>
<p>FP=full pay</p>
<p>Thanks 
Not an option, but nice to know :)</p>
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<p>Huh? Don’t understand. Do you mean apply FP to those you can afford and FA to those you can’t? That’s the only “tactic” that makes sense. You’re not saying to apply for FA at some schools just to see if you get it, right? Why would you put your child in the more competitive pool if you can pay the tuition? And, believe me, the schools will know if you can pay full freight. I really don’t understand what you’re trying to do here. Please explain the purpose of the “tactic.”</p>
<p>Well, the OP is concerned about placing his DC in a more competitive situation by applying for FA. As I recall, this was The issue for them when his DC was WL at all the schools to which they applied. I do believe they are trying to avoid this during the 2014 cycle, thus they are considering FP even though it would be a hardship.</p>
<p>My thought was to attempt the FA at some schools while applying as a FP to other schools. As an example, if DC is admitted to Taft with nice FA package or is admitted to Loomis as a FP, then the OP has options.</p>
<p>The FA/FP decision is binary; either you can afford a school’s tuition or you can’t. You can apply for FA naively, as we did, but there is no chance of getting it if the financials a school sees indicate that you (even very sacrificially) can be full pay. If you can pay, you will be expected to pay. If you cant, and the school wants to offer admission to your child, they will offer some level of FA.</p>
<p>If the OP cannot pay full freight under any circumstances, an FP admission is not an option and any applications submitted as FP are completely wasted. There is no tactic here.</p>
<p>Sorry…it was just a thought.</p>
<p>granny2: No need to apologize. I just want to be clear for people lurking here that, unless there is a benefactress aunt in your attic, there is nothing to be gained from playing FA/FP games; you can pay or you can’t. If there is any way you can pay, you will be expected to, and you should put your child’s app in the less competitive pool. For most schools the FA/FP ratio is roughly 30/70; clearly, if you can swing the tuition in any way, you will be expected to, and your child has a better chance of a happy outcome on M10 if you apply as the FP family you truly are. If you can’t pay, you can’t. There is no shame in that, but you have no choice then but to apply for FA and let the chips fall where they may.</p>
<p>I sort of see the reasoning here. It’s true that, as Choatie Mom says, you’ll qualify for FA or not. What some people may be trying to avoid is that situation of applying for FA, getting turned down, and then realizing that you put your child in a more competitive application pool for nothing…</p>
<p>However, why not just fill out the PFS early (that is, before applying to schools) and see what the EFC is? It’s true that schools’ offers vary, but only within a certain range; someone with and EFC of $45,000 should not expect any school to offer $20,000 in grant aid. So at that point, it would be possible to consider the work more/eat beans/sell the house and apply full pay option.</p>
<p>Or, if you have a job with a salary and no unusual assets, running the school’s fa calculator with your full salary amount (that is, before deductions, but not adding on benefits like what your employer pays into retirement or health care for you) will probably also give you an accurate assessment of what you’ll get in fa. Works for me, anyway, on both our prep school and on college estimators.</p>
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<p>Mmm…I believed the other way around. You should try [url="<a href="https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator"]this.[/url">https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator"]this.[/url</a>] If I go with the same figures, I would only need to pay for roughly 60% of the total cost of Harvard education. Not 90-100%.</p>