<p>My parents make a little over 80K a year, we are immigrants, and thusly have very little in savings. </p>
<p>My EFC was 22K.</p>
<p>This is a staggering amount. I am not scared to take out loans or anything, I just find that a little unfair of an amount for people in our situation. Anyone have any comments or anything?</p>
<p>I applied to Johns Hopkins, Emory, USC, UChicago, and Carnegie-Mellon. I just RECENTLY found out that JHU is NOT need-blind...</p>
<p>Any predictions, suggestions, comments are welcomed...</p>
<p>Seems a bit high to be coming just from parental income. Did you have some assets/savings in your name? Or did you have an income over $2600 in '05?</p>
<p>You can recheck it on EFC calculator- collegeboard.com or look one on the web.
If you have been earning money and saving them in your name it will hit you most.
22K does not sound unreasonable for 80 K income family/ at least in the eyes of FAFSA/</p>
<p>Go to FinAid and plug the numbers into their calculator. That will show your allowances, and where each component of the EFC is coming from. 22K is to high for parent's income of 80K alone.</p>
<p>The past several years my EFC was 0; my parents' business had been struggling and they hadn't been drawing much pay. 2005 was a total disaster (they went bankrupt, had to sell everything, etc). </p>
<p>But my EFC is now "000003" </p>
<p>I am applying as a transfer student to two colleges and I got my aid package from one of them (USD) today. Sadly, it was basically chump change.</p>
<p>My question is this: does an EFC of 000000 much better than 000003? I don't know how the FAFSA could come up with $3: absolute nonsense.</p>
<p>Secondly, is there an etiquette to "bargaining" with financial aid departments?
I was thinking of sending them a letter explaining my family's circumstances, but the more I think about it, I'm probably going to return to Pepperdine. </p>