My mother won't fill out the CSS PROFILE...

<p>*She is convinced that I will not end up going to one of those colleges, not because I can’t get in, but because she doesn’t want me to. </p>

<p>The last part of it might be the root of your issue. Your mom doesn’t WANT you to go to these schools.*</p>

<p>What schools are you applying to?</p>

<p>Did you apply to any financial safety schools (schools that you KNOW that you can afford?)</p>

<p>Some CSS schools do give great aid (like GADad’s Ds who went to Harvard which gives “super aid.”). However, some CSS schools give inadequate aid.</p>

<p>It sounds like your mom is afraid that these schools are going to determine that your “family contribution” is more than they can pay - even if the amount is “reasonable.”</p>

<p>Has your mom said how much the family will pay each year?</p>

<p>You mention unpaid medical bills. That may be her concern. She may be worried about how the family will pay a “family contribution” if the family already had unpaid medical bills to pay.</p>

<p>If the OP has all the information (sounds like she might since she is using the online calculators) can’t she file it herself? After all the form is set up as if it is the student doing the filing. If payment is the issue and she has the cash, maybe she can go to the bank or a mall and purchase a VISA gift card to pay online with?</p>

<p>I’m hesitant to tell a student to directly go against her (?) mother’s wishes like this but it’s frustrating to see a parent unnecessarily limiting the student due to what seem to be misperceptions about the process. :(</p>

<p>Your mom has told you she will pay only around $10,000. Have you calculated your EFC using the FAFSA and the Institutional methods? If not, you absolutely need to do that. Have you applied to colleges where your stats are extremely high compared to the other students and you stand a decent chance of getting merit money? Witih an income of slighly under $100,000 there’s a good chance any college will cost more than $10,000 a year she has told you she wants to spend. If you add your Stafford you have $15,000 to spend on a college.</p>

<p>The Ivy leagues don’t give merit aid only financial aid. They claim that families pay approximately 10% BUT that is taking income and assets into consideration to figure the “income”, not salary income only. What will your mom say if you get back financial aid packages that require your contribution to be $20,000? If I were you I would offer to pay the price to submit the Profile and establish an absolute dollar amount that your mom is willing to contribute and be willing to give up the privates if you can’t get enough aid and if I were you I would make darn sure that I had a financial safety school that you know your family contribution is going to be within her amount plus your Stafford.</p>

<p>Is it your state flagship that is nearby or a regional public? Have you looked at all your public institutions closely?</p>

<p>Also keep this in mind…the possibility exists that a private college could end up costing a similar amount to a public. There is no guarantee, it is a possibility, and this will not hold true for all students. Even if you work out the Profile situation it is important to have a financial safety school that you are WILLING to attend. You should not assume that one of these privates will come through with a generous financial aid package.</p>

<p>Even if all four of these Profile schools came back with terrible aid offers, or no offers of aid at all, that would only mean the student would not attend those schools. Just coming back with an aid offer doesn’t oblige the student or the parents to accept it… you mom understands that, right?</p>

<p>It almost sounds like there’s an element of being fearful the aid offers might be good… because then there would be an opportunity for you to attend one of those schools.</p>

<p>The thing is, at this point you’re just inquiring about aid from these schools by applying. It’s only to be able to compare offers from multiple schools and see which one makes the most sense. If you don’t submit the Profile you lose that ability to compare more offers.</p>

<p>Treefingers, do you have a father who is involved at all?</p>

<p>This just sucks for you. I’m really sorry. I think the money is just an excuse. She is trying to control your college options and is not being honest about it.</p>

<p>Your mom does not want to have to meet the EFC. Period. And she does not want to have to worry about the EFC AND the gap that will be present.</p>

<p>Filling out the Profile does not obligate the mom to meet the expected contribution. It just allows the student to get offers from the private colleges so that they can compare and find the best deal.</p>

<p>But it puts mom in a position where she has to say no later. Easier to say no now.</p>

<p>Mom has been clear that she will only pay $1500/year. The student already knows that.</p>

<p>Maybe mom knows that she might be backed into a corner on this. No means no. Mom does not want to have to be talked into taking on more debt. With salary approaching $100,000 the amount needed to attend will be over what mom wants to pay, and maybe she does not want D taking on debt. D talks about dream schools. Mom wants her to consider instate private. Mom probably knows that there will expenses attached to attending these schools not even covered by the COA.</p>

<p>I’d say try to offer some sort of swap, as in </p>

<p>“It would mean a lot to me if you would do this form. I don’t even know if I will get into these schools – there’s a real possibility that none of them will offer me a spot. But doing these forms would mean, to me, that you support the idea that I am WORTHY of going and that sort of moral support would mean a lot to me. If you’ll spend the couple of hours slogging through the forms, then I’ll do XYZ. . . because I know I am asking a lot from you. I want you to know that the time you spend on these forms will be deeply appreciated.”</p>

<p>So, some laundry, cleaning or other tasks may come your way (and do a really good job too!) but that sort of launching language might help.</p>

<p>sunnyflorida, I’m working on FAFSA and Profile right now. It looks like our Profile “EFC” is going to come out lower than our FAFSA EFC (at least via the calculators, though I know that every school uses their own somewhat different formula). This means that it’s very possible that a Profile school will be the cheapest choice for our S, especially since some Profile schools meet full need, and most non-Profile schools guarantee no such thing. This is not some kind of extremely unique situation. The same could be true for the OP. If they don’t fill out the forms, they’ll never know what the best deal for their family will be.</p>

<p>It sounds like the mother is looking at sticker prices and feeling that the student should not be looking at such expensive schools without understanding that sticker price is not always correlated well with how much a particular student is expected to pay.</p>

<p>It’s good for the mother to be up front about what she can pay, but it’s also important for the family to get all the facts before deciding which schools to rule out. Thus I think it’s very foolish at this point to refuse to file the Profile, especially if the student is willing to pay the cost of filing the Profile. Especially if they’ve already spent $60 or so apiece to <em>apply</em> to the Profile schools. (I don’t know if that’s the case or not, but it sure sounds like it.)</p>

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<p>The only reliable calculators for Profile family contributions would be if the college ITSELF had a calculator on its site. The Profile schools use varying formulas to determine your family contribution …using information taken from the Profile. Unless the calculator you used is FROM a specific college, you should view this as an estimate ONLY.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine any Profile school is going to expect a family with an income of $100k to only pay $1500 per year, so it looks like the mom just wants to shut down this issue now, and get her child to pursue other options.</p>

<p>If this student has the stats for top schools, then he/she needs to quickly apply to schools that will give HUGE merit for stats.</p>

<p>Does anyone know what this student’s stats are?</p>

<p>Is he/she NMSF?</p>

<p>mom2collegekids - The CSS schools I applied to are Vassar, Boston U, Smith, and Carleton. The FAFSA-only schools I applied to are Hendrix, UT Austin, and St. Edward’s. My mom has said that she plans to contribute no more than $10k per year towards my college education.</p>

<p>momofthreeboys - My EFC with the FAFSA is nearly $20k. I’ve used an estimator provided by Carleton that put my EFC at around $12k. My state flagship and a regionally known private are nearby.</p>

<p>'rentof2 - My dad is involved but he agrees with me that I should do the CSS and ultimately attend whichever colleges ends up being the least expensive.</p>

<p>Olymom - Will try this. Thanks!</p>

<p>mom2collegekids - Since you asked, here is a post that contains my stats: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1052702-chances-boston-u-carleton-smith-vassar.html#post1066093184[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1052702-chances-boston-u-carleton-smith-vassar.html#post1066093184&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>My observation was also true for the one college that did have a calculator up (now removed though, so they could be changing their formulas). I realize that the Profile schools all do things differently. But it looks like at least some of them could come up with lower "EFC"s than FAFSA and end up representing a good deal for our S. And this <em>could</em> be the case for the OP as well, and she’ll probably never know unless she files the profiles and lets the financial aid officers do their magic and come up with an offer.</p>

<p>Treefingers, I’m confused as to whether your mother is willing to pay $10K or just 1.5K. You’ve mentioned both numbers. Ultimately, obviously, I think you should get the form filed and get the numbers in front of you, and I hope you can manage to talk your mom into allowing it. Also please make sure that you find a financial safety that you can definitely attend for less than whatever number you can definitely come up with.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>mathmomvt - She’s willing to pay $10k. I don’t think I even mentioned the number 1500, but if I did, I’m sorry to have caused any confusion.</p>

<p>treefingers, sorry I must have imagined the $1500 bit, or gotten it confused with someone else’s post ;-)</p>

<p>My son goes to a Profile school, and it is definitely cheaper for us than the state univ my daughter attends. By a very w-i-d-e margin.</p>

<p>As others have said (repeatedly) that doesn’t mean it will work out that way for a different student/different family, but the point is that you don’t know if you don’t apply.</p>

<p>Treefingers, can you just sit down with your dad and fill it out, and get it submitted by the deadlines? As long as you make those deadlines for submission, then there will be plenty of time to hash out the issues as to where you’ll finally attend.</p>

<p>Treefingers, the stats on the thread you posted are excellent. You mentioned on it that your essay was on your mom’s bout with ovarian cancer. Do you think she wants to keep you close to home because she is fearful about her health?</p>