OP, at the most selective schools should one or both your kids be admitted aid will be financial.
Step down a notch and blend in a list of schools with competitive merit.
Without knowing what your budget is for the two kids, and without knowing their profile it’s really hard to make suggestions. Especially not knowing what they want to study and what type of school and geographically where they prefer to me. Wouldn’t make sense to throw school names out at this point.
The math of your budget will influence whether merit is a possible route or if need based aid is a better route.
However, getting admitted to the latter can more less predictable and more difficult.
Also, colleges that claim to “meet full need” calculate need differently, so their offers may be significantly different from each other, and not necessarily all affordable to the OP.
I had somewhat similar needs for my D. She was in a private school with aid. We cast a wide net. There is no guarantee that even if your child meets the requirements for a highly selective school that they will get in. The only way she could go to a state school was with scholarship. She ended up with three affordable choices after applying to 12 colleges. We applied to private and public and chose one school specifically because of their reputation for providing both merit and need based aid. This ended up being her second choice even though she originally asked me why I was “making” her apply. Her affordable choices were a public school, a private school, and an ivy league school.
@ucbalumnus That may be true, but the full ride/close to full ride scholarships are rare and highly competitive true. In guess in OP’s case, they need to apply to many and a great variety of schools to increase the odds.
@intparent wrote: “…One problem you may have us that the GC at your kid’s school may not pay much attention to the finances. They often don’t… and they may suggest schools that are financially untenable for your family. GCs don’t always know a lot about financial aid – especially at expensive college prep schools.”
Amen to that.
The GC at our D’s private high school was able to give the juniors and seniors a lot of attention due to the school’s small size. Although price was, in theory, one of the considerations students were supposed to be weighing, we felt the idea of having a budget when making your short list was lost on our D. At least according to what she told us, the college counseling sessions all started with “seeking a good fit”, and “where do you WANT to go?”
Granted, I understand D getting sucked up into the whirlwind of prestige-seeking, and I understand her not being all too happy about the list of schools I was presenting to her as affordable, when her peers were shooting very high and were not outwardedly concerned about finances.
At our meeting with the GC to go over our short list (mostly big OOS publics offering $$), the GC asked if there were any (more selective) schools our D would regret not applying to. Oy. I’m not too quick on my feet when taken by surprise, so I did not argue about our having a budget at that meeting.
The GC also told our D that she was going to be named a National Hispanic Scholar but there wasn’t any money associated with the recognition itself. That was a partial truth. Google and College Confidential told us there were schools handing out very generous scholarships for NHS, no thanks to the GC, who, again, seemed to be feeding the “where do you WANT to go” sentiment in the kids.
Our D has two friends who are going to top 20s for next to nothing. Smart, URM kids from low income families.
It wasn’t easy to explain to a 17 yo that we’re not poor by any means, but we’re not able to pay our EFC.
1- have the twins study this Summer as much as possible for the PSAT test in Oct.
A high enough score on that ONE test opens up the path to guaranteed merit $$ at many U’s.
If you live in a high cut off score state-like Conn, NJ, Calif- preparation is essential if you want them to have the best chance of scoring high enough to qualify for NMF status.
2-" Should I steer the kids away from schools that don’t “meet full need” ?
YES. And you need to research carefully to find schools that meet “NEED”- [which is determined by the COLLEGE, not by what you feel you can pay] without huge LOANS. NYU , is an example, is notorious for offering FA packages made up mostly of loans.
NO top student’s family should take on big loans in order to go to college- there are FAR too many other great, affordable college options to apply to to justify big loan payments in the coming years.
As dcplanner said_“I think you really need to do both–apply for 100% need met with NO LOANS lottery type schools and less selective schools with guaranteed merit based on their stats.”
^^ this!!
3- check out these colleges that give merit $$ - make SURE that some of them are on your twins final application list-
both lists were complied by CC parents.
4- PAY ATTENTION to merit scholarship application DEADLINES. Make SURE your twins applications are submitted by the those dates.
Many private U’s, such as USC, REQUIRE applications to be submitted by earlier dates, in order to be considered to merit scholarship $$. USC’s deadline is Dec 1.
Early submission for scholarships deadlines will NOT prevent them from applying to other colleges with early submission dates- i.e. SCEA/ ED/EA - since it is a requirement for scholarship consideration.
A LOT of good advice here; thank you all so much! I know I am being premature, but all this information will help me to know whether their college counselors are steering the kids the right way. I will definitely get on them to study for the PSAT. I’m pretty sure they will reach the Commended level, but they are indeed in a boarding school, so I certainly can’t count on them making NMF. Their only “hook” is that their dad went to a super-selective school that he wouldn’t get into nowadays and that we can’t expect the kids to get into (although they will apply). Does anyone know how the self-employed are treated in the financial aid world?
And does anyone have a guess why this thread was moved? I only wanted to ask parents, so I posted in the parents forum…
“Does anyone know how the self-employed are treated in the financial aid world?”
oh dear… not well I’m afraid. The NPC’s can be WAY off when giving the self employed a realistic idea of what your FA package will be like.
Which is all the more reason to start making sure your twins realize that they MAY have to accept going to a “less elite” colleges that offer Merit aid,. They MAY be the most affordable options for your family depending on your income/ assets, etc, etc.
Many of the more/ most selective colleges use the Profile financial aid application, to determine your “need”, and being self employed, and/ or owning your own business can result in them receiving less FA than you may expect. Mom2collegekids is the expert on this issue, but you should ALSO post that question on the FA forum.
For a school that uses only the FAFSA…probably not a huge issue.
But for a school that mets full need, you will need to complete the Profile as well…or if it’s Princeton their own school form.
Your business will need to be assigned a value. In addition, many of the deductions allowed by the IRS for business owners/self employed, are NOT allowed for financial,aid purposes. These will be added back in as income.
A lot depends on how your business is structured as well.
I would suggest you post this question in the financial aid section of this site.
You should definitely make sure you have some FAFSA-only schools in the mix. Two private FAFSA-only LACs provided my D the best FinAid pkgs, both meeting full need although those colleges are not promoted as such. Loans were included but at a very modest level. Awards included generous, unexpected merit components that did not require a special application.
Look for schools that want more students like yours, to paraphrase another thread. Learn to navigate the Common Data Sets and scrutinize the FinAid sections. On College Navigator, note the net price by income bracket. This is net cost after applying “free” money, not factoring in loans.
Our D applied to 8 colleges, 4 who met 100% need-based aid and 4 with strong merit aid (4 EA, 4 regular.) Even if a student has strong enough stats to qualify for merit aid, doesn’t mean they’ll get it if you’re from a region or applying as a major the school doesn’t particularly need (very unpredictable.) Several universities mentioned constantly on CC for good merit aid didn’t award our D anything and 2 considered so-so for merit were extremely generous. The most generous merit scholarships often have EA deadlines before Dec. 1 but hold decisions off until mid-spring when you’re invited to the campus by special invitation to meet the faculty and adcoms. Several merit schools awarded similar awards to our D’s need-based only schools and added an in-state tuition waiver or had lower tuition costs by 5-10K.
Ironically, our D selected a need-based school whom I never would have thought would offer enough f. aid for consideration, so you never know.
The counselors at your school are likely to give you good direction on this. (Your previous director of CC was very knowledgeable. ) With finances being a major concern, you may want to consider asking if both girls can be assigned to the same counselor, and after the assignment is made, schedule a conversation with that CC to make sure you’re all on the same page. You may want to ask if they have any written materials or archived webcasts on FA. It’s also possible that during fall visiting weekend they’ll do a presentation (or perhaps you can make that suggestion. Our school did that and was similar to yours in that many students were not going to be full pay candidates.)
It might also help early in the process to go over with your daughters what outcomes are workable and which are not. Unfortunately, as several posters have pointed out, you cannot know until you have a decision with the package what will happen at any particular school. And that means that the disappointment of being accepted to a top choice but being unable to afford it is a real possibility (and unavoidable.)
At this point, the energy should go into being a good candidate . SAT prep will help with the PSAT, but regardless of NMF status, good scores will help merit potential. I’d counsel against getting the girls involved in thinking about specific schools for a while (although it’s a good time for you to do what you’re doing in terms of research. ) Juniors at BS are really at a sweet spot. They know the scene, are upperclassmen, have major roles on campus, have new privileges, and may not want to think about leaving. Heck, they’ve just arrived! Nor should they for a while… they are in the middle of their experience. You want to help them be present for it, not obsessed with college. So managing what you can for them to keep them focused on where they are is a big gift.