<p>OK This is where I am totally confused. I thought need based aid was need based. Merit aid was on academics. If need based is based on academics and you are a middle class kid with decent academics and the schools you are applying to don't meet 100% need, I guess these percentages are averages anyways. Say you are applying to a school which on the average meets 93% need(still pretty good) You can get varying packages if this is based on academics. If the select school let you why is your need based aid dependent on your grades or religion??? This seems to be so confusing!! So if your a good A-, B+ student and middle class you can be expected to pay anything. Doesn't the EFC stand for anything?? This is soo confusing and I am starting to think that is the way they want it to be!! I guess I am really naive I thought the packages we were going to get would all be pretty close to one another.(close to the Fafsa EFC) NOT THE CASE!! I feel for all of you!! I guess we are not given as many coices as we all thought we would get.</p>
<p>Depends on the school as some are very upfront that while they give need based aid, they also do preferential packaging which means a "better" student may bet a package that is heavier on grant/scholarship aid than another person in the same financial situation .</p>
<p>If you look up some of your schools on the college board website, or even on the own school'f FA site they will explain their criteria for giving out aid</p>
<p>I did do that. They(all the schools) on the average meet 93% need and our EFC is 6395. But the packages vary (after stafford and perkins loans,work study-all the same exact amount from every school) Only one school was close to our EFC and the others were way off. The schools all rank pretty much the same and their tuition is close and their average need met is the same. I guess when they say average it can vary a lot!! We are paying anywhere between $8300 - $20,000. I am hoping we can appeal this with the school he really wants to attend. I have learned a lot from all of this. I wish I had this info before we applied to schools so when we got the fin aid packages I wouldn't have been so shocked.We can't afford to pay for college for our son as we just don't have it.The EFC of $6395 is a joke.I feel everyones frusteration and just wish that the choices were not based on cost.Of course my son wants to go to the school that is more. He did before the packages came through. We really thought they would be close to cost. Guess I was dead wrong!!Just frusterated and addicted to CC ;)</p>
<p>Does your school both look at the FAFSA and the Profile?</p>
<p>Your EFC from a school that only uses the FAFSA will look very different from a school that uses the FAFSA and the CSS profile or their own instiutional aid form.</p>
<p>The information from the profile will account for your increase in EFC because your EFC may show that you have considerable income/assets/equity which shows up on the profile that you don't have to indicate on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is requested by all schools and is mainly used by schools that calculate FA using the federal methodology. </p>
<p>The schools that require the CSS profile often distribute their own institutional funds and use an institutional/ concensus methodolody. The Profile is used to get a more complete picture of your financial situation.</p>
<p>Differences between the IM and FM models include:</p>
<p>IM collects information on estimated academic year family income, medical expenses, elementary and secondary school tuition and unusual circumstances. FM omits these questions.</p>
<p>IM considers a fuller range of family asset information, while FM ignores assets of siblings, all assets of certain families with less than $50,000 of income, and both home and family farm equity.</p>
<p>FM defines income as the adjusted gross income on federal tax returns, plus various categories of untaxed income. IM includes in total income any paper depreciation, business, rental or capital losses which artificially reduce adjusted gross income.</p>
<p>FM does not assume a minimum student contribution to education; IM expects the student, as primary beneficiary of the education, to devote some time each year to earning money to pay for education.</p>
<p>FM ignores the noncustodial parent in cases of divorce or separation; IM expects parents to help pay for education, regardless of current marital status.</p>
<p>FM and IM apply different percentages to adjust the parental contribution when multiple siblings are simultaneously enrolled in college, and IM considers only siblings enrolled in undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>The IM expected family share represents a best estimate of a familys capacity (relative to other families) to absorb, over time, the costs of education. It is not an assessment of cash on hand, a value judgment about how much a family should be able to use current income, or a measure of liquidity. The final determinations of demonstrated need and awards rest with the University and are based upon a uniform and consistent treatment of family circumstances.</p>
<p>Except in the most extraordinary circumstances, Colleges classifies incoming students as dependent upon parents for institutional aid purposes, even though some students may meet the federal definition of independence.</p>
<p>Students enrolling as dependent students are considered dependent throughout their undergraduate years when need for institutional scholarships is determined.</p>
<p>For institutional aid purposes a student may not declare independence due to attainment of legal age, internal family arrangements, marriage or family disagreements.</p>
<p>Your COA (cost of attendance) is tuition, room board, books travel expenses and some misc. expenses associated with attending college.</p>
<p>They both took the FAFSA. The one that gave us more money used the CSS profile too. We have no assets.Except a home that is fully mortgaged and equityied out! No stocks or savings. We basically have put everything(k-12 loans) into our kids private education K-12 and was really hoping that they would get good financial aid and into a good college. If that wasn't the case we wouldn't have the debt from all of this.Then we could take out the loans for college. I know they don't look at your debt but if the schools came closer to the actually EFC we would probably be OK . Do you have any experience with the fin aid appeals process??? I just wonder what my chances are.</p>
<p>sybbie719
thanks for that info about the FM and IM very interesting. I don't know how parents are supposed to know all of this. I guess we need to take a course before we have our kids apply to college!!!</p>
<p>sent you a PM</p>