<p>Which tends to be more representative of the financial aid a college provides, the percent of need met or the average aid package size?</p>
<p>The percentage of need met is more representative. Multiply that % by your need at that school.</p>
<p>Keep in mind at most schools: above avg students get above average awards; average get average; below average get below average. It depends on how appealing you are to the school.</p>
<p>Unless it’s a need only school such as Northwestern or Stanford, then it’s strictly by the numbers.</p>
<p>100 % need based aid is best but look at the college board site for
the percentage stats on the aid. A great package will include grant
aid above 80% and self help under 20%. Average aid package size is
too deceptive a stat to have much value.</p>
<p>Just want to comment on something. Even at a needs only school, you may get a better package (no loans) if you’re a particularly attractive candidate to the school.</p>
<p>“Even at a needs only school, you may get a better package (no loans) if you’re a particularly attractive candidate to the school.”</p>
<p>2college, can you explain this or give an example of what you mean? This news is music to my ears!</p>
<p>I am trying to explain this concept to a couple of friends. This page from Muhlenberg explains it well:
[The</a> Real Deal on Financial Aid](<a href=“http://www.muhlenberg.edu/admissions/aid.html]The”>http://www.muhlenberg.edu/admissions/aid.html)</p>
<p>I don’t think that is true at the majority of 100% need schools. They are usually need blind which means the admissions department and the financial aid department are seperate. The financial aid department will not know if you are an exceptional student or one that just got sqeeked in - they will only know that you were accepted and the FA package will be done up according to your need.</p>
<p>or when you tell them you are considering a competitor and ask them
to reconsider your package.</p>
<p>Any school that is passing out merit aid does this. Why does student A get offered $20,000 per year and student B get offered $5,000? They want student A to attend more than they want student B. There are a lot of articles about financial aid leveraging and preferential packaging. Here’s one:
[The</a> Best Class Money Can Buy - The Atlantic (November 2005)](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging]The”>The Best Class Money Can Buy - The Atlantic)</p>
<p>I think you underestimate the number of need blind colleges. The list of colleges from Wikipedia is below.</p>
<p>“A number of schools state they offer both need-blind admissions and full-need for U.S. students. The following schools state they are need-blind and full-need:
Amherst College
Beloit College
Boston College
Brandeis University
Brown University
California Institute of Technology
Claremont McKenna College
College of the Holy Cross
Columbia University
Cornell University
Cooper Union
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Denison University
Duke University
Emory University
Georgetown University
Grinnell College
Harvard University
Haverford College
Knox College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
Northwestern University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
University of Chicago
University of Miami
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
University of Southern California
University of Virginia
Vassar College
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University”</p>
<p>Many of these colleges offer merit money as well.</p>
<p>okay. % need met is what percentage of money they’ll offer you in your financial package. average aid package is just an average of how much they’ll offer, but since everybody has a different financial situation then it can be useless. if I need $10,000 and they offer $10,000, but the average is let’s say $26,000, then the average aid number is useless.</p>
<p>I find the charts put out by kiplingers to be very helpful. [Personal</a> Finance Tools and Calculators – Kiplinger’s Sortable Rankings of Private College Values - Kiplinger](<a href=“Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts)=ALL&myschool=none&outputby=table</p>
<p>One of the key stats is percent of aid by grants. They also gives a breakdown on need vs merit at the schools. In general amount of aid is not meaningful, but pecent of need met and percent of aid through grants are very important. A school that meet 100% need and meets it with over 90% grants is a good deal. And of course percent of elibigble aid apps met is also important. Not much good meeting 100% of need if you only meet it for 50% of need apps.</p>
<p>It’s more complicated than that. It so depends on the individual situation and impossible to predict the outcomes. I have seen kids get more of the COA covered at schools that do not tend to meet a large portion of need, and get skimpier packages from full need schools. My neighbor’s daughter was stunned that her first choice school which does meet 100% of need defined her need to be less than the other schools and packed in loans to meet the need. She ended up at a school that defined need more generously, and though it gapped her a few thousand dollar, the large grant that they gave her and only subsidized loans, allowed her to borrow unsubsidized Stafford and/or her parents got PLUS to make up the gap and some of the expected contributions. </p>
<p>When you need or want financial aid/ money in general from colleges, you really should have a varied lot of choices in selectivity, policies, student test score spreads. All of these things can play an important factor in your package. I know some kids from the midwest who got great deals from NYU, which has a reputation around here of gapping big time and having kids borrow up to their eyebrows. If you really like NYU, I would not recommend taking it off your list just because of what you hear about the fin aid. Just make sure you have some other schools on your list that are likely to be more generous and be awared of what can happen with NYU.</p>