<p>I ran the net price calculator first on Case Western Reserve because they requested a CSS for financial aid. I was pretty sure we didn't qualify so I was quite surprised when the npc came back with a substantial figure of 23K in grant/gift money. I hadn't run any other npc because my financial consultant had said we wouldn't likely qualify for aid but after getting a positive result I started running all of the other universities to which he is applying. Unfortunately they all came back with zero (mix of state and private e.g. University of Michigan, Lehigh, Boston, Purdue). I re-ran the Case numbers and still get 23K - how is this variation possible? </p>
<p>Because each college can make up its own formula to calculate the net price. You didn’t think they were all the same, did you?</p>
<p>It sounds like you are not eligible for need based aid at any of the schools. Case’s NPC may be giving you an estimate of merit aid. </p>
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<p>Why would you make that assumption? OP specifically says “grant/gift money.”</p>
<p>Some schools include merit-based aid in their calculations. If you have good stats you would be in line for aid like that at Case Western. </p>
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<p>Right you are, but all the NPC results that I have seen break down the award into specific categories (grant/gift, merit, loan, work study, etc.) and OP specifically said that the 23k from CW was grant/gift money.</p>
<p>Did the Case NPC ask for stats? </p>
<p>Was the word, scholarship, mentioned anywhere? </p>
<p>There may be a glitch if you say that the others are showing little to nothing and the aid is purely need based… Do you have a high income or lots of assets? </p>
<p>Case isn’t known to be generous with need aid, but does give merit aid.</p>
<p>Edited to add…from another post, it suggests that your income is in the $250k range? If so, I doubt you’d get a dime from Case in need aid. </p>
<p>Are you looking for aid or are you fine with being full pay? If you need/want aid, then have your son also apply to schools that would give him merit. </p>
<p>The NPC for Case asks for gpa and SAT scores. Awards of 20 and even 30k are reported for high stats kids at Case.</p>
<p>If you came up with merit aid at Case, maybe try the NPC at U Rochester and see what you might get there.</p>
<p>Fordham’s NPC will likely also give you estimates of merit money. It too asks for gpa and test scores. </p>
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The NPC for Case asks for gpa and SAT scores. </p>
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<p>Well, there you go. The NPC is likely showing a merit award. </p>
<p>If the family truly does have a $250k income, then there would be no need based aid.</p>
<p>My suspicion is that it is merit award but with merit awards you need to maintain a certain gpa to hold it so if it fell under need-based, there would be less pressure?</p>
<p>Read the school websites to understand the terms. They don’t always require a certain gpa, but right, requiring a high one is a tough way to go.</p>
<p>Mea culpa- I ran through CWR’s NPC, and they lump merit aid in with “grant/gift” money, so it does indeed appear that a large part (if not most) of what OP is seeing is merit aid, especially if the family has an annual income in the $250k range.</p>
<p>There are also different types of net price calculators out there. Depending on which one the university is using, you may get a pretty exact number, or you may receive an estimated amount. It also depends on how much data each university gives to their net price calculator company. Hope that helps a little bit. </p>
<p>Regarding post 14. Um…sort of.</p>
<p>Students should use the net price calculators on each college website. Those will provide the best estimate of net prices for each college.</p>
<p>There really isn’t any longer a need to use a “generic” EFC estimator, as every college is required to have their Net Price Calculator on their website for future student use.</p>
<p>How many kids does your financial consultant have in college?</p>
<p>As an experiment, I ran the NPC for my son’s top choice with my spouse making $999,999 per year and me making nothing (because I would retire LOL!). The difference in FA is 5K (we make around 150K per year). Our understanding is that therefore he qualifies for a lot of non-need-based merit aid.</p>
<p>Try that on the CWR NPC, and see if anything changes.</p>
<p>rhandco - I actually did that inadvertently as initially I thought our annuities were qualified so I hadn’t included them and then including them tripled our investment amount. Our income is not in the $250K bracket but we have substantial savings (what were we thinking!). Case is very vague on their website about the gpa needed to maintain merit- based aid. But it would make a difference in his final choice if the pressure was less to maintain the merit/aid money. I will run U Rochester now (forgot about that one as his list is long!).</p>
<p>Merit aid always comes in the form of grants/gifts in that it doesn’t need to be repaid. SOME need-based aid comes as a grant/gift, some may come as a loan or work study. </p>
<p>Ran Rochester and nothing from them. I guess I’m still trying to understand the difference between grants/gifts and scholarships. I understand they are both merit-based but are the criteria different for keeping them?</p>