My kiddo’s grandparents were shocked when I shared college prices with them. I am sure they thought their $25 a month auto deposit into the 529 was going to cover it 
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I understand. You do you and I mean that in the fondest way. I have 3 kids and they each are soooo different and have different circumstances and I’ve been humbled to learn that I need to do what I think and hope is best for each one and that’s very very different. I don’t worry about other people’s kids tooo much because I don’t have the capacity.
I am so grateful for every single caring parent out there who is doing their best.
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Yup - my tuition to our prestigious public Ivy in state flagship was $1200 per quarter back in the day . . .
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I attended an out of state not prestigious with in state scholarship for three years, then transferred to a private LAC, whose $300 per credit hour seemed soooooo expensive.
Anyway, I talked to kiddo and she has some questions about how to enter EC’s when they were a summer program and the app asks for hours per year or something to that effect, so she is going to show me this weekend and I guess I will have to see this Common App thing after all.
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When I went to college in the late 80s/early 90s it was possible to get loans and grants, have a job, and put yourself through college. I did just that. People have no idea what college costs now if they haven’t done the research. I was explaining to a fellow teacher that we’ve already spent 250k on two kids and will spend at least that on the two remaining… and that’s making affordable college choices. She had absolutely no idea. She left that conversation hoping her kids like the idea of the military, because their budget to help with college is zero.
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You entered all the financial data already? We got our ids, but I didn’t think I could do anything else to prepare.
Oh my. Do he and his parents realize he could get a free ride some places with that PSAT?
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I have emphatically relayed that info via D23. They have been BFF’s since sixth grade and he’s a very special kiddo. Fingers crossed that it all turns out well. I am very optimistic!
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I was told Data will remain once we enter & save. Since i had my 2021 returns, went ahead and added all my info.
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This 
And this
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The family business being a trade - is there an outside chance this kid could be a Questbridge candidate? A good friend of mine had the (mis)fortune of her husband losing his teaching job just as their daughter was starting 11th grade. She ended up being able to qualify for QB and got matched to Amherst, where she just graduated.
(Hubby has another teaching job now; great timing all around 
)
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thanks for the idea - will keep in my back pocket just in case. I suspect they wouldn’t qualify. But thank you
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D23 will be applying/applied to a couple of fly-ins. Columbia’s CE2, JHU, MIT WISE, UPenn PEEP - got in!
Focused on applying to two state schools as safeties, and plans to submit EA applications to GTech and MIT.
Most likely will submit additional 11 RD applications to top 20 schools including six ivies.
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Supposedly this year’s FAFSA is going to be totally revamped and somewhat simplified. They’re not even going to use the phrase “expected family contribution” anymore. I haven’t bothered entering anything because of that. I’m a bit envious of those who can start submitting college apps already. We have to wait until October so that we can submit with FAFSA since we can’t afford anything without substantial aid.
Can’t applications be submitted and fafsa follow later?
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That’s a good point. I actually don’t know and would love to know! However, an acceptance doesn’t do us any good without an accompanying financial aid offer.
I know that many schools give the aid offer at the same time as the acceptance. Some of them give you the aid offer after the acceptance, sometimes much later. I suppose we could submit without FAFSA, but I think we’d rather the application package be considered all at once so we can get the aid offers with acceptance at the schools that do so.
I will be surprised if our son’s rec letters get submitted before October anyway (big school with little GC help). I think our son will appreciate hitting the send button for everything at once in early October, but maybe he’ll surprise us and decide to turn them in piecemeal to get some comforting early acceptances. Since he’s only applying to targets and safeties, I don’t think he’s anxious about acceptances – he’s anxious about aid offers.
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If she’s going into engineering, she might want to take Calc again in college since it will have been a while since her class. We just went to an engineering info session at Penn State where they said of course it depends on the person, but seemed to be leaning toward the kids taking Calc in college. If they were majoring i. Something else, I’d apply the AP credit if possible and move on, but for engineering it might be better to have a good base.
There seems to often be a big difference in timing between 2 different kinds of aid from what I can tell. “Merit” or Scholarships are often but not always included in acceptance letters. But I think I read that Needs based aid can come later? Not certain but I’d look into it more. Also I know that as the admissions process goes on college’s sometimes increase aid for some students either on their own or through negotiation.
I don’t want to speak out of turn I am not expert - I just know that it’s complicated and you might not get all your offers to compare up front at the beginning.
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Honestly, I wouldn’t wait until October if you’re applying to any rolling admission schools.
For one thing, FAFSA doesn’t have to be on file at the school before you apply.
For another, all FAFSA does is see if you’re eligible for Pell grants, etc. It spits out a number that used to be called Expected Family Contribution and will now be called the Student Aid Index. It does not give you any money. It says what you should be expected to pay, but that usually bears no resemblance to what you can or should or want to pay.
For a third thing, most rolling schools don’t give a ton of need-based aid anyway. The SAI/EFC number is probably not going to change what they give you.
For a fourth thing, if you’re looking for need-based aid from meets-need-type schools, they’ll require the CSS Profile anyway, not FAFSA.
All of this is to say, don’t wait for FAFSA to apply!
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