<p>I was playing around with the net price calculators of a couple of SEC schools as a part of some reserach I'm working on. I was <em>really</em> surprised to find that UT's calculator didn't even ask for high school GPA, rank, or SAT/ACT scores, and it did nothing to attempt to estimate grant awards! Auburn's, by contrast, did ask for those stats and did estimate grant awards.</p>
<p>For those of you who have used a few of these calculators, how common is UT's deficiency? Anyone know of a source that attempts to rate the quality of the tools at various schools?</p>
<p>I’ve tried a few NPCs for schools all over the country, and I find it odd that many don’t ask about stats at all, but then will suggest that you’ll get a merit award!!! To me, that is very misleading, since it’s doubtful that if you’re in the bottom 2 quartiles you’ll get any merit at all. And, if you’re in the higher-middle quartile, I doubt you’d get as much as suggested. </p>
<p>I wonder if some NPCs are only dealing with need-based aid? Since many schools have scholarship deadlines, it would be hard to include merit in the estimate without knowing when the person applied. Auburn has a Dec 1 deadline for merit…did it ask about that?</p>
<p>Generally, the fewer questions they ask, the less reliable it is.</p>
<p>I expect you will see more colleges offering automatic merit aid for certain SAT scores, so they can correlate their actual aid with the net price calculators. GPA and class rank vary too much from school to school to be an objective comparable measure, particularly when you have some high schools claiming they have multiple valevictorians.</p>
<p>Good point about “fewer questions” being less reliable. But, if a school is going to ask for test scores/GPA to determine likely merit, if the school has a deadline for that merit consideration, that needs to be very clear. </p>
<p>If someone is considering applying to a school on Dec 2 and they do a NPC and it spits out a likely big merit award…it would be very misleading if the app needed to be in by Dec 1st for that merit consideration. I hope schools with such req’ts are quite clear on their NPCs. </p>
<p>The jury is still out on how accurate these NPCs are . Within the next 6 weeks we’ll see happy posts and sad posts. I imagine many of the happy posts will be from people who had more “clear cut” financial details. I’m guessing that the unhappy posts will be from people who own businesses, have home equity, have NCPs, didn’t provide very accurate info to the NPC last fall, or have some other odd situation that the NPC couldn’t properly calculate.</p>
<p>“Generally, the fewer questions they ask, the less reliable it is.”</p>
<p>That’s a reasonable assertion, but right now, that’s all it is. As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely nothing to indicate how reliable any of the calculators are (will be?). There’s at least a publishable article if not an Ed.D. dissertation waiting to be written here…</p>
<p>We have the information to now post on two schools. When my s was still in the early stages of deciding where to apply, he used the net price calculators because price is an issue. We didn’t expect perfection, but we did expect ball park estimates. The net price calculator for the University of Miami, Florida, gave him an estimated net price of $35k (I even ran it again today to double check, and it’s still saying $35k). The actual cost after receiving his acceptance is $43k. Bad data is worse than no data at all, and the worst part is that it raises the hopes of applicants only to bring a big letdown. The only other school we have information on is University of Oregon. To their credit, their net price calculator was very accurate. It showed an amount of $500 more than the actual costs. That’s two schools out of ten. I’ll post more as they become available and I hope others will too.</p>
<p>^ Good data but can you provide a little more info? The cost of U Miami is $38.4K tuition, $11.5K room and board, $5.5K for travel, books, etc for a total of $55.4K. How much of the $12.4K delta was covered by merit and how much by FA? Was there any breakout from the calculator?</p>
<p>Macca…you should print out a copy of what the NPC at UMiami provided and show it to them. I realize that they won’t likely change their offer, but they need to know that their NPC is off by a several thousand dollars.</p>
<p>Your cost for UMiami after aid is $43k…what kind of aid was given? Loans? any grants? If so, how much?</p>
<p>Out of curiousity, what was your FAFSA EFC? (I know that you may have used CSS for some schools). </p>
<p>And…is Oregon an OOS public for you? Was the $500 difference due to a small merit scholarship offer?</p>
<p>^^UMiami gave my son a scholarship (seemingly generous, but significantly less than the amount the net calculator “gave”) and no grants or loans. We don’t qualify for aid, but that fact was included in the calculator. The EFC amount we input into the calculator was higher than Miami’s full price COA. My irritation is that I was dumb enough to accept it all at face value. The calculator doesn’t even use the same numbers for tuition, fees, housing etc. as they use in their published COA for either 2011-12 or 2012-2013. I wish I would have been more careful in looking at the numbers rather than assuming they were accurate; I might have saved my son from getting his hopes up. We will have two in college next year and another shortly after, so we have a strict amount we are willing to pay. My son was so careful to apply to schools he thought could be within that budget. We knew the net calculator price was no guarantee, but I feel they could do a better job than missing the mark by 8k. It was a big disappointment for him.</p>
<p>University of Oregon is OOS and they gave my son $500 more than what the net calculator “gave” him. I’m feeling a lot more love for Oregon than Miami right now. Miami just seems less than honest. I hope I’m wrong about that; I’d hate to see that become part of the application process.</p>
<p>"UMiami gave my son a scholarship (seemingly generous, but significantly less than the amount the net calculator “gave”) and no grants or loans. We don’t qualify for aid, but that fact was included "</p>
<p>I’m sorry about the disappointment and frustration. Since the difference is a merit scholarship, I would still try to salvage the situation by contacting their scholarship office and see if they can’t “meet you somewhere in the middle” for the difference.</p>
<p>Did the NPC ask for test scores and GPA? rank? intended major?? what else in particular about the student’s achievements?</p>
<p>I do think we’re going to hear from more and more people that the estimated merit isn’t what was suggested.</p>
<p>For future college applicants who are reading Macca’s story this can only be a “heads up”. Hopefully others who are counting on merit to bring costs down to a budget will also include some schools that give ASSURED merit so there will be more successes.</p>
<p>Did Oregon give any merit? It sounds like they gave $500 more in merit than what was first estimated.</p>
<p>Miami’s NPC asks the student to place themselves in one of four categories, if eligible. Each category has a GPA, SAT/ACT score and class rank associated with it. My son put himself in the one where he met all the criteria. The only other questions asked were about residency, on or off campus housing and EFC. As it turns out, the numbers generated are based on 2010 costs. The $8k difference is split evenly – my son got $4k less in scholarship than indicated and the costs are $4k more than indicated in the NPC. We should have been more careful in reading and we would have caught the 2010 date, but it seems they could update the NPC at the same time they update COA numbers. Lesson learned.</p>
<p>Oregon did give merit and that was the difference. The NPC predicted $500 less than was actually given.</p>
<p>oohhh…the NPC used 2010 COA numbers? That’s quite bad because there likely would have been 2 cycles of increases for this fall…which could mean 8-10% more in costs.</p>
<p>I would definitely call UMiami and ask to speak to a higher up in FA…like the director…and complain. That’s just dishonest. And, I’d let them know about the “bad press” they’re now getting on CC. They may kick in the extra money just to have post something positive. lol</p>
<p>I was surprised at how close Tulane’s NPC came to final offer- only off $300 year. </p>
<p>NPC did ask for daughters stats. CC’ers on financial aid forum patiently answered lots of questions & we don’t own a business or real estate besides home.</p>
<p>Keeping my fingers crossed that April will bring big envelopes from schools that also had accurate net price calculators.</p>