<p>quick question from a junior. penns website says that youll be notified of financial aid packages at the same time as you are notified of your acceptance, but how does this work for EDers since the fafsa is only filed after jan. i assume that the css profile would be used instead. am i correct on this?</p>
<p>also, i plan to apply to penn ED next year if their new financial aid plan is what i imagine it to be. from what i understand, id have to pay my efc, but since my parent's income is below 100000, id get the rest in grant money? if this is true, then id def. apply ed. but what do they mean when they say if your parents "adjusted" income is 100000? by adjusted do they mean taking into account savings, house value, etc.?</p>
<p>ok, so that wasnt quick and i know this has A LOT of questions, but a response would most definitely be more than appreciated.</p>
<p>I'm a Senior and got accepted ED to Penn in December. I was able to view my financial aid package that exact same day. </p>
<p>I'm not entirely sure how the financial aid worked (my parents filled out all the forms etc), but I know that I had to created a profile with College Board. Is that the CSS profile you're talking about. </p>
<p>As for the FAFSA form we are filling them out now.</p>
<p>Penn gives an info session sometime during Penn Previews where they discuss how FA is calculated.</p>
<p>Your EFC is calculated, and then they match the difference between the EFC and tuition. In the past, that was done with loans, but now it's all grants. How they calculate EFC hasn't changed - it's still a function of income, home value, savings, etc. The 100k thing made for good publicity, but it's hardly descriptive of what actually is going on. Look around for EFC calculators/estimators - it's the best way to predict things.</p>
<p>my efc for my brother this year is 18K, but when im in college next year, im assuming that the efc would be 9K for each of us. so i could expect to get 40K in aid? somehow, it doesnt seem like it could be that simple.</p>
<p>Depends. (Does your brother go to Penn?) Penn might determine EFC totally differently. It won't scale exactly like that but it should be along those lines.</p>
<p>no, he doesnt go to penn. ive read somewhere that the efc would stay the same no matter how many kids are in college though i forget where i read that. however, i didnt know that each college could determine efc differently. thanks!</p>
<p>my main question is guess is this: if i apply ed, could i bank on getting my calculated need in grant money? is it really just tuition minus efc with a family income of less than 100000 = loan-free fin. aid package?</p>
<p>The college determines EFC, and it can definitely change year-to-year and with number of students enrolled.</p>
<p>You should never apply ED if financial aid is that important. (That's the obvious part - the tougher question is just exactly it would take for you to afford Penn. You need to sit down and have a long talk with your parents about the numbers.) </p>
<p>The most sensitive variable in that equation you're building is the EFC. Yes - the gap between EFC and tuition is going to get covered by grants, but the EFC is something that's up to Penn, and their goofy ways of calculating it. Can you bank on the aid being grants instead of loans? Depends on the income. If your parents make above 90k or below 100k, it's a very gray area.</p>
<p>to be honest, my parents make less than 90K. ill press my luck, but would you happen to know what could be different about how universities in general calculate efc? whats "goofy"? more "weight" to one area over another? thanks a lot! =]</p>
<p>In my experience, the Ivies have some of the most aid to give out, but are tighter with it than the FAFSA and PROFILE materials would lead you to expect. They'll pay more attention to your home value, and saved money, and consider money in the student's name more heavily than in the parent's name. Penn might vary well consider your parents to have more or less in assets than another school.</p>
<p>Penn's grants aren't going to be nearly as good as those of Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Penn just doesn't have the financial aid budget to match them. </p>
<p>That begs the question -- why is Penn keeping its ED program? </p>
<p>Who in their right mind (other than very very rich people) would apply ED to Penn, or any other good school like Cornell or Northwestern, if there was a chance they could get into HYP and end up paying so much less?</p>
<p>At the moment, Penn's got the money for that FA. The grants will be just as good. Where they'll split hairs is with the Stanford model - getting rid of tuition altogether. As has been discussed here before, that would be a costly endeavor, and of debatable merit.</p>
<p>The truth is that Penn's FA is just as strong as HYP at the moment. So, they'll continue with ED, as ED works well for Penn (and application numbers remain consistent). 5 or 10 years from now? HYP may be free, but Penn will change a lot in that time too. Honestly, there's too much changing on the college landscape (growth in endowments, FA, an arms race in Ivy athletic pseudoscholarships, massive campus expansions at several schools) to make predictions like that.</p>
<p>It isn't nearly as strong for most. Penn's proposed FA budget is the same as or less than HYP's, even though Penn has twice as many students. Maybe it is comparable for families making $45K or $60K or less, but for families in the $60K-$200K range it will not be.</p>
<p>I agree that much is changing, but I don't see why any top students who come from families making less than $250K would choose to apply ED to Penn (or other top program, or even a state school that is already cheap), when their FA packages will clearly be a lot better at HYP. HYP are now cheaper than state universities.</p>
<p>I'm just asking the question about their rationale for trying to keep ED admissions, I'm not criticizing them. It's great they instituted some FA reform, but I think it is going to hurt them that they didn't go anywhere near as far as HYP.</p>
<p>Mattwonder, what do you mean by "Ivy athletic pseudoscholarships"? </p>
<p>I know the official policy is that the Ivy's don't give athletic scholarships, but I keep hearing rumors that athletes do get some financial assistance. If a family does not qualify for any financial aid, do you think an athlete can get financial assistance?</p>
<p>What is happening is that athletes from mid-income households are getting grants now instead of loans. This means that the ivies can be competitive against traditional athletic powerhouses (state schools, etc) that give athletic scholarships in terms of recruiting. If you're a wealthy athlete, you're not getting any money any time soon, but those middle class athletes are now attainable for coaches. (This is mainly a story about Harvard and basketball, who had a terrible time recruiting until recently). It may not seem like much - only people who qualified for aid before benefit, but the benefit is now grants instead of loans - but it matters when it comes to basketball.</p>
<p>The other thrust there is that the Ivies are slowly moving toward a tuition-free model, which would make athletic scholarships a thing of the past. There's been a lot of speculation about this stuff recently.</p>
<p>Finally, there are rumors that Ivy athletes get some money in some places, but nothing more than rumors.</p>