<p>Well my D applied to 6 colleges and was rejected by one and offered Spring admission to another. The other 4 were acceptances. The reality part is one colleges fin aid pkg is horrible. They went 12,000 above what our expected efc was. And she would have 5500 in loans and 1800 work study. I called the fin aid dept and there answer was we do not meet need, you can appeal but we won't make any decision until after the May 1 deadline. The problem is that is her first choice and the spring admission was also one of her tops and that pkg was way off also. What we are left with is hoping one of the other two pkgs will be better or she will end up at the one state she did not want to go to. It is so frustrating to have a kid that works hard and schools who's bottom line is money. If I was to give advice (besides saving more( is to apply to many colleges. Our guidance office felt she applied to enough and talked us out of applying to more. Obviously it is too late now a hard lesson.</p>
<p>Can you explain? Did you use the different school's calculators to guess aid? Were you expecting more merit?</p>
<p>We filled out the fafsa and the profile, The schools requested taxes so we sent those. The pkg they fell about 12,000 short meaning the amount fafsa said we pay compared to the amount they expect us to pay. We would have to come up with 12000 additional dollars. We have another D om college so I do not understand this is about 20000 more than we paid last year.</p>
<p>several possible reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>you/school made a mistake</li>
<li>FAFSA and Profile EFC are different</li>
<li>You had large income</li>
<li>Large assets, home equity</li>
<li>Small business - profile does not allow certain deductions</li>
<li>School does not meet 100% of need. Many schools gap the aid.</li>
</ol>
<p>number 6 seems to be the situation</p>
<p>If it's any consolation, you're not alone. You need to look at her options and think about affordability too. With one already in college you already know how often those tuition bills come! She must have picked those 6 schools for something she liked about them. Maybe you can revisit that?</p>