<p>My dd did not apply ED to any colleges, because financial aid was very important to us and we wanted to compare offers. Her first-choice school made an excellent offer, and she is now attending.</p>
<p>My ds is interested in the same college and would like to consider applying ED. He has similar stats but different interests, and he would be applying to a different school within the college. The college is need-blind and promises to meet 100% of need.</p>
<p>Based on our experience with dd, should we feel safe in allowing ds to apply ED? </p>
<p>Does anyone have experience with a younger sibling attending the same college as an older brother or sister? Did they receive roughly comparable offers of financial aid?</p>
<p>I think you can reasonably assume that you will get similar consideration -- my experience with 100% need schools is that they are internally consistent with their policies. However, if both kids will be in college at the same time, I think you should contact the college and ask how they treat that in terms of aid -- it is not always a 50% reduction - so you want to be very clear on how they treat families with more than one kid in college, especially when both siblings are enrolled at their college.</p>
<p>lgreen- if remember, your d is a harpist. I don't recall if she is in a performance major. Depending on the school and program, that MAY have had an effect on the amount of merit (talent) aid she was allocated.</p>
<p>Just a point to consider when comparing packages offered the two sibs.</p>
<p>I have exactly one data point to add. My DS2 and DD attend the same west coast private university, one a senior and the other a freshman. They had almost identical credentials when applying, and received virtually identical financial aid packages.</p>
<p>Now, if senior son would quit introducing my daughter to his friends, I'd be happer still, but that's another story.</p>
<p>Yes, she is a harpist majoring in music, and her college had only a handful of students auditioning on her instrument in the year when she applied. We realize this "hook" may have been an important factor in her admission, but we don't know whether it also influences financial aid.</p>
<p>She did receive some merit aid, but it wasn't included on her initial financial aid offer. When the merit aid was added, it replaced a loan and then simply reduced the need-based grants.</p>
<p>Even if her younger brother gets no merit aid, he could afford to attend if he receives need-based aid comparable to his sister's initial offer. We hope her first offer is a good indication of what any accepted student in our financial situation might receive. However, we don't know whether any of her aid was "merit-within-need," and we don't know whether different schools within the same college treat financial aid consistently.</p>
<p>DS would be in engineering rather than music. Though he has strong credentials in math, science and community service, he isn't a musician, athlete, URM, or development candidate, and he has no legacy connections beyond the acceptance of his sister. That's why he thought he might benefit from the admissions boost of ED.</p>
<p>Well a couple of things...first of all, has your income/asset situation changed at all since your first child enrolled in college? Do you have more home equity? Has your income increased? Does this second child have assets in his name? These will all play into the awarding of needbased aid. Having said that, having two in college at the same time should help your situation if the school meets full need. </p>
<p>Now...re: what happens when the first one is no longer in school? The need based aid will be calculated based on having only ONE student enrolled in college, and this will increase your expected contribution for your second child (when he is the only one in college). The good news, is you MAY (not guaranteed) see an increase in need based aid for your daughter in the year(s) that both are enrolled as college students.</p>
<p>It's my understanding with two kids in private college is that the EFC is still the same, only now divided by two. I don't think it would matter if the two kids went to the same or different colleges/universities.</p>
<p>DS's school came in with an offer significantly lower than other schools, but when we pointed out that we had two in college and they seemingly had forgotten that, they agreed that they had and adjusted the aid substantially.</p>
<p>About ED question, one school said we could apply RD and say, "This would be an ED application if we could afford it," and it would receive consideration.</p>
<p>If he is accepted ED and the aid is not enough in your estimation would you not allow him to go? I let both my kids apply ED because I knew I was going to find a way to do it. </p>
<p>I have two kids at Rice University - one a senior and one a freshman. The freshman did NOT apply ED, because we wanted to make sure the financial aid was okay, and because we wanted him to have lots of options to choose from in April. His stats were all very good, but I did have some concerns that his EC's might not be strong enough for him to be accepted.<br>
In the end he ended up with a strong financial aid package from Rice (in fact, we pay just a little bit more with two of them in college than we did with just one in college. The "little bit more" can be accounted for by his savings and assets and student contribution from work.
While my daughter had merit aid and a no-student-loan package, my son will graduate with student loans of about $8000. (Would have been $14,525, but he had some outside scholarships that reduced that amount. Rice caps student loans.) Since it looks like he is heading into a more lucrative profession, I think that amount of loans is fine.<br>
I asked Rice how our financial aid will change with just one kid in college next year, and the reply I got was, given the same income and same assets, the amount of change would be negligible.
We're happy! :)</p>
<p>
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I also wonder what happens to ds's aid when dd graduates and they are no longer overlapping.
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Then the aid package would be reduced. Basically, you are expected to pay $X per year. If there are 2 in college, then the FAFSA would reduce the parental contribution by half - your EFC would be X/2. (At least for the parent-derived part). </p>
<p>However, institutional methodology is different -- I think it's more like a 40% reduction than a 50% reduction. But then the policy might be a little different when its the same college -- who knows? </p>
<p>One more wrinkle I forgot to note is that part of the EFC is calculated from the kid's earnings and savings. If there is a significant difference between one kid and the other in that respect, that will also influence the overall EFC.</p>
<p>Do be aware that the initial package you receive may be confusing as it may not fully account for the sibling enrollment. My d's college calculated FAFSA loan and Pell grant eligibility based on the assumption that her older sibling would be enrolled in college; but they calculated their own grant eligibility based on the assumption that he would NOT be in college. They explained to me that the grant would be increased when they received verification of his enrollment and COA. </p>
<p>This made for a very confusing package but I understand why the college would take that approach -- its in their interest to qualify the student for as much federal assistance as possible, but to hold off on making promises about grant money until they have full confirmation of data. In my case my son had been out of school for several years and was transferring back, so his situation was also rather iffy.</p>