Sibling college

<p>Ok so basically I have a sibling who will be enrolled full time at a university. She recieves an athletic scholarship that covers a huge portion of all costs. When I file for financial aid does anyone know if this will count against me? When I use the financial aid calculator it does not ask about sibling aid but simply the number of enrolled siblings</p>

<p>Bump… Please does anyone know if my package is going to be dramatically different because my sister has a huge scholarship? Any help at all is so appreciated</p>

<p>Dear Damond3 : The FAFSA process will force disclosure of your family’s expenditures and incomes in order to determine the EFC (effective family contribution). </p>

<p>Boston College’s financial aid application will go into greater detail than the FAFSA to determine your final cash outlay and corresponding financial aid to which you might be entitled.</p>

<p>The first test in these situations is always to walk through the process objectively. So, if your sibling is attending a $40,000 per year private institution with a $30,000 per year athletic scholarship (since you said huge percentage), what number do YOU think reflects your family’s expenditure : $10,000 or $40,000 ?</p>

<p>To go one step further, not disclosing all of your funding information in a financial aid application is fraud which can invalidate your entire financial aid application.</p>

<p>Thank you Scottj. It always made sense to me that a scholarship would reduce the amount the family was expected to contribute, thereby increasing the amount a family would be expected to contribute on a sibling. I was just trying to gauge the difference this will make, as neither the financial calculator nor anywhere on the BC website mentions a sibling scholarship scenario. Your input is greatly appreciated!</p>

<p>One other aspect I discovered is that BC fin aid calculator seems to have absolutely no effect, even if a younger sibling has private tuition at secondary school. I understand that this is an optional expense, but I wonder why they leave it on the calculator if it has no effect whatsoever.</p>

<p>Dear Damond3 : One reason for leaving the secondary school tuition expense in the calculator is to have the user disclose additional discretionary funding sources. Remember that Boston College views secondary school (private school) tuition as discretionary spend; higher education tuition is not seen through the same prism.</p>

<p>Regarding private school tuition – and possibly slightly off topic: a few years ago the head of admissions at Notre Dame came to speak to the parents at our Catholic high school. He noted at Notre Dame, they deduct Catholic school tuition for younger siblings from the expected family contribution – noting that they understand commitment to Catholic education begins in the elementary and high school years and that they would not expect parents to pull children out of Catholic elementary school or high school to fund college at Notre Dame. I’m wondering whether BC has a similar philosophy.</p>