<p>Does anyone have any experience with the financial aid packages offered by the schools and how they reflect the SSS family contribution amount?</p>
<p>For example, if the family contribution listed is over the total cost of the school, is there any chance of getting financial aid?</p>
<p>Conversely, if the family contribution listed is only a fraction of the total cost of the school; what are the chances of getting a financial aid package that will make up the difference?</p>
<p>I have no way of putting odds to this. I think the odds are shaped by available resources (endowment), competitiveness of the applicant pool, overall demand pressures on the aid resources in a given year, and the special appeal that an individual applicant brings to the table at a particular school. </p>
<p>Without giving you any sense for *the frequency *that it happens (or doesn't happen) I can say that both situations happen. Applicants can get all the aid that the family thinks is needed even if the EFC is higher than the listed tuition/room/board. And applicants who need significant amounts of aid can get enough aid to make up the difference.</p>
<p>the exeter fa predictor on their site says that my family will be able to pay 14,000 but my mom said that it's only possible if I got in for 10,000 or less</p>
<p>is this prediction concrete? what is the milton fa like?</p>
<p>The Exeter FA predictor is a very rough estimate. It does not take into account multiple siblings in tuition paying schools, any additional assetts you may or may not have (it may assume an average of some sort), so what they ultimately figure may be quite different from that. It was higher than our PFS numbers but we have 2 kids. If I cut it in half, it was quite a bit lower - but then we have some equity and other things that play into the EFC. </p>
<p>There are also schools that will meet only a part of the demonstrated need. It all depends.</p>
<p>My son applied for grade 11 and ended up not going because of money. For us it was a choice of saving for college as we have a fine enough local HS. We were made to believe they might come up with some money because of his sport, but in the end they did not. This was at 2 top schools. We are now applying for PG with better income stream and expect nothing. This is mostly because of assets as my spouse runs a start-up company with a low salary.</p>
<p>Like at colleges families are expected to suffer. We have a large family with kids who have considerable expenses but they really don't look at that. If a family wants this opportunity for the children, it has to be a priority above expensive homes, cars and vacations.</p>
<p>In my experience there is wider variation in what preps will ask you to pay based on the SSS data. Some count home equity, some don't for example.</p>
<p>When S#1 applied to preps our reported EFC was 36k from SSS
Our FA offers varied....one school only asked us to pay 20K and gave him free books, two asked us to pay 30K and one gave us no &</p>
<p>S#2 just applied to preps and it will be interesting to see what how his situation turns out as his older brother is now in college and our college EFC is about 27K</p>
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S#2 just applied to preps and it will be interesting to see what how his situation turns out as his older brother is now in college and our college EFC is about 27K
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<p>Son #1 will be attending college and we put his figures into the SSS for our D's prep school. Got our parent report back. I think you will be pleased. I was surprised how much our EFC dropped from last year.</p>
<p>that's good to know. </p>
<p>do schools factor in transportation costs for things like train tickets to come home? for international students that could be about 4,000 dollars.</p>
<p>Yes, my numbers get much better if I send second child too! How do schools handle splitting that EFC? They couldn't be happy about it.</p>
<p>Over a large pool of students it all works itself out. Sometimes you get the first child and full tuition for a couple of years. Sometimes you get the second child and the shaft.</p>
<p>That's why I'm convinced...though not really</p>
<p>...that there's a distinct admissions advantage if you're a first child. And, if not, you increase your chances of admission if you can show that your younger siblings won't be going to private school or college! <a href="Though,%20again,%20not%20really.">color=#e9e9e9</a></p>
<p>This is ALL tongue-in-cheek! Let's see who falls for it... ;-)[/color]</p>
<p>I have heard many students who play hockey have a better chance at higher FA is this true?</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure that they don't give much aid at all to hockey players at McCallie -- which is in Chattanooga, TN and is all boys so they don't even have field hockey. That's only a little sarcastic. I'm making a serious point about connecting FA to demand.</p>
<p>Think of the financial aid pool as a spending budget for the admissions office. The budget is limited. So you need to spend wisely. If you can obtain some of your needs without having to spend any money -- or if your needs have been satisfied with full pay students you've admitted -- you don't need to spend money on such attributes...such as "white students from Massachusetts who are math whizzes." But if you have certain needs to complete the mosaic of the next year's student body...let's say "Andalusian jugglers who can recite the works of Emily Dickinson...in Mandarin" then you will be willing to tap into your limited budget to get what you need.</p>
<p>So, if hockey players are needed, they have a better chance at higher FA (assuming there's a demonstrated need, of course). Whilst the poor Caucasian schlub from Massachusetts who offers little more than two straight MathCounts titles will be out of luck if the well runs dry, receiving perhaps some token amount.</p>
<p>Of course, if we're talking about Exeter and anywhere else where they have a pot that is virtually unlimited (though I'm sure even Exeter still has to come up with a budget each year that they'll be loathe to go over) and where they have made a commitment to meeting need for everyone who is admitted on a need-blind basis, the analysis doesn't quite go as I've explained. But, even then, if they're jonesing for hockey players, they'll slip some more FA in that direction (and if they're not, they probably won't).</p>
<p>Well put D'yer!</p>
<p>To put it more succinctly, for those who aren't up to his quality of prose in the early morning (at least without 3 cups of coffee) being a "game changing" hockey player "may" result in a more generous FA package from a well-endowed school that has more difficulty getting these the quantity and quality they want.</p>
<p>For the guys out there, there are a lot of great players who don't get great FA offers. I know of one who is starting in goal on one of the better Junior A teams out there who while accepted to multiple great schools (and he had the grades and test scores to do it without hockey) and still didn't get a top shelf FA offer. And the schools didn't suffer without him, either. There are a lot of great hockey players as compared to the number of school opportunities.</p>
<p>For you girls out there, the odds are much better (almost as many hockey opportunities, but about 1/10 the number of candidates), although from first hand experience and discussion with other parents in similar situations, I wouldn't say that you will get over-the-top quality FA. But you are likely (still not guaranteed) to get as good of a offer as anyone else. It does, however, (and probably for the guys too) drastically improve your odds of admission if you are on the coaches list of preferred players.</p>
<p>IIRC, there is not a skating rink in Chattanooga TN, for those of you considering McCallie.</p>