<p>How accurate is it in terms of proximating the grants and scholarships? I guess those of you who were accepted could answer this question best. Thanks</p>
<p>My estimated EFC was $10,000 off, and not in a good way.</p>
<p>Our estimate was very close (within about 10%) but I was very precise with the information I put in as well. If you put in the same info in the estimator as you submitted via FAFSA/Profile and got a way different result, have you contacted financial aid to ask about the discrepancy?</p>
<p>No, I didn’t even think to ask. Maybe I should have, but I figure it is too late to ask now. My parents own a buisness and my dad has 3 different side jobs so our taxes are quite complicated. One of my dad’s side jobs is accounting so I didn’t think he put any of the info in wrong. Out of the 6 schools I was accepted to, my EFC has ranged from 20,000 to 40,000 so I’ve decided financial aid is mostly luck.</p>
<p>Assuming you are attending Cornell in the fall, I think you (or your dad) could still call and ask for an explanation why your financial aid offer was so much worse than what the estimator predicted. It may well be that the details of your family’s complicated income/tax situation just aren’t handled well by the estimator, and that’s what they’ll tell you, but it’s also possible that <em>they</em> made a mistake and would increase your award if you ask and that makes them realize it. I don’t think you have anything (but some time) to lose by asking.</p>
<p>so despite his unfortunate situation (hope you get that fixed!), the estimator is usually accurate?</p>
<p>It’s probably most accurate for people with simple income/asset situations. Any specialty situation is less likely to be covered by the estimator. But my H owns 2 businesses, one of which was new and had a loss last year, and the estimator was still pretty close for us, so, while I alone am certainly not a large enough sample size to assert that it’s “usually” accurate, it seems detailed and thus likely to be fairly close to the real process.</p>
<p>According to the policies and estimator they said there would be no expected family contribution but they still asked for more than a couple of other colleges I got accepted to did. They never gave me a definitive answer as to why that was but oh well.
Don’t worry too much about this though, I suspect it was mostly a currency conversion issue…</p>
<p>Cornell always requires a student contribution on the order of $3K from summer earnings, even if the family has 0 EFC.</p>