<p>jnsq</p>
<p>I did the same Santa lie. I don’t even know why, because my parents didn’t do it and hubby is Jewish. And I did the tooth fairy lie too. I still have a little jar of teeth because at some point, my son decided he wanted to save up his teeth and “get a lump sum.”</p>
<p>Financial reality should begin in middle school. That is the time to have a conversation with your child as to the reality of college. Our conversations were simple with our kids. We will pay tuition at the state U - anything beyond that is your responsibility. If you want more then that, accomplish what you have to in HS to obtain your goal. Both of them did and ended up with full rides at a choice of top 20 schools. Maybe it is time to put some of the responsibility back on the consumer.</p>
<p>Obviously goals can and should be adjusted during this journey. Compile a realistic list of schools from both a academic and financial perspective. That means don’t overestimate your potential, but at the same time don’t underestimate it either (Cur, don’t know if you remember that advice). As other have said, only apply to schools that the student would be happy at (does not matter if it is a safety or a reach). Cast a wide net for both schools and scholarships. Make the extra effort to apply and figure out what the decision makers are looking for. Believe it or not, presentation and packaging has a lot to do with the end result. It may be a lot of work, but the end result can be very worthwhile.</p>
<p>If you have high need and good stats, apply to schools that meet 100% of need- preferably also with a no-loan policy. They’re out there. They’re LIFE SAVERS.</p>
<p>If you don’t exactly have high need but good stats, find some schools with really excellent merit scholarships, but if they only meet 50% of need, don’t expect them to give you a ton just because you’re at the top of their applicant pool.</p>
<p>And if your stats are not tip-top, face the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>I just finished talking to a young man who is the brother of a student at a top LAC. He just got his ACT scores back, and they are completely & utterly average (22). He is devastated. He really wants to have the amazing education his brother’s school is providing, but he doesn’t have the scores. There are certainly some other great educational institutions out there, but it’s going to be a stretch to get him into a school that will meet his desires. He is going to retake the ACT after some more preparation, and I will help him research school options. In the end, he may end up doing CC then transfer … which is not the end of the world, by any means … but it’s hard for him to accept what may be the reality of his situation. The good news? He is a junior, so he has time to face what is happening & put together a battle plan. </p>
<p>We can’t all get what we want, but if we face reality … we might just find we get what we need (my apologies to Mick).</p>
<p>My top 6 suggestions to families that are starting this adventure:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Buy “Paying for College without Going Broke” (Princeton Review, about $14 on Amazon) and read it during the student’s Sophomore HS year, or earlier. Develop strategies to put your finances in order early. Then read it again.</p></li>
<li><p>Make sure the student understands the parents’ general ability to pay, and that an acceptance letter doesn’t necessarily mean the FA package will permit attendance. Make sure student understands that comparing financial aid offers of the accepting schools will be part of the process.</p></li>
<li><p>Use the Finaid calculator to estimate your EFC, both institutional and federal methodology. Do this early on, and during the process to see how changes in your finances can impact your potential aid.</p></li>
<li><p>Use College Board Profiles to screen the student’s schools of interest to see which give generous aid, and which give relatively little aid, in order to weed out the schools that aren’t likely to be affordable, and focus on schools that are likely to be affordable, if accepted. That means schools that meet a high % of need, with a high grant/loan ratio. If you’re house rich and cash poor, it may also mean looking for private schools that cap home equity.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t save for college in the student’s name, if you have any chance of being eligible for need-based aid.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t saddle the student with huge debt in order to send him/her to a ‘dream school’. </p></li>
<li><p>And as was said on the first page, identify a financial AND academic safety school early on.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Madville,
My D’s college told me that they run a standard FAFSA calculation with my ex’s income figures as if he were the custodial parent, and then add the number for his parental contribution to mine. In other words, as he and I are both single and we have 1 kid in college, the FAFSA calculator is run twice, once with his income & assets, once with mine. There is no guarantee that other Profile schools use the same methodology, but it makes sense.</p>
<p>I’d note that given that situation, the same sort of “professional judgment” information that should be provided for the custodial parent should also be provided for the NCP. That is, if NCP has unusually high medical bills or some other personal factor that might reduce EFC, that info should be sent.</p>
<p>Our son applied to two “financial reach” schools. I thought let’s just see what happens, you never know, with merit & financial aid maybe it will bring the cost down to our price range. For the record, when I estimated our EFC beforehand, I was off by about 20%. I used the EFC calculator on college board. </p>
<p>He knew up front what our financial contribution for his college education would be, but he “set his heart” on a school that we can’t afford even with a merit scholarship + an unsubsidzed Stafford loan anyway. We reviewed his options to make up the difference. </p>
<p>Then he “fell in love” with an in-state public after prospective student day this past weekend. He has some great opportunities there - a 1/2 tuition merit scholarship and honors college, but most importantly he will graduate debt free! And he is very happy about his decision, when he told me yesterday, I saw my happy go lucky son again. It was a bit tense around here in recent weeks. We’re mailing the deposit today!</p>
<p>In retrospect, I think the decision to apply to financial reaches was a mistake. And I won’t repeat it with my daughter who’ll be a h.s junior this fall.</p>
<p>When looking at EFC/need–
One other consideration which I was too ignorant to appreciate when my oldest was going through this…
I didn’t calculate the difference her EFC would be to the schools she was looking at for her 2nd, 3rd or 4th year. This was important because she had a brother who was right behind her.</p>
<p>In other words, the schools who were generous in meeting her need as a freshman would have been more generous when she was a sophomore and beyond (assuming no changes in income). We didn’t factor this information in AT ALL. It might have made a difference in her choices, knowing that the freshman year would have been the most expensive but would have gone down from there.</p>
<p>fwiw.</p>
<p>copter - My EFC on the estimated calculators indicates we’ll get no need based aid. (Unless kid gets into HYP) So we’re steering her to public schools and a less selective private school where it looks lilke she could get merit aid. I feel bad because her Naviance graphs show she could get into some decent private schools but I just don’t want to make her go through the process, love the school, get in and then agonize over costs.</p>
<p>Yesterday, 11:36 AM #76<br>
LurkNessMonster
Member</p>
<p>Join Date: Sep 2006
Threads: 25
Posts: 625 The process is designed to be non transparent. As long as colleges are on a mission to attract as many applicants as possible, being vague about financial aid serves their purposes. It’s a system designed to keep parents and students in the dark for as long as possible."</p>
<p>I try hard to be informed about these things, but it is darn hard getting ‘clear’ information. For all freshmen, our high school has a granted program that provides the opportunity to work with a Financial Aid consulting firm. The families are encouraged to fill out a form that will give the consultant the necessary information to determine an estimated Expected Parental Contribution number along with a report about what to consider/expect in paying for colleges. There is an information night to go along with it.</p>
<p>Our kids have always been high academic achievers and their primary extra-curricular activities have always been at the highest, elite participation levels. Going into that informational night, I felt ‘the world was their oyster’ with the potential merit scholarships, athletic scholarships, financial aid packets potentially available to them. Naively, I thought they would be able to cast their college choice net as wide as they liked or dreamed.</p>
<p>Leaving the informational meeting, I was figuratively gasping for air having felt like I’d received a hard punch to the gut. Top-tier schools do NOT give merit aid or athletic scholarships; our good fortune in having made the best of our own education and earning good livings rendered us pretty much totally ineligible for any financial aid considerations. Of course, I couldn’t imagine which pocket we had the $80,000 (the EPC for our family) stashed in!</p>
<p>We began teasing the kids that they would now have to go to the local commuter college and that we had mis-guided them in encouraging them to shoot for top-tier schools as rewards for their discipline and achievements in school and outside of school.</p>
<p>As the oldest applied for colleges this year, I was confused about whether to fill out the FAFSA and CSS forms. At first, I thought ‘what the heck, may as well’, but then when trying to, I found them exceptionally tedious and confusing. All the while, I’m thinking ‘what’s the point, we don’t qualify’. But, I couldn’t get a straight answer from the College folks–or anyone else. Whenever I asked, they always–to a person–advised that those forms be filled out because ‘you just never know unless you do’. I tried and tried to find out what the family income was at the ‘just no way’ threshold. Everyone of them told me “we don’t have a specific number. It just all depends on the circumstances. You should fill it out.” </p>
<p>We polled friends and colleagues in the same income bracket. They were all filling out financial aid forms. We asked parents who had gone before us. Only one laughed and said, ‘don’t waste your time!’</p>
<p>Finally, between that last response and what I’d been able to piece together from various threads on here (thank you, curdmudgeon and chedva!), I bagged filling out the FAFSA and CSS forms. Nevertheless, everyone else I know locally with similar income levels was dutifully filling out those forms–and expecting to compare financial aid packets when decision time came.</p>
<p>This thread is the only one in which I have seen an actual income number
($100,000) given as a ‘point of no hope’ in terms of financial aid. Just having colleges acknowledge that simple number (or whatever theirs might be) would go along way in helping folks be more realistic in their kids’ chances of receiving financial aid.</p>
<p>Knowing that we will be on the hook for the full, non-discounted price of whichever college our kids attend makes it much easier to consider how ‘elite’ they can cast their sights. That our ability to provide them with an ‘easy-life’, without financial, social, or emotional trauma probably makes them ‘uninteresting’ and ‘non-diverse’ to the Admissions folks, is harder to swallow. What’s that saying? “Can’t win for losing.”</p>
<p>Coupled with (now) knowing that stellar academic achievements, discipline, focus, clean-living, and elite-level athletic endeavors and participation are also considered essentially unremarkable, makes for a very jaded (and discouraged) parental view of round two of college applications coming up in another year or two.
:(</p>
<p>Hey Muffy:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I guess I misunderstood how schools calculate need for financial aid. I thought it was straigt up COA - EFC = Financial Need. The out of reach school in question used FAFSA. Even though our EFC was higher than I expected, and assuming that we had the cash on hand to pay the EFC for four years, there was still gap between COA and our EFC. But, and this is the part I really missed the boat on, they deducted the merit scholarship from his COA before they figured out our financial need, and that made all the difference.</p>
<p>Incidentally, we employed the same strategy of applying to public and less selective privates that would offer a good education and merit money. </p>
<p>And if I haven’t said this already, I’m delighted with my son’s choice, and I think he has great opportunities ahead of him.</p>
<p>
Well, I think one of the key points of this thread, which is why I am highlighting this, is… that may be the definition of financial need (for FAFSA schools)…</p>
<p>But that is Step 1.
Step 2 is: what percent of financial need does each given school typically fill?
That information can be found on more than one website. It’s an average, so doesn’t tell you exactly what you’ll get, but begins to debunk the misunderstanding.
Step 3 is: how much of the package is likely to be free money (grant) vs loaned money?
Step 4 is: if merit money is obtained, how will that impact the need-based package?</p>
<p>I realize that the above poster understands this now, but didn’t always, and that is the point of this thread. And how we as a cc community can spell it out better for future families.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Treemaven, one of the reasons why you won’t find many accounts of a number such as $100,000 representing a point of no-return is that the number is highly variable. For instance, even before the new changes at Harvard, one could see that the school offered financial aid to families with incomes higher than $100,000. Of course, the amount of aid might have been small and the families might have had specific conditions such as multiple siblings in school at the same time. </p>
<p>One of the reasons to justify going the annoying forms is that the future might be less predictable. High income families have been known to face unemployment or extraordinary bills. While I do not know it for a fact, an oft-repeated claim is that the failure to file as a freshman might preclude one to obtain further aid. </p>
<p>Lastly, your account of finding out the “bad” news at the College night is very common. Unfortunately, as this thread has conveyed, the reaction of families range from ignoring the warning altogether or … giving up. Obviously, a better position is to keep an open mnd, without unrealistic expectations but also without undue resignation. One simple example is provided by the families that might have written off Harvard or Stanford last year only to find that those schools would be cheaper in 2008-2009 than the public school their children attend this year. </p>
<p>Finding the correct information and spending the time to complete the process might yield a nice dividend at a time one least expects it.</p>
<p>copter, I think that’s a common mistake, and one that I made too. I didn’t think she’d get 100% of the need-based aid PLUS 100% of the merit scholarship, but I thought maybe she’d get 50% of the need-based aid and 100% of the merit scholarship. Instead, the merit scholarship dollar-for-dollar reduced the need-based aid. </p>
<p>For example, I thought if our ‘demonstrated need’ was 10k, and she got a 10k merit sholarship, they might give us the 10k merit scholarship plus 5k in need-based aid. Instead, they gave us the 10k merit scholarship and nothing else. So the ‘merit’ scholarship was useless.</p>
<p>Exactamundo jmmom! 
</p>
<p>I can’t keep up with this thread, so forgive me if my points have been made already or questions have already been answered!</p>
<p>First, some schools DO allow you to keep their financial aid in addition to merit. Juilliard is one. They WANT you to seek outside merit, so they don’t punish you for getting it. But they don’t call their financial package “financial need”. It makes sense that if someone (including the college) gives you money you didn’t have before, that would reduce the need dollar for dollar. That is the definition of need - money you don’t have. Many schools meet “need” with loans. Merit reduces those loans, so it is still worthwhile to pursue the merit. Plus, much merit continues for all 4 years, whereas need is refigured every year. So, if your financial situation improves, you lose the need, but retain the merit.</p>
<p>The problem I have with many online calculators is that they require you to have done the FAFSA. This is great for those with kids in college already, but if you are trying to get an handle on your EFC a couple years ahead of time, asking someone to stop and do the FAFSA is not realistic. I for one would have been happy with a ballpark estimation, just to have some idea of what could happen.</p>
<p>Just a basic - income plus assets, minus allowable liabilities, times a certain percentage equals approximate expected contribution…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Binx, that is absolutely true, but not in all cases, and especially not in cases where there is NOT a gap. One tenet of financial aid is that the total of all aid plus family contributions cannot exceed the COA. This is the reason why outside scholarships (or merit aid) can replace loans, work study, or sometimes summer earning expectations. After that, most schools will reduce their internal grants dollar for dollar. </p>
<p>The cases where the granting of merit aid becomes a moot are found at schools as Smith College when they offer merit aid packages as enticements. Offering a generous scholarship to a student who has (or will) also been offered generous need-based aid will not change the total payment by the family: the EFC cannot be reduced and if the school meets 100% of need, the merit is all but worthless, except for the prestige. And, if the event the “merit aid” comes with an expected time contribution by the student, a student could be better off NOT having the merit aid altogether and use the time to earn outside income.</p>
<p>In the end, of course, there is absolutely NO WAY to draw generic conclusions from anecdotes. Every case is different.</p>
<p>PS I completely disagree with delaying finding the exact FAFSA number. This is something that HAS to be done as early as possible --and is highly doable. The problem with ballpark estimation is that people tend to overlook items that might surprise them. People finding out the possible impact of pension distributions or especially tax free distribution in the year prior to filing the FAFSA can be ugly. A lot of the complaining about the FAFSA stems from the more nebulous areas … not from not knowing one’s income and expenses.</p>
<p>Just an obvious point which goes without saying (but some of the bitterness on this thread is beginning to get to me…)</p>
<p>Your kid is better off in the grand scheme of things having worked diligently in HS and taken advantage of every opportunity thrown his/her way than not… regardless of the admissions outcome.</p>
<p>Your kid is better off having had the luxury of two working parents and to be raised in a stable home than to be raised by a single parent… even if the single parent does better in the FA department.</p>
<p>Your kid is better off having been exposed to music performance, athletic training and competition, the visual arts, community service, etc., even if it didn’t push him/her over the bar at Dream School with a full ride.</p>
<p>Your kid is better off having parents who care enough about their college education to spend time on sites like this, rather than having parents who figure, "I managed without college (or without elite college or with only community college or whatever) so let the kid work things out.</p>
<p>There is a somewhat fatalistic tone here which suggests that if you can’t win the lottery in both admissions and FA somehow you’ve been cheated. Look around in your own company, community, church/synagogue, etc-- aren’t the leaders and the doers and the successful people the ones who were diligent and hard working and pushed themselves and made things happen even if they attended Hard Knock U. rather than the other “H” ??? You can’t regret having pushed your kids to explore their talents and experience the world just because you mistakenly thought that Princeton would give your kid a free ride for being fabulous and wonderful. Kid is still fabulous and wonderful… and isn’t that the reward???</p>
<p>We were also dismayed to learn… late in the game… the impact of setting up custodial accounts in the kids names when they were infants, and of saving diligently, and of putting every extra nickel into their college accounts. Still, when it’s all said and done, better to have spent 18 years saving and planning for college, and for imbuing the attitude in our kids that as a family we put their educations at the top of the heap, priority wise, than having not done that-- even if it meant more dough.</p>
<p>I’m not bitter. :)</p>
<p>Me either, and I haven’t sensed a lot of bitterness here, just a ‘heads up, this is how things really work’. </p>
<p>and in the immortal words of NRBQ, ‘you might get somethin’, but there ain’t no free’…</p>