@BrownParent…those are all questions for which we have no answers yet - kid is only in his junior year and looking at 2017-2018 school year.
Some of the terminology (EFC) I’m seeing for the first time. He thinks that he stands a better chance at private colleges rather than public schools.
Looking at U Penn, Columbia, Stanford and UT Austin.
There are thousands of bright kids on here - obviously making me concerned that he thinks he’s going to sail into any of these schools without missing a heartbeat. Trying to encourage him and my wife to create accounts on here just to get a taste of the ‘reality’ that awaits him in the admissions process!
Heck. By the time you collect the data they would need, all you have to do is enter it. Fafsa is easy (especially if you’ve already run NPCs- you have, right?) Some points in the CSS need thinking, sometimes you don’t fully understand the purpose of a question or the instructions are unclear. But with kids going off to college, I’d sooner use part of the money for some family time together, now or later, and hold the rest.
A place to start would be to run a few net price calculators on college websites. Publics in your own state and other states and private universities.
Some are more detailed than others and will list estimated grants and possibly merit scholarships (those will ask for gpa and scores, maybe rank) based on income, household size, age, assets, etc
What I do is use Google and put in school name and net price calculator. Then I don’t need to look for it on college website.
Our EFC is too high for Pell grant (fed) but we qualify for state grant (for schools instate) and a subsidized direct loan.
Never had to deal with CSS profile. My D applied to schools that only used FAFSA.
@mommdc - thanks for those helpful insights. I don’t think we have any clear strategy on where (and why) to apply.
We’re doing a lot of assuming (based on high GPA, initial SAT score of 2160 yada yada yada) - but I am now realizing that this process is a lot more time consuming and complicated to make assumptions.
I did an EFC calculation last night based on our 2014 tax return, and the EFC came out to about $18.5K. That will definitely increase for the 2015 and 2016 tax years since my wife has just started working - so I am expecting an EFC of about $25K/Yr - Not sure if we will be able to cough up all that $$ comfortably - but we will see.
@Madison85 - I am not sure how to decipher the tone of your comment - NO - it is not a surprise that my kid wants to go to college - and NO - there are hardly any savings for college. It is has been only 4 years since I have held down a steady job - with employers cutting higher salary workers wherever I have been
Our resident state is TX
He qualifies for automatic admission to UT Austin - based on his class ranking - and with an EFC of $25K - that will cover all in-state tuition/board @ UT Austin. Therefore, while he thinks about where he wants to apply, UT Austin will be his last resort backup.
Or you can concentrate on schools where son can get enough merit aid to be affordable. If he got full tuition for example then you would have room and board left which is around $10-15k.
It’s good to know this now because then the college list can be made with affordability in mind.
Don’t wait till Chistmas break to run the calculators. Stay up late and do it tonight. Christmas break is way too late if your kid is a senior. The EFC you ran was probably the FAFSA one. But each college has their own calculation, and the cost of attendance is usually higher than the FAFSA EFC. You kid’s list could change completely once you see the numbers, and by Christmas break his apps should be well underway. So do this today if you can. Try to use your 2015 estimated income with your wife working, too. A warning – colleges don’t care if you made a lot less money for years, and just recently moved to a higher income bracket. You may be unpleasantly surprised at how much they expect you to pay.
Once you know for sure a school is affordable and your kid is applying, check the dates when all the FA forms are due to the colleges. Some will want the CSS profile before your 2015 taxes are done, then you have to send an update after doing your taxes. Also, I have found it quite helpful to keep careful notes of any fields that weren’t super obvious on how I decided/calculated to fill them in so I know what I did later on.
@intparent - thanks for the helpful information. Kid is a junior - admit year for college is fall 2017. Current intent is to get the SAT and ACT out of the way - well before the deadlines for filling in college apps and essays come up.
@mommdc - trying to be realistic here - however, the rest of the household seems to not comprehend the competitiveness for the schools for which my kid has trained his eyes on (Stanford, Northwestern, Dartmouth, U Penn, Duke and NYU) - Since we’re TX residents, he automatically qualifies for admission to UT Austin - so that is where the $25K will come into play. Everywhere else he applies, we will pay upto that amount - the rest will have to be made up in grants/scholarships etc.
You might find the threads of the regular decision accepted students for last year’s class here in CC and show them some candidates who got in (and who didn’t). Also, show them the Common Data Set (Google it) for each school. It has test info on the admitted class that helps your kid see where he stacks up, and what the acceptance rates are. Remember that a lot of the students below the 50% mark (and below 25% for sure) are hooked in some way – recruited athlete, legacy, URM. So don’t assume lightening will strike if your kid has lower stats.
Also, the net price calculators aren’t as accurate if the bio parents are divorced, if parents have a small business, or if you own rental property. They will show more aid than he will probably get.
His list sounds like it is made up of a lot of “name brands”. You might get a copy of the Fiske Guide to Colleges for him to review for some other schools. The library or his GC probably has one. The descriptions don’t change much from year to year, just don’t rely on the test score ranges or application dates/requirements in an older copy.
I wouldn’t make that assumption. Some of the schools on your son’s list are extremely generous with need-based aid. Run the NPCs at the individual college web sites to see what they might offer.