<p>I tried appealing to a financial aid counselor at Rice in person. I explained my family's financial situation...it's odd. We look upper middle class on paper, but we have essentially no savings and a lot of bad investment choices. Our EFC is so far beyond what we can afford that it borders on ridiculous.
She basically told me that it didn't matter at all. FAFSA estimations are the iron law, I suppose.
I even cried! And I do an impressive sad-little-girl-cry.
Alas, it's state school for me next year.</p>
<p>understand that the FAFSA guidelines are federal mandates -- they can only be altered for very specific reasons -- that are spelled out clearly. The schools risk serious fines if they do not follow the guidelines strictly.</p>
<p>Institutional guidelines, on the otherhand, do have some flexibility. When you see people successfully negotiate a financial aid package, they are seeing an increase in institutional aid or the addition of loans and grants that they have flexibility in awarding (like the Perkins loans).</p>
<p>if you see someone who has had their federal EFC changed, it happened because there was either a mistake when it was filed or the filer's circumstances have changed significantly (job loss, death in family, divorce) and the changed circumstances meet the requirements for a professional judgement in changing the EFC.</p>
<p>No, I think you misunderstood. The school offered me NOTHING in addition to my measly FAFSA loans. I was trying to convince her that they should give me institutional aid.</p>
<p>hsmomstef,
I did write an appeal as the admin asst. suggested. I haven't heard back yet, it has only been a few days. My main gripe really is that I read extensively online --- this is actually a hobby of mine - researching things to death online --- and I found NOTHING online that indicated that where the second (or third) child goes to school changes the IM numbers. None of the EFC calculated estimates approached the high EFC the school gave my younger son. So, I guess the bottomline is, don't believe everything you read, even if from respectable sites</p>
<p>"I even cried! And I do an impressive sad-little-girl-cry"</p>
<p>Fin aid people have heard all kinds of financial stories and seen all kinds of actors. Their motto - show me the proof.</p>
<p>I was able to appeal my FA at my 1st choice. I bascially sent them an email telling them that they were definitely my 1st choice but that financial aid was a consideration for my family and that colgate and JHU had offered me much more money. I also explained that I'm an international etc etc. They were able to increase my FA. from 15000 to 27000...so I'd say its worth a shot, at least try, the worst they can do is just say no.</p>
<p>I got a reply from the financial aid office. To me, it was essentially "double-talk" where they told me how generous they had been already because they had already given me an "extra" 5K in grant aid to compensate for my costs in sending my oldest son to community college. If my oldest son was going to a school as expensive as theirs, she went on to say, then they would have given me more. The "extra 5K" or so brought the grand total up to about 7K total in grant aid, bringing my "self-help" total bill to around 40K per year! Then she went on to say how they had filled all but around $600 of my need! Now I see how they advertize provding so much financial aid. They use a formula that is very stingy in estimating what a kid's financial need is (say about 10K or more less than any estimation calculators). Then they almost fill this "need" that they determine using their own "stingy" formulas, and then brag about how generous they are. So, that's it, we will not be so fiscally irresponsible to send our son there. he will go to a top public college instead (and he seems to want to go there as a strong second choice anyways).</p>