<p>Under 'Estimated Grant/Gift Aid' is Vassar Scholarship, worth $49,550...is this for real, or is the calculator just not working?</p>
<p>Vassar is one of several schools that commits to meeting need for low income students without loans . . . so, yes, if you entered your data properly, that’s not impossible.</p>
<p>It’s not technically a scholarship, even though that’s what they call it. It’s based strictly on need - not merit. It’s financial aid provided by the college itself.</p>
<p>@dodgersmom- well okay that’s pretty awesome. would you happen to know what other schools meet need like this?</p>
<p>Are you low income? If so, then the NPC may be correct.</p>
<p>Do you have a non-custodial parent? If so, then the NPC might not be correct if you need to include his income and assets.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that schools that “meet need” are the hardest to get into. Your GPA is a 3.3 and you’re waiting to get your SAT back. Your GPA could hurt your chances at schools like Vassar.</p>
<p>85% of the students accepted at Vassar have a GPA of 3.5 or higher. Almost 60% have a GPA of 3.75 or higher. That suggests that those with a lower GPA have some kind of hook…athlete, URM, etc.</p>
<p>Get a guide to colleges and look for those that guarantee to meet full need or close to it. They will meet full need as they define it. Most don’t give much in the way of merit money if any, so the NPCs for them are pretty accurate IF you don’t have a situation like a non custodial parent, or a family business or anything else that is not be addressed in the calculator. </p>
<p>But as Mom2 says, getting accepted to such schools is not an easy thing as they tend to be the most selective schools in the country. Also look for schools where you are in the top 5 % of the accepted pool of students test score wise and you could do well at such schools even if they do not guarantee to meet full need and not do so most of the time.</p>
<p>What’s ‘low income’, exactly? I thought my parents’ income was middle class, but they also have a lot of debt.
And guys I KNOW my chances at a school like Vassar are very low. I’m just hopeful.</p>
<p>[Colleges</a> That Claim to Meet Full Financial Need - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2012/02/16/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need]Colleges”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/2012/02/16/colleges-that-claim-to-meet-full-financial-need)</p>
<p>[Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges (“no loan” schools)](<a href=“http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php)</p>
<p>Debt isn’t considered. What do you consider to be middle class?</p>
<p>how much did the NPC indicate that your family should pay?</p>
<p>On the net price calc, it asked for the amount of debt on my parents’ home there is.
And my middle class I mean in the 35K with four people to supoprt (also, the net calc asked if other siblings would be attending college the same time as me, which my older brother is).
NPC indicated my family should pay 3,000, but I’ll have that money saved up by the time I enter college.</p>
<p>There are a handful of schools that have this amount of debt-free aid, as dodgersmom notes. Another similar pick to Vassar might be Hampshire, which has quite strong financial aid.</p>
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<p>Hampshire might have “quite strong financial aid,” but it is not among the schools that have made a commitment to eliminating loans from the FA packages of low income students. (See the link I provided above.) Further, a telephone call to Hampshire revealed that they do, indeed, include federal student loans in most, if not all, FA packages. (This is corroborated by a statement on the [school</a> website](<a href=“http://www.hampshire.edu/offices/3369.htm]school”>Types of Aid | Hampshire College) that the “major sources of aid are grants and scholarships, student loans, and work-study.”) </p>
<p>I can’t be sure that Hampshire does not have a “no loan” policy for certain very low income students like the one in your example . . . but since that policy isn’t documented anywhere, I’d be leery of advising prospective applicants to rely on it.</p>
<p>There are real life students as well as any number of fictional students that get great need packages even from the stingiest colleges. I’ve mentioned that a few friends of mine have kids who got by far their best awards from NYU, a school that often gaps and is not known for its generous aid. There was a poster who got a great aid award from BU. To do well at schools like those, one has to be among their top wanted applicants. </p>
<p>Harvard has great awards for students even those whose parents are making enough so that they would get little if any aid from most colleges. The problem there, is getting. in. So it is with the schools with the most generous aid, even those that are need blind.</p>
<p>Have done a bit more research and see now that Hampshire isn’t even on the list of colleges that commit to meeting full need!</p>
<p>That it may, on occasion, provide very generous FA packages to certain select students does not make it a school I would consider a reliable source of FA funding. As cptofthehouse observed, even the stingiest schools are, on rare occasion, quite generous . . . but it sure as heck isn’t something you can count on!!!</p>
<p>The two links I provided above offer great guidance on where to start if you are low income and need to find a school that will really meet your full need. Yes, some of the schools on those lists are ridiculously hard to get into . . . but they cover a wide range, and some of them are not quite so killer competitive as others.</p>
<p>And my middle class I mean in the 35K with four people to supoprt (also, the net calc asked if other siblings would be attending college the same time as me, which my older brother is).
NPC indicated my family should pay 3,000, but I’ll have that money saved up by the time I enter college.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that Vassar would expect your family to pay $3k when there are two in school with a low income. </p>
<p>What exactly is that $3k? Is it student summer work contribution? If so, that makes sense.</p>
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<p>Yes, Vassar’s EFC includes a minimum student contribution. Don’t believe it would be the entire $3k, but it would be part of it.</p>
<p>Perhaps it would be best to let sleeping dogs lie . . . but this particular sleeping dog stinks!</p>
<p>I was not particularly happy with the misdirection provided in post #10 above - claiming that a school that doesn’t meet full need provides financial aid comparable to that of a school that does. I suspected that this new CC’er, whose website allows comparison of different schools’ net price calculators, was relying too heavily on an isolated example and disregarding the very real differences between different schools’ published financial aid policies.</p>
<p>I’ve since taken a closer look at the website this new user linked to . . . and discovered that the 4-year college he advocated for may well be the only 4-year college on the website - amidst hundreds of for-profit trade schools!</p>
<p>So, the misdirection wasn’t accidental. It was a ploy to lure traffic to a website that pretends to provide a service for families trying to figure out their financial aid options, but that in fact provides nothing of the kind. (Yes, there’s a net price calculator tool - but plug in the name of any of the many colleges commonly discussed on CC and all you’ll get is an error message stating that the college has “not yet” been added to the website database.)</p>
<p>So, the lesson learned? If you want to know your cost of attendance at a particular college, go to the college website to find out. Don’t use a third party service - even if it’s free. And don’t rely on the result you get from the net price calculator without also taking a good, hard look at the school’s published financial aid policies. A promising estimate from a school that doesn’t guarantee to meet full need may - or may not - yield a comparable offer come spring.</p>
<p>Also a warning that when you use a school’s NPC, check and see if that school guarantees to meet 100% of need and does not have merit awards, just need bases awards. If you are trying to get some idea of what you institutional need might actually be, run your numbers through some schools that meet 100% of need and have no merit awards. By doing a few of them, you can get some idea what your that need is. Not exact, because schools define their own need when not using FAFA but you can get some idea. It’s a figure that is difficult to get. Like trying to nail jello to a wall. But by running your numbers through, say, Bowdoin, Vassar, Pomona calculators that gives you some pretty pure figures of what the expected contributions can be, unadultered by averages.</p>