<p>My neighbor is bitterly disappointed with the packages offered her daughter at some northeast private colleges, namely Ithaca and Quinnipiac. She and her husband combined income is about 110K. With these colleges costing 40k (or well over) I guess she expected more from the Govt. or the school in the way of scholarships and grants. They got little FA, other than the unsubsidized Stafford loan and the standard 5k discount (merit) from the privates. Her D was a solid student B+ type with an 1150 SAT and good EC's. I gently tried to warn her ..... I knew her D's stats were not in the top merit category. Now her D is off to a state school with a commuting student body and nobody is happy. </p>
<p>Any of you folks have a similar experience? Did you expect more and get less?</p>
<p>I predict her daughter will be happy. She will be happy once she starts classes and gets settled in - which may not be until Thanksgiving.</p>
<p>It’s not just about getting in - but fitting in. Fitting in includes fitting in academically. Sometimes it’s much better to be a “big fish in a little pond”. This could turn out very well.</p>
<p>Ithaca and Quinnipiac are not known to be particularly generous. For some reason, a lot of my daughter’s classmates applied to Quinnipiac, some with stellar stats and stories, but none did particularly well in terms of financial aid. The only student who ended up going there was the val who got tons of outside money to make it affordable, and she was to my mind a pretty compelling candidate.</p>
<p>According to NCES.ed.gov, Ithaca has an “average” institutional grant of $13,493, and Quinnipiac has an “average” institutional grant of $10,299. When a school costs well over $40K, that does not help all that much. Other schools are more generous than those two.</p>
<p>Quinnipiac-Average % of Need Met = 71%
Ithaca College - Average % of Neet Met = 87% </p>
<p>No, they aren’t outstanding FA statistics, are they? I am self-educated in financial aid & buy PR’s “Paying for College Without Going Broke” every year. I wanted to be an educated consumer so starting buying the book when oldest child was a sophomore in high school. The book has saved us $1,000’s over the years & keeps us informed about all the changes in rules, financial aid formulas, etc. So, it matters where your child applies & what kind of methodology the school uses: FM (federal methodology) or IM (institututional methodology) how they treat home equity, medical expenses & so on. </p>
<p>For the Class of 2009, I tried to advise my D about the financial aid aspects of it & being able to afford the school! And I pretty much nailed down the outcomes to her, who would gap us the most & who would give us the best aid package. Ultimately the best school gave us the best financial aid package: Alfred University.</p>
<p>The last time I checked, Q met 65% of financial need. My son applied to both of those schools too. Ithaca’s package was a stretch for us, but would have been doable if we lived on rice and beans (in other words, they were in the middle of the packages we received). That said, our son had higher SAT scores than the ones OP had listed that her neighbor had, and strong ECs. He did not apply to PARK, which seems to have more money available to offer for merit aid than the other schools. Our FA offer from Quinnipiac was horrible. Also, this school was using a chart when offering merit aid. My son attended a competitive hs where As are rare. He did not meet their chart for merit aid bc of GPA even though he met the chart by country mile based on SAT scores. They did not care about what type of HS he attended. All HSs were treated equally, which kept my kid from receiving merit aid, and from attending. It was a no brainer to take it off our table.</p>
<p>SLUMOM, thanks. Q must have increased the % of need met since my son applied.</p>
<p>The one thing I learned this year is that FA varies tremendously between schools. Our family EFC was about $16,000. My son was accepted as an OOS at Michigan - but the FA was dreadful. No grants and about $8000 in govt. loans. Completely unworkable. But then he was accepted at William & Mary with generous grants and at Wake Forest with extremely generous grant money. So, in our case, the most expensive private school became our least expensive option. It is costing less to send him to Wake Forest than to our state university. So, the one thing that I tell everyone, is don’t assume anything. Don’t assume that a public school will cost less than a private one. Don’t assume that a very expensive school is out of your reach. And be prepared for a bumpy ride!</p>
<p>You can find out so much on many school’s web sites. If the most merit aid they give to anyone is $10,000 and you need $18,000 to make it work, a miracle is not going to happen where they offer your child $18,000.</p>
<p>Bless you for trying, but unless a parent really wants to hear the unvarnished truth and become educated, he or she won’t get what you are saying and will surely be disappointed the fin aid results.</p>
<p>Ellemenope: you are right. Unless someone wants to listen, there is nothing one can do. I’ve got some students who say that they are applying to this school or that school because they believe they will get big money. Their grades are good, maybe their SATs are too, but they are not in that top merit group. The only thing we can do is stress the word backup. And make sure you love that backup. It just may give you the best offer.</p>
<p>I know this discussion is prob. mostly about privates but I’ll add that S1 got two nice merit scholarships from our big state u. We don’t qualify for FA since our state u’s are very reasonably priced compared to many. The two he got were not automatic based on his app. He had to do separate apps. for each. To say we were very happy is an understatement. We really didn’t expect it.</p>
<p>The funny thing was he was notified early in the spring (this was all four years ago) that he was not chosen for one of the scholarships but in early June received another letter saying he would be getting it. The explanation was that the student it was originally awarded to decided not to attend his univ. and S1 was next on the list. Nice surprise.
The other merit scholarship was a departmental one. We had almost given up on that one too but finally got the award letter at the end of June. His major was in a very laid back dept. so they were in no rush,lol.</p>
<p>When I applied in 2005-2006 (32 ACT/4.0 UW GPA/top 2% weighted GPA/good EC’s/strong recs, to give a point of reference), I received good merit aid from:</p>
<p>-Case Western
-U Montana (OOS)–exceptional
-Westminster (UT)–could have applied for more (up to full tuition, from 3/4 tuition), but it was already affordable enough and I had a sense that I probably wasn’t going to attend.
-Rhode Island (OOS)–exceptional and a special program</p>
<p>I was disappointed in my merit aid from:</p>
<p>-Depaul
-Purdue (OOS, but my cousin, who applied OOS this year, reported getting good merit aid)
-UIUC (OOS)</p>
<p>Did not apply for need-based aid, but merit aid was a <em>huge</em> consideration, and Depaul, UIUC, and Purdue fell quickly off my list after receiving their merit aid packages.</p>
<p>So Nightingale, you sent her links from CC and she didn’t heed the warning ?</p>
<p>Your neighbor sounds like the typical FA Bird (returning to Capistrano) that we see here every year. Someone needs to make that thread sticky…</p>
<p>As to making finances work at Q…</p>
<p>A couple of years ago goaliegirl and I were watching some hockey over there and decided to do an informal tour to kill some time. The school was closed (holidays), but the guard (a nice older gentleman) was nice enough to let us drive around and have a look-see. On the way out I asked him how long he had worked there. He said that this was his second year and that he had retired, but his daughter wanted to go to school at Q. He took the job for the tuition discount for her.</p>
<p>A mighty fine tactic. At some schools, we’re talking high-caliber northeast competitive LACs, even if you’re a janitor or a secretary (not a knock on those positions, but I’m just sayin’) your sons & daughters will get free tuition.</p>
<p>Ultimately my neighbor, as someone here suggested, was just not listening. I think folks look at these schools and say… “Come on, it really can’t cost THAT much.” Also I think they believe their S or D will garner merit because the are a “good student”. Well in my 12 year-old D’s middle school 40% of the kids made honors last time around. Obvioulsly that will shrink in HS but you really have to be more than “good”. Especially in the northeast where the population is centralized and appliications to private schools abound. Like many folks here I spent hundreds reserching all aspects of FA, merit, percentage of need met, and so on. My oldest D got a great package at a school she loves. When I talk to folks about leveraging offers, SAT prep courses, tutors, most just seem to frown and consider it far to much workor too expensive. My D’s efforts and my reserch paid off big with over 50k in merit awarded over four years. We got a return on the investment. But… as so many CC parents know you’ve got to do the work, ask questions, visit, talk to dept heads, and check the boxes they want checked. I know I could have found my neighbors D a better school with a better package but neither she nor her mom wanted seemed interested after the first ten miutes of our conversation… so I just dropped it.</p>
<p>Guess it depends upon individual circumstances. My daughter’s public university gave her more than 1/2 of her cost of attendance, for all four years, with three renewable merit scholarships – and she’s an out-of-stater. She had very good stats going in and has maintained them. Private schools aren’t always the best deal.</p>
<p>Well, yes, because most folks cannot believe the published costs! Also, for years one heard that there is plenting of “unclaimed” scholarship money, nobody pays the sticker price, you can get financial aid, the college will give you a scholarship, and so on. I know that I still cannot believe the sticker prices! To me they are insane.</p>
?</p>