<p>^Very true. </p>
<p>Bryn Mawr offered me a very generous grant. My offers from Mount Holyoke and Smith were good too, although I did hear a lot of people weren’t satisfied with their packages from Smith. Top LAC’s are typically pretty generous.</p>
<p>Katwkittens, I think you’re right that schools can fudge the COA. I think they also can have some very different policies on how they treat income and assets. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li>Do they cap home equity?</li>
<li>Do they count the income from non-custodial parents? From stepparents?</li>
<li>Do they give an allowance for medical expenses?</li>
<li>How do they assess the value of a parent-owned business, farm, or professional practice?</li>
<li>Do they add business losses or depreciation back to income?</li>
<li>Do they add 401(k) contributions back to income?</li>
<li>Do they give allowances for siblings who are in graduate/professional school?</li>
</ul>
<p>I’m sure there are many more examples. When a student reports that School A has offered him $20,000/year more than School B - and both schools supposedly meet 100% of need - then I suspect the schools are taking different positions on issues like these.</p>
<p>Therefore, it’s probably difficult to say that one school has more favorable financial aid policies. For the family with a lot of home equity, School A may be better; for the family that owns a business, School B may be the winner; for the family with high medical expenses, it may be School C. </p>
<p>So here’s a new question: Does each school decide a position on these issues and then treat all its students consistently? Or do they vary their definitions of “income” and “need” in order to provide preferential packaging to students that they want?</p>
<p>For example, would a school say, “We really want Prospective Student A, so we’ll cap home equity for that student, but we don’t care so much about Prospective Student B, so we won’t cap home equity for him”?</p>
<p>Great Question:
</p>
<p>I have been wondering about this for quite some time.</p>
<p>I think the real message is that it is important for your kid to apply to 6-8 schools and then COMPARE financial aid packages. You won’t know how they’ll be unless you see them! Re; Rice. We have 5 years experience with them so far (two more to go!), and they have always been fair an approachable. Loans for new students are capped at total of $10,000 at graduation and even less to none, if family income is below $80,000, and workstudy awarded is only $1800 a year, which is VERY reasonable.</p>
<p>Pomona has killer aid
Swarthmore is also famous for its aid
Princeton’s aid is really reasonable. they’re not going to put you in the hole but they won’t cover everything.
Columbia’s isn’t that great</p>
<p>Reed College met all of my need, about $35k</p>