<p>Just a thought. My son is 7 (better start saving now!) I waited to go to college started late, yes I am a single mom (efc=0) I started at a CC, transferred to UCLA and got grants to cover all tuition. It isn’t such a terrible thing to either wait, or go to a CC. My B.A will show UCLA.
Just food for thought…</p>
<p>sirenmuse: Starting at a CC and then transferring is a wonderful strategy for getting an affordable degree, one that has been mentioned to us at every turn. Unfortunately, high-achievers are told from early on that they’re special and they can expect to go to a top-tier college. When reality hits in senior year, the CC-to-university alternative is seen as simply unacceptable.</p>
<p>Start now with your son letting him know that will probably be his route to a degree, so he won’t be expecting the moon. If the moon happens, great, but if not, then he won’t feel like he’s getting an inferior education, or being cheated.</p>
<p>oyster:</p>
<p>You do know that if you live off campus at Berkeley after the first year, you still get financial aid to support your room & board, right? It’s not like you’ll need to pay your own room and board just because you’re not guaranteed housing.</p>
<p>Thumper- There is an EFC that’s calculated from the Institutional Methodology, and it’s avail on the EFC calculators. You’re right, each school calculates their IM EFC somewhat differently, especially in the way they treat home equity, but in other areas as well. But I think some may be quoting the IM EFC from the calculator, or perhaps deducing the EFC that a particular school calculated after looking at their finaid award. (which</p>
<p>Kimfred,
My sympathies to you all. We are living a parallel life to some degree. Our son is a Nat. Merit finalist with amazing test scores, but not the top grades in his class. He did get several full ride offers and several other offers for about one forth to one third of the costs, however the place he truly wants to go, Carnegie Mellon has so far offered him ZERO. He is crushed and we are trying to figure what to do to make this happen for him. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Wake Forest gave my son scholarships, grants, work study and loans to cover everything but our EFC ($4700).
UM offered scholarships, grants, work study and loan, but there will be a gap of about $13k (which includes the EFC).
GA Tech messed up and incorrectly added a rollover to our income which increased our EFC dramatically; they have told me they should have new numbers for me early next week…from everything I’ve read here, however, I probably shouldn’t get my hopes up that they’ll be giving much more.</p>
<p>NYUseless… let’s leave it at that.</p>
<p>i agree with incognito123, NYU offered me terrible aid…and Lehigh’s was also pretty bad</p>
<p>I think some people posting here should be happy.</p>
<p>northwestern wants me to pay 12k a year… thankfully yale wants me to pay about one eighth that much. well, I know where my friends are!</p>
<p>“northwestern wants me to pay 12k a year… thankfully yale wants me to pay about one eighth that much. well, I know where my friends are!”</p>
<p>Both excellent offers, you should be thrilled!</p>
<p>Robbie- you aren’t mentioning Bright Futures, and the COA you reference is instate. I assume you are neglecting it, even is it doesn’t show yet. Be sure to apply.</p>
<p>Boston College’s aid package made me laugh. They offered me loans and work study… no grant.</p>
<p>Ridiculous.</p>
<p>yay penn gave me over 40,000 in grants and I have no loans</p>
<p>parent contribution: 7000
student cont: 2300</p>
<p>and then 3000 in work study</p>
<p>what I’m basically doing though is I’m getting outside scholarships to cover my student contribution and I’m keepin my summer savings all to myself</p>
<p>I’m still waiting for FA packages from columbia and cornell and if they are better than penn’s, then I will appeal the sh1t out of penn’s</p>
<p>if that doesn’t work, then I will use my 2000ish summer money to help cover the parent contribution (cause my mommy can’t afford 7000)</p>
<p>The experience for dd was that NYU’s FA offer was awful compared to everyone else.</p>
<p>BC and NYU were awful–they each offered grants of ~2K per semester which given the fact that their tuition is over $50,000, is just ridiculous. Especially BC which emailed me a few weeks ago telling me to check a change in my financial award…only for me to found out that they frickin’ LOWERED the sum of my grant money. That sure was a pleasant surprise…</p>
<p>hcvops: that’s a really good award. i still haven’t gotten my aid from penn though. did your family make below 50k this year? mine did but i’m still worried about the aid…</p>
<p>University of Rochester’s was disappointing. They gave me a $10,000 scholarship and some grant money, but not enough. I appealed, but I couldn’t afford it especially since my dad lost his job. It’s unfortunate since I’ve loved that school for awhile. Still, I’ll be at BU next year! It’s all good. : )</p>