<p>Why do people rely in indirect information when direct information is available?</p>
<p>A common example is relying an hearsay, assumptions, or rankings about various colleges' need-based financial aid, rather than using each college's net price calculator to get an estimate that is more likely to be applicable to one's own financial situation.</p>
<p>Probably for the same reason that people rely more on word-of-mouth information and experiences of their friends and relatives, about which hotel to rent in a distant city or which car to buy, than on the self-interested information presented by the The Man on the corporate website.</p>
<p>The NPCs are pretty new, and I don’t think everyone knows about them yet (we regular posters out here do, of course :)). And as we also know the calculators aren’t accurate in every situation. Also, I think some students have parents who don’t want to share financial info (like how much they make) with their kids – and maybe some kids are embarrassed to ask. So the kids try to find other angles to figure it out.</p>
<p>Interesting question. I have a rising senior and an entering freshman and have never completed an NPC until today. When I did it for fun to see if it was close to reality. It wasn’t.</p>
<p>Yes it is good to get the inside scoop. Anonymity frees some folks to give very honest personal opinions (sometimes on weekends and late at night). ;)</p>
<p>You do wonder about some folks though, who ask questions that can easily be cleared up in an instant by making a phone call. It’s the technology trap - ease of access to internet leads to overlooking phone calls. Many times I have to suppress the urge to post, “pick up the phone”. Of course, they may be on the phone - using the internet.</p>
<p>Sheer laziness. </p>
<p>No, really. </p>
<p>Why read admissions website for info, “when I can google it” thinks too many students and parents both. </p>
<p>Yet, you can learn much by researching beyond the surface, whether it is about admissions, or financial aid, or researching a job, a home or whatever. We often spend more time researching a car than a college, which is absolute insanity.</p>
<p>why does my mother do what the neighbor recommends rather than her doctors recommendation? whatever that answer is- is the answer to the original question</p>
<p>There’s a reason that this [url=<a href=“http://lmgtfy.com/]website[/url”>http://lmgtfy.com/]website[/url</a>] exists.</p>
<p>People are lazy. Also, NPC aren’t always accurate particularly for merit scholarships which may comprise the bulk of many upper middle class students’ aid. Also, very few people know much about the college process, just as I know very little about the various merits of electronic components. I’d rather someone who, at least appears knowledgeable, tell me which product would work best than try to figure out things that only a small percent of people are privy to.</p>
<p>The NPCs have been very accurate for us for some schools and wildly off-base for others.</p>
<p>Some college websites are frustratingly difficult to navigate, and every site is set up differently.</p>
<p>Multiply that difficulty by 15 colleges your kid might be interested in.</p>
<p>Who has time for that? </p>
<p>The default option is to ask for help from people who have been there before you and who are willing to share what they’ve learned. Googling questions about the application process and the relative value of expensive privates vs. instate publics was how I found CC years ago.</p>
<p>Isn’t that the only reason CC even exists?</p>
<p>Also, there are some schools, that are hard to get into if you are OOS. You learn which ones they are here on cc so it doesn’t matter what kind of aid the Net calculator comes up with if your chances of getting in are so low. It is work to hunt up for every school what their OOS admit rate is.</p>
<p>It’s sort of like asking why folks rely on restaurant reviews less than they rely on word of mouth reviews from friends who have eaten at a place.</p>
<p>Sometimes that “indirect” is actually information based on personal experience.</p>
<p>As an example…those net price calculators actually give average numbers based on the financial info you input. They do NOT guarantee your specific aid amount. They have been discussed regularly on these forums…with a “beware” especially for self employed, family’s with divorced/remarried parents, or families who own properties other than their own residence (in particular rentals). The NPC info in the college websites do NOT mention the instances of inaccuracy…or the variation from student to student.</p>
<p>Good thing there is some indirect info about this!</p>
<p>Indirect information can be helpful, it is true. The NPC can be completely accurate or wildly off, depending upon a multitude of data points. It was right for my D, wrong with her best friend. I work with students who get often completely different scenarios since it was first introduced. </p>
<p>That said, there is plenty of advice here that is just simply wrong. Kids giving other kids advice about college admissions or essays or any one of a number of posts each day. I laugh when I see a kid asking another kid for advice about getting into college, when it is clear they haven’t attended yet, either. </p>
<p>Don’t even get me started on Chance Me threads. :/</p>
<p>Samurai…it’s the “chance me, I’ll chance you back” threads that make me nuts. I mean really…if you have no idea of your OWN chances, how would you be able to chance someone else?</p>
<p>This is a message board. I’m “just” a parent. Consider my advice with a grain of salt…but from one who has been there already. YMMV</p>
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<p>What is the accuracy of these calculators? And can it vary significantly from one school do the other?</p>
<p>I suspect the triggering event that got ucb to start this thread was a poster elsewhere who was very concerned about cost and was adding/dropping colleges from their list based on USNWR aid rankings, but did not seem to have tried the NPCs for those colleges. At least he started this thread a few minutes after he and I both posted to that person that they should use the NPCs. :)</p>
<p>The calculators seem pretty accurate if you plug in the same financial info you provide for the FAFSA and CSS Profile. But if your finances change from then until the fall when you are applying, or if you have a small business, trusts, or are divorced, then the calculators are less reliable.</p>
<p>Vla…yes…the NPC results can…and do vary from college to college. That is why it is important to do them for EACH college under consideration. Schools like Stanford and Princeton have much more generous policies for,awarding need based aid than most other colleges. If all you completed was Stanford’s NPC, you could end up being very disappointed with the aid provided by a school that has less deep pockets and does not meet full need for all accepted students.</p>
<p>And my caution is…those NPC should be used as an estimate only.</p>
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<p>Sorry, I meant does the accuracy vary from school to school. Is there any data for different schools about how accurately they predicted the actual cost where there was indeed financial aid involved?</p>
<p>Vlad,</p>
<p>I’m not an expert but I’ve filled out a lot of NPCs for a range of colleges. There seems to be two or three types of calculators so I imagine the accuracy does vary from school to school. One calculator only asks what is the parents’ after-tax income with the highest range being “over $99,999”. I can’t imagine that NPC being accurate at all. Some NPCs appear to estimate merit aid while others do not (they don’t ask for GPA/test scores).</p>
<p>The EFC has ranged wildly from $25K to $69K(!!) with the same numbers.</p>
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<p>I suspected something of the sort. </p>
<p>I think that’s your answer UCB.</p>