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<p>I think there could be 2 things involved. The first is what you talked about when a school offers more FA to a student they really want to attend, commonly referred to as “preferred packaging”. This can be due to academics, sports, URM, etc., anything that a school deems desirable. But like you say, this doesn’t seem to explain your Ds situation since she’s at about the same level for all of the schools.</p>
<p>The second factor is that although Profile schools all get the same financial numbers for a student, their FA policies are different. Some may cap home equity or assets, or have other policies that affect their financial calculations used to determine your need. Since my D1 was a transfer student, we have gone through the FA process twice when we have been able to compare offers from different schools. We had differences of up to about 15-20k/yr between schools. Even between the most selective schools in the country, there can be a steep difference in FA offers, particularly for families in the 100-200k/yr range where a handfull of colleges launched new initiatives a few years ago.</p>