| I just wanted to jump in here and say that I'm not sure that you can reach any kind of conclusion about which schools give 'disappointing aid offers'. From what I've been reading on lots of threads, the same school that gives a huge amount of aid to one student can gap the next student considerably. Unless you can really do an in-depth financial analysis, and also take into account what skills the kids have that the college might want, it really seems to be kind of random. I'm sure that there is method, but I'm not sure *I* could figure it out.
For example, I was talking to a parent the other night. My daughter and her daughter both were accepted to the same college. Her daughter was considering it a top pick because they were so generous with aid. My daughter has ruled it out because the aid was so poor. The school sent me a lovely letter saying that yes, they had gapped us, they couldn't do anything more, so sorry. My daughter has a higher class rank and higher test scores than the other girl, and they both have lots of EC's. But obviously there is *something* that the other girl has that my daughter does not. Or maybe it just has to do with our different financial circumstances. We both will have three children in college next year. They actually make more money than we do, but I don't know details.
So, if you asked me about the school, I'd say the aid package was a disappointment and that we were gapped. If you ask the other family, they would say the aid package was excellent and they were very happy with it. This school was not on tokenadults list of schools that promised to meet need. |