emeraldkity4

the only three schools on the full financial need list with ranks below 40 are Gettysburg, St Olaf, and Pitzer

Don't forget Reed.

Colleges That Claim to Meet the Full Financial Needs of Students - US News and World Report

emeraldkity4

Fortunately, if the student is a candidate for schools that meet full need, it is a good bet that similar schools may offer merit aid.

However it is unlikely that your EFC would be $40,000 if your income was $100,000, unless you had significant unprotected investments.
Our EFC is around 23,000 & our income is a bit over $100,000.

There is also nothing wrong with a student having buy in to the costs of his/her education.

GolfFather

I hate to beat a dead horse but ...

Let's say my annual family income is $100,000 and the EFC comes out to $40,000. And let's say the cost to attend Middlebury, Georgetown, etc, is $50,000.

The college is going to "meet" our "need" by letting us take out a $5,000 loan every year and by having my child work at a campus job for the rest.

The phrase indentured servitude comes much closer to mind than "aid."

emeraldkity4

bizarre i just posted at 7am PST in response to Golffather.

lookingforward

Unfortunately, even with our own collective experiences, this thread shows how confusing it is to pull all the details into one neat picture. Our Fafsa EFC is about 25%, our college EFC has been about a third, before Staffords or Plus. Because different families have different assets and overall financial strength, there is no easy say.

The finaid offers we deal with (now that both are in college) state what they think we can pay, then show what they offer to get us down to that number- no loans mentioned- how we make our nut is left to us.

Any school that "meets need" by allowing you to decide on a loan is not meeting your need. They are showing a way you can meet your own need. (Gtown calls w/s and loans "self help," but then includes them in an example under the heading "Award." Unfortunately, I can't get the link in here.) It harkens back to that BU line (now removed,) that said, "We'll help you find ways to finance your education." I think most families got as far as the word "help."

So, even though I usually put the bigger burden on families to research and understand, I am seeing just how confusing this is.

SlitheyTove

A couple of people posted the USNWR 2010 link; the 2012 link is Colleges That Claim to Meet Full Financial Need - US News and World Report and doesn't include Reed...but then Reed doesn't play the USNWR game, so maybe this is tit for tat?

GolfFather, I was posting about the schools that say they will meet full need in the context of a discussion about if those were the same schools that are considered top-notch. And by and large they are. The question of how that need is filled is a different one. Anyone applying ED who is looking for FA should be doing their homework: setting a budget, running NPCs, seeing if they can get an early read on FA, poking around the appropriate forums on CC to see how generous the ED school was in past years, finding out if the school's FA budget has become more restricted, checking to see if loans are typically part of the package. Most of that applies to RD, of course.

USNWR gives a detailed caveat emptor at the start of the list that other schools may end up being cheaper. If you're assuming that "meets full need" means "will give me enough money to make paying for college pain-free" then you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

cptofthehouse

Golffather, maybe. Maybe GT and Middlebury will do that, and maybe not. They also might offer your kid a $10K grant. If they give your kid tha tin grant, then he can work to reduce the family contribution another $5K and borrow that $5500 as the old "skin in the game" which will reduce the remaining cost to $30K So you got $10K to take out of savings, squeeze another $10k out of the old budget/living expenses (after all you aren't feeding the kid anymore at home and the lights just might stay off and the car keep its gas longer) and borrow $10K from PLUS. The thing is GT might give you that grantpackage and Middlebury might give you the opportunity to self help. You got a kid all hep on Middlebury enough that he has appied ED. He has been praying and hoping and Facebooking and just worked himself up to a lather to go to Middlebury. All he wants in life right now is that acceptance to Middlebury, and he gets the accept with the $10K self help package. But he isn't IN at GT and that is a bird on the bush along with a bunch of other birds in a lot of bushes that he may have in April. It's now November and the one in the hand is that Middlebury acceptance with a self help package that meets 100% of need. So the parent is in the position of having to nix that and end the Middlebury option on the CHANCE that the kid is going to get into GT or another such school in the spring under RD conditions AND get a better package when it is entirely possible he will not get another such acceptance without the extra push of ED, and the packages may be exactly the same or worse. GT might say your EFC is $18K and give you $12K of self help and $6K in grant, for example and still use up your kids Stafford and work options to make up EFC. You don't know what else will be on the table. Terrible place to put a parent.

cptofthehouse

Slitheytove, most parents do not do what you are suggesting. The NPCs are relatively new, we've talked a lot about how useless the school GCs are when it comes to college costs, and where ED can be the most deadly is for those families who can least afford the misunderstandings. So, a family making $100K makes the mistake and ends up paying money that might have gone towards the EFC at like schools, can more easily come up with the difference than one who needs every cent. It's a big difference for those with very low EFCs whether a school will include the PELL in the financial aid or not. Yet, how often does that discussion come up? Pell is designed so that a school can meet full need as defined by EFC and that student can still get PELL money. We are talkong about FAMILIES living on far less than the COA of most of these colleges here. So absolutely, up to $5550 of pure grant money is going to make a big difference in the family financial picture. But most schools will take that and integrate it into their package, but not all schools. Therein lies the catch. Which schools do, and which ones don't, and do they do it all of the time, some of the time? Getting answers like that from colleges....you try it. You get an adcom who may well tell you that they meet full need but when you ask questions like that, the needle gets stuck in the groove and all they can answer is that they met full need.

GolfFather

The forum must be having issues again.

spunk61

Is there any advantage then to ED? From what I'm reading it seems like you should just go RD and just wait to see how it all shakes out

SlitheyTove

Sure there's an advantage to ED. If you have one clear favorite school you can put in your application early, get a favorable answer early, and be done with the entire process early. Applying ED sometimes (not always) means you have a better chance of getting in to the school; if you have a specific hook to play (being a recruited athlete, being a legacy) then ED may be the only time you get to take advantage of that edge. For a few schools (very few!), applying ED means a better shot at aid money.

But if you want to see who's going to give you the best aid offer, then ED is not for you.

GolfFather

^^^ Yup, that pretty much says it.

I would only add two things:

1. ED should be used at a school that one believes they have a very good chance of getting into. No point in wasting ED on a far reach.

2. There should be a very good assurance that the student/family has a good handle on the paying part of going to that school.

SlitheyTove

I'd disagree. If you're accepted ED and the money works, then you're done. You can't have regrets. If a student applies ED to their second or third choice because their first choice is the big reach, they might be OK with that...but they might always wonder "what if".

It seems that every year there are more and more posts in September and October asking about where (not if!) the student should apply ED. Many times the student hasn't visited, and knows little about the schools under consideration. That wouldn't be a problem for RD, but for ED it's nuts.

cptofthehouse

I agree with Slithey Tove, but it's each student/family's business as to how to use ED. Statistically, from the studies I've seen and the empircal info that I've seen at two high school, applying ED gives you an advantage. Yeah, the athletes, the better students, the ones on the ball, legacies tend to apply ED which may jack up the accept rate somewhat, but even then, you have a better chance at most schools in getting accepted ED.

Part of the reason is because the class is empty at that time. The admissions office is trying to fill it and the admissions season is new and fresh. They don't have a huge stack of first in the class, violin players, runners, presidents, Model UNers and all of the other wonderful things that really are wonderful things until you have to pick one out a whole batch of them. The essays don't start sounding the same. You aren't having to decide among a bunch of the same sort of kids. Admissions folks are human, despite what we might think about them at times, and they want go admit. So, absolutely, ED and even EA, gets the good graces of admissions which does translate into a slightly better chance of admittance.

So some people use it as strategy. And they don't want to fool around with shooting for the stars and seeing if the kid has a shot at Harvard. They want to make sure he at least gets into Tufts.

I personally do not agree with that. The only reason I would encourage ED is if a kid really did have a school that he has been truly wanting for a while and with good reason. Kids change their minds and the way they are, alot , at this age and the kid you have in the fall may not be the same as the one in the spring. Better to get the more mature, better informed versions, IMO. But this is just the way I think and not how a lot of people who love their kids just as much as I do mine, feel about this.

My son's friend who was in a quandrey about "picking an ED school" out and out said that he didn't care if he got into Columbia, Brown or Penn. He would be just as thrilled to get into any of them. For him it was a matter of where he had the better chance given some legacy at Columbia but lower odds. He wished he could apply to all three and let one of them draw straws as to which one took him. And a lot of kids feel that way. They just want to get into what they view as a prestige school that is highly selective and they don't care which one.

spunk61

I’m very new to these ED issues. My Daughter (a jr.) has to audition for school (music Ed). I was looking at 5 schools she will be applying to , None of them are close to each other or our home. I’m thinking it’s going to be Five 3 day trips. A day to drive, a day to visit the school and the music dept and then her audition day and then drive home. After looking over all the audition dates ,I was going to have her audition early at one school just because she cant be everywhere all at once in Jan/Feb. when most of the other auditions are. At this point I’m not even sure what her first choice school is. Would you offer any advice in this situation? I will also add that she would need as much aid as possible since our income is about 45,000 with no savings to speak of. Also , she is extremely talented musically. She is All State and I’m very ,very confidant in her auditioning ability. I do realize though that those are the types she will be competing against.