My son wanted to take a gap year no matter what the results were for his college applications. Unfortunately, we had a very atypical and unusual financial circumstances in the year 2015 (colleges look at financial record of two years prior), so our income, just for that year, spiked up to about the same level as the OP’s. But knowing that when my son returns to school after a gap year, we’d have to reapply for a FA based on our usual and typical income, which 2016’s income would demonstrate, we decided to apply for it along with the rest of applications. My hope was so that we can “guess” as to which colleges would offer us the most generous FA packages that could help us make our final decision as to which school to commit to.
I was very surprised by the results. Based on the high income of 2015, albeit atypical, the results were all over. Of the seven OOS private schools that my son was admitted to, about four required that we pay either full or offered us a minor, token amount. That’s exactly what I was expecting the results to be. Of the remaining three, one offered in excess of $10,000 per year, another about $20,000 a year, and the most generous and surprising, one Ivy school (not HYP with a good reputation for FA generosity), only $5,000 a year more than our in-state public university.
I’m not interested in getting into a moral debate about whether you should or shouldn’t apply for a need-based FA given the OP’s income level. I think that’s an individual choice and I’m sure the results would vary wildly. Perhaps that one Ivy school gave us the most FA because I attached a little note explaining how the 2015 year income wasn’t our typical income.