<p>Good luck with the visits, Dad II. I sincerely hope she is able to find something exciting about a couple of the schools when she is on the campus. Wherever she ends up, she will do great; she is smart, energetic, independent (as you know) and she will stand out. </p>
<p>You are certainly not alone in having underestimated what you will be expected to pay, and in not fully understanding what that meant for the type of college search you undertook. Do your friends, relatives, co-workers and neighbors a favor and pass your newfound knowledge on to them. </p>
<p>I believe you are correct that we parents need to be more circumspect with the information we give out. I am seeing a lot of stories about admissions staffers following conversations on these boards. Maybe they ignore parental indiscretion, maybe not. It is better not to take the chance.</p>
<p>Good luck with your choices, DadII. While I haven’t always agreed with your methods, I know that you have your daughter’s best interest at heart.</p>
<p>Congratulations, DadII to you and your daughter, and thanks for sticking around and keeping us posted even after you’d been called a ■■■■■ and badmouthed (guilty as charged, I know :)). I think we all learned valuable lessons because of your shared experiences, and you deserve huge credit for that. I wish you all the best, and I’m absolutely sure that your determined young lady will be fine wherever she decides to spend her next 4 years. Have fun visiting, and try to let her make her choice.</p>
<p>Actually, there is absolutely NO reason why people should underestimate their EFC. The FAFSA formulas are neither a secret or hard to compute. All it takes is to follow the instructions. Except for EXTREMELY complex situations, anyone can figure out the FAFSA EFC well before the application process starts and obtain an official number during the senior year. </p>
<p>Also, the information regarding the financial aid IS available, and so are the statistics that describe how schools interpret the definition of meeting 100% of need or not. </p>
<p>The reality is that wishful thinking compete with an objective analysis of what is available. People prefer to ignore the warning signs about the GREAT difficulty of earning merit aid and are rarely helped by clueless GC. Issues such as minimum STUDENT contributions are often ignored and simple rules such as the Federal EFC being the minimum contribution as well. </p>
<p>Year after year, we go through the same patterns on CC. The correct information is posted as warnings to the families of sophomores and juniors, but is not always understood nor … accepted. The epiphany only appears between April 1 and the summer.</p>
<p>DadII, congrats on your D’s acceptance at Stanford- the Harvard of the west! Believe me, there are many students and parents here who are green with envy .</p>
<p>DadII. A very wonderful and unexpected post to read. Both you and your daughter have learned so much more than about college admission during these very stressful times. May your relationship with your daughter continue to grow towards ongoing mutual respect and admiration for one another.</p>
<p>I have to echo Xiggi. We used the FAFSA estimator shortly before running the numbers through the real FAFSA for our D this year. The estimate matched the outcome from FAFSA and the offers by her colleges. It’s not that huge of a mystery if you take time to run real numbers. Perhaps you underestimated your income for tax purposes?</p>
<p>Most colleges do not meet FAFSA EFC – they either do not guarantee to meet full need or else they rely on their own formulas to calculate need. In some cases that may be better than FAFSA EFC, but in many cases it is worse… sometimes far, far worse. So while it is true that it is easy to use an online calculator, it is not at all true that a parent can always accurately predict the amount that the college expects them to contribute. </p>
<p>I will add that many of us have complex financial situations and cannot predict what our EFC will be in any case. Some of us are self-employed with incomes that fluctuate from year to year – even those with regular jobs may have bonuses or overtime income that produce big differences from one year to the next. FAFSA also asks for information about untaxed income – in my case that used to include child-support payments from my ex that were wholly unpredictable. I knew what he was supposed to pay, but I never could be sure of what I was going to get… so I couldn’t plan for that, either. Of course, the more I got the higher the EFC.</p>
<p>I honestly do not know from one year to the next what my FAFSA EFC will be. When my son was in college, it always came out to low 5 figures (around $12-$16K), in part because of my son’s assets & earnings, and also because the child support money for my d. was counted in. I have also seen FAFSA formulas change significantly over the past 8 years that I have been doing this.</p>
<p>This year I was shocked when I filled out the FAFSA and it came to a number that seemed far too low. I went back over the figures and realized I had entered some information on the wrong line. When corrected, the FAFSA EFC went up by about $2K - more in line with my expectations. I am very experienced with these forms – this incident reminded me how confusing the process can be to others. Obviously, a mistake like this would have been corrected by the colleges at some point along the line – but this is just one more way that parents can find themselves with expectations that don’t match reality.</p>
<p>Dad II has good advice and we could all be more proactive in planning for college finances… but it is not an easy process.</p>
<p>I’d say an even more important piece of advice is simply this: No matter what the FAFSA EFC is, no parent should assume that their kid will be admitted to a college that will meet it. (I will dub this the NYU-rule, in honor of the overpriced university that encouraged me to borrow $30K annually to allow my daughter to attend).</p>
<p>After reviewing the FA package from Stanford, I take back my comment about under estimated our EFC. We did actually very well estimating our EFC. Just hope DD will take zero loan and zero need for summer jobs over other factors.</p>
<p>Parents, get your kids into one of these big rich schools. They cost less than your State U. </p>
<p>Dad II, if it helps to convince your d. – my d. has opted for unpaid internships for both last summer and the upcoming summer. Last year she successfully applied for grant money to fund the internship, but this year she is going abroad and will have to raise the money on her own. She does need to work to earn money to pay her expenses, but she feels that the internship opportunities are very important to her future career plans and grad school goals – she wants something better to put on a resume than a summer spent working retail sales – even if she has to put in many more hours during the school year to make it happen. </p>
<p>So that is an important factor to consider because financial flexibility may pave the way to some wonderful opportunities.</p>
<p>A quick hello and CONGRATS to all my CC pals! Such wonderful news here!! Soooo happy for all of you!! Doesn’t it feel great to be done (or almost done)?!?!?! </p>
<p>My DS is waiting to hear the FA/scholarship award from Emory (we forgot to send our W2’s, so just got them to them a few days ago–oops), but DS will probably take the DHS he got from Tulane, which he can supplement with NMF $. Besides, he wants to get out of Atlanta and away from home. He found out what happens when you let your first semester Sr. grades drop-- he got WL at UNC and Vandy. Serves him right if you ask me!</p>
<p>As an aside-- for any of you in the Atl area (Binx and others), tune in to the Ch. 11 Community Service Awards on Sat Apr 5 (or Sun Apr 6 on My Atl TV 36). You’ll see DS, who is receiving one of the “Kids who care” awards It is the first time in thir history that they have awarded it to siblings (DS#1 was selected in 2004). Its pretty cool (except that DS#2 thinks that the award will replace summer job income, so he can continue his senior slacking!!! :eek: )</p>
<p>If you can get your kid through Stanford without loans because of their fin aid package, then you have your cake and can eat it too! Maybe the other schools will have similar offers, if not better…</p>
<p>dad II: congrats again! I also say a huge thank you to Stanford. Our aid package from Stanford will make it a bit cheaper than our state flagship. Stanford found need where none of the other schools that my S was admitted to found it. Celebration time!</p>
It is the first time in thir history that they have awarded it to siblings (DS#1 was selected in 2004). Its pretty cool (except that DS#2 thinks that the award will replace summer job income, so he can continue his senior slacking!!! :eek: )</p>