<p>*They are expecting us to pay much more for this one son, with two in college, than we did last year with one in school. It may just be that they only meet need to a certain degree, and it’s much lower than they say on their websites. </p>
<p>I did call one of the FA offices and they said they put the students GPA, class rank, need onto a grid to decide on aid, so on their website it says ‘meets 70% need’, but for my son it was recalcuated and he only earned 53% needs met in actuality.*</p>
<p>That 70% of need is probably an “average”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t tell families much. They can give meet need for one child at 100%, and meet another child at 25%, but the “average” won’t be right for either kid.</p>
<p>The school practices “enrollment management” since it uses grids with stats and need to determine FA packages. That means that the higher a child’s stats, the more his need is met. If a child has lowish stats for the school, he’ll get minimal aid. </p>
<p>Sadly, schools don’t give money away for nothing. They give it mostly to kids that make them look good and help them with their rankings.</p>
<p>If your son applied to some other schools where his stats are high for the school, he’ll likely get better packages.</p>