<p>I am in the financial aid business, and I can’t figure it all out! 
Some schools are & always will be a mystery.</p>
<p>I can relate to the feelings of frustration. So many factors come into play. My first was an academic superstar, and she had very strong leadership activities & great EC’s. She has maintained very high grades in college, and she is involved in some interesting activities on campus (with honor societies & leadership positions). She attends a school with a very large endowment (I am being good … I was so tempted to phrase that differently …). Her aid is nothing short of wonderful. S is a high school senior with a 33 ACT, most difficult curriculum in high school, AP Scholar. However, his grades are high but not all A’s, he does not participate in school activities, and he has no leadership positions. He wants a particular program of studies that is only available at a limited number of schools. He was able to get into the program at several schools, but he did not get large scholarships. Two of the schools were OOS publics, so they were too expensive even with scholarships. One of the schools is a private, which does not offer scholarships to students in this program (they don’t need to - they get more applicants than they can accept even without scholarships). The financial aid package meets need, and S got a pretty large grant in the package, but the 6 year timeline of what aid would look like is not good … and years 5 & 6 would be grant-less, even if D were still in school at that time. Bottom line is that S will be attending a state school he is not especially excited about attending. I do feel that their program will be a good fit for him, and it is a well-established program. Being in their honors program will really benefit him. Do I wish I could give him the “cool” experience his sister has? Sure. We all want our kids to be happy. Am I willing to pay that much more for it? Nope. Will I feel guilty? Not a bit. I have lived all of my life making choices based on my circumstances. My kids have been raised to understand that we do not overextend ourselves financially, so S is not exactly surprised. He knew from the beginning that he could apply wherever he wanted, but that the financial aid package would dictate his actual choices.</p>
<p>Oh, and I should add … they expect me to pay WHAT!!! My EFC is laughable, so I feel your pain.</p>