<p>TheDad,technical error on the E-mail attempt. Try again. I got zapped off the board for a moment. Strange.Thought I lost my name. Horrors.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon -</p>
<p>You mention huge variation in the potential EFC calculations you have made. To the extent that you found certain calculators available on the websites of some of those “uber schools” being mentioned in this thread to give a more favorable figure than a FAFSA estimate, for what it is worth, we found the reality to be closer (actually right on) to the more favorable figures at schools that claim “need blind” and to be closer to the less favorable figures at all other schools. </p>
<p>Yours appear to be very unusual financial circumstances, but the financial aid offices at schools with the financial wherewithall to flex a little really do seem to consider explaination of unusual circumstance. </p>
<p>But SBMom’s idea of talking to the financial aid officers seems the best way to get a feel about where, in that $17 -$37K range you will end up.</p>
<p>Geez, good luck. I hope the process of actually visiting schools will also help fine tune the list. Your D will be an attractive candidate anywhere and hopefully she will find a school that is attractive to her at each layer of the list.</p>
<p>CURM - your D sounds like an excellent candidate for merit aid - and I really wish you the best of luck in finding the right place - that great ‘fit’ in all respects - including $$$. It is out there for sure and you WILL find all your answers I have NO doubt!!!</p>
<p>That ‘burp’ you mentioned above happened here also - whew!!!</p>
<p>Wait a second. Suburban St Louis, Atlanta, Houston and especially Nashville are the sticks, people. NYC, Beijing, Jakarta, Boston and London are NOT the sticks. </p>
<p>She WILL get into those top choices, it’s the money that’s dodgy. Not too sure those money safeties are going to do the trick for four years, irregardless of the basektball + sticks qualities.</p>
<p>Remember the mantra “Learn to fall in love with a safety?” Well, in your D’s case, she needs a money safety and she might wanna try to love those schools in the semi-sticks with the $3b endowments.</p>
<p>Did you read kdos’ story? <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=52022&page=2[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=52022&page=2</a>
Another berurah-like tale.</p>
<p>I wonder if anyone has actually tried to pindown their financial aid package before applying ED. I mean, since ED is good for the school and good for the the student EXCEPT for the financial downside, it would make sense to me that the college may be willing to talk money prior to application in order to get another potential captive. Something along the lines of if you will tell me what I can expect financially, I will apply ED.</p>
<p>What’s in it for the college, or the admissions office? ED is an excellent way to lock up a reasonable percentage of full-freight customers, developmental admits, legacies, and the needed athletes, etc. without having to compete on the basis of price. They can use the rest of the money in the spring for choosing among a much larger pool of candidates, some of whom need aid, some of whom don’t, and some of whom who, with just a little bit more aid could be swung away from the competition. (And then there is the extra work of figuring out packages for folks who might not even apply - where’s the incentive in that?)</p>
<p>It would be great for parents. So?</p>
<p>mini, I guess I’m just not as naturally skeptical as you. I believe that the colleges want to help families of admitted students and that snagging top ED applicants is to the college’s benefit. I wouldn’t expect that they would advertise this approach as a policy. I just wondered if any parent has ever tried it as a strategy.</p>
<p>I’'m not at all skeptical - on the contrary, if I wanted to do the best possible job for my institution, that’s the way I’d run it. I’d call that idealism - it’s just not the type of idealism that parents would hope for.</p>
<p>We never tried to pin down a finaid package before applying ED, but we did talk with more than one Finaid office to get a sense of what they might be able to offer when my D went through the process, when she was still deciding which schools to apply to. We found they were more than willing to explain how they go about calculating finaid - need based, not merit. I would suggest approaching a few at a not-so-busy time to see. You may be surprised as they may indeed be willing to give you an idea of what to expect.</p>
<p>The first time, as the school was local, we called and explained that our D was considering the school and it would help enormously to have some sense of what the aid picture might look like, as that was an important piece of our puzzle. We made an appointment, and spent a good hour with a finaid officer. She was even able to tell us that "nearly all schools do “x” or while her school did “y,” other schools handled it differently. In another case, we did it by phone, as the school was far away, and again, they were more than happy to answer all our questions. In both cases, we asked for help at what were relatively quiet times for Finaid officers - like October or November, if I remember correctly. You might want to try mid summer so you can get your list fine-tuned before the fall of senior year.</p>
<p>Here is a link to the actual FAFSA formula for 2005-2006.</p>
<p><a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcinformation/attachments/0506EFCFormulaGuide.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcinformation/attachments/0506EFCFormulaGuide.pdf</a></p>
<p>Plus in your numbers and see how that works. Note the various details, in case you can adjust to it. Also, I would think the entire proprty is your “home” at least for FAFSA purposes.</p>
<p>As to how to handle the farm “thing” on profile, it would be great to start a thread and see if there are any other farmers out there. We sold our paltry 20 acres before this began, but would ahve been pretty well-situated on the caluation for Profile if we could ahve used the land + construction prices for home value :p</p>
<p>Cur, are ya’ll fixin ta consider any schools in the west? CA? WA? Basketball is big out here too, and in CA it is still warm :)</p>
<p>Once upon a time, pre-1997, my cousin sold a home in NJ and bought a farm in Kansas. About a year later, the IRS showed up and demanded the capital gains tax on the sale of the NJ house. “But our new ‘home’ was more expensive!” they cried, waving their hands over the farm.</p>
<p>No, the new ‘home’ was the farmhouse, valued at $60k, according to the IRS. The family sold up the farm to pay the capital gains tax and came close to bankruptcy. They never recovered that financial standing.</p>
<p>Don’t know how colleges look at it though.</p>
<p>A very few years back, prior to application, we tried to explore/confirm FA scenarios with our child’s Early app school and child was deferred. In a panicked over reaction student then applied to 14 colleges, using the common app whenever possible. During RD student received amazingly varied financial aid awards from schools that claimed to be need blind and using the same formulas. And the FA awards were in direct proportion to how much they wanted the student. And student also received a number of major merit awards, the most impressive of which was full-tuition at Duke. Based on our experience, I believe money and time spent on too many apps is very well spent. If I had it to do over, I might even add a few more schools to the list! As it is student happily attends a school that wouldn’t have made the cut with a list of 6 or even 8 applications. We had a fafsa situation somewhat similar to that you describe. I don’t know if our experience is any use to you but in my opinion there is just no guarantee or way to judge what money awards there will be till they are in hand. But with enough applications something very unexpected may turn up in your mailbox… again-- just my opinion. Best of luck!</p>
<p>The thing that’s tricky about a farm is that it’s treated as a business where the home is part of the business. Eeuugh. Just from what I’ve seen with my relatively simple two Schedule C businesses, I’d be surprised if there’s not an extremely wide variation in how colleges evaluate this scenario. It’s the kind of thing where I think–after the crush of current acceptance/admissions & aid negotiations are over–an extended conversation…or series of conversations…with the FinAid offices of the most preferred targets might be in order. E.g., ask by e-mail for the file to be reviewed and then set an appointment with a FinAid officer to discuss.</p>
<p>In my data sample of one, I was surprised at how generally pleasant and professional the discussion was…I’d been primed for something resembling an IRS audit and it wasn’t that tone at all.</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, I agree with TheDad - after all, you don’t need to talk to the FA offices of the merit aid schools, and financial safeties, she needs to talk to the coaches! The reach schools, the “need-blind”, big ticket places - they are the main ones you need to try to contact - my meager experience is that they are helpful (at least they were helpful at Dartmouth). After all this early, if they don’t want to be helpful, that’s one less school to apply to ;).</p>
<p>One other comment on the possibility of getting a financial commitment prior to applying ED.</p>
<p>This was from Williams Record article of March 17:</p>
<p>The admission staff is sending out early write letters to exceptionally well-qualified regular decision applicants . . .These students, whom the admission office believes will receive offers from other prestigious colleges, are mailed their acceptances a month before the rest of the applicant pool as a competitive measure to increase their chances of matriculation to the College. He also said that the decision three years ago to send out financial aid information with early write letters was excellent because it may increase the likelihood that students from low-income families matriculate to the College.</p>
<p>I know this policy is specifically tailored to attract low-income kids, but from it doesnt seem to me to be too far a leap to a situation whereby the finaid office in tandem with the adcom would guarantee its financial aid offer if the student agreed to apply ED. A school like Williams admits some 40% of their ED applicants, so it would only benefit them to have the strongest of all possible ED pools. Logically, I dont see any advantage to them to letting a potential high caliber ED applicant escape because of financial risk. Im still cogitating on this could work on a practical level, but it sounds like a win-win situation to me.</p>
<p>I don’t know if other colleges will do this, but Oberlin said they will give a preliminary estimate of financial aid if a student is apply ED. They made it sound like you start the ED application process and fill out an extra form which requests an early, estimated finacial aid estimate. They implied that you could stop the ED application if the aid wasn’t sufficient. The loophole was that it would only be an estimate, not the actual offer. If I understood them correctly, it might make an ED application less dangerous financially.</p>
<p>momrath; jk5 was a Williams early write and he had a poor experience with Williams FA office this year; ie they refused to accept that the father was not part of the picture. He had an advocate alum speak for him but did not press it too far.</p>
<p>In any event, Amherst sent him a full ride offer and he accepted that.</p>
<p>Bit foolish for Williams to lose an early write, so says me.</p>
<p>Cheers, Hard to say how interested jk5 really was in Williams versus Amherst, but for sure, the parent who can but won’t is a touchy point for finaid offices.</p>
<p>Gosh, I thought Williams was his dream school. Not to say he had the stomach for protracted negotiations. He didn’t–but that is understandable given the age and experience.</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s too bad the two didn’t have an early conversation because the effort of the early write has gone to waste–as Amherst clearly accepted the non-involved father business. </p>
<p>That’s my only point. There should have been a way to circumvent that apparent late-in-the-game misunderstanding. My view.</p>