<p>I don’t think the Obamas plan to get need based financial aid…so their residence really doesn’t matter :)</p>
<p>IDK, he’ll be newly unemployed, she gave up her job to follow him to his new assignment…things might get tight.</p>
<p>I’m just pointing out that people do maintain their permanent residences while overseas or just away for a variety of reasons. I’m not familiar with the Canadian tax system, so there might be reasons why this family decided not to rent. </p>
<p>
Expat engineers from developed countries don’t get paid peanuts.</p>
<pre><code>The company pays 45K a year just for school. Suffice to say that dad must be fairly senior. I think a chat with the accountant is in order?
</code></pre>
<p>It may have something to do with Penn recognizing Canadians more like Americans than internationals.</p>
<p><a href=“International Financial Aid | College Admissions”>http://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/costs/international-aid</a></p>
<p><a href=“Costs & Financial Aid | Penn Admissions”>http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/costs-financial-aid/financial-aid-for-international-students</a></p>
<p>however:
<a href=“Submit My Documents | Penn Student Registration & Financial Services| Penn Srfs”>http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/finaid-checklists/checklists-pro-canadian.htm</a></p>
<p>UChicago with 50K of need-based grant is 17K per year.</p>
<p>Penn with 20K of need-based grant is 41K per year. So yes, a huge difference, but for an expat engineer with many expenses paid (=income; if someone is paying for you to live in a house, that is pay you are getting essentially), 24K difference should not be a deal breaker.</p>
<p>Maybe since Penn considers Canadian and Mexican citizens the same as US citizens in terms of admissions status, that is, not internationals, it is actually a major downside for this student?</p>
<p>Did both schools ask for and get full federal provincial tax returns?</p>
<p>And “he doesn’t make much, he’s an engineer”. That’s ridiculous, do you even know what engineers make, let alone those important enough to move overseas for a project? There are engineers fresh out of college making 80K - 100K per year, and most with 20 years experience would be in the 150K+ range.</p>
<p>It is possible that the OP has no idea how much his parents make or how much the house in Canada is worth, and certainly UChicago didn’t take the exact same forms as Penn required. The same financial info was used, but the forms were different according to the websites.</p>
<p>So either convince Penn to give you more (doubtful) or your parents to pay more or go to UChicago.</p>
<p>And pray that UChicago didn’t make a mistake that you might have to live with.</p>
<p>Also wondering - did the NPCs for each school match the FA packages offered? Or is the situation too unique to expect a NPC to work right?</p>
<p>(and wasn’t the “things might get tight” comment for the Obamas, not for the OP? Though I expect if he is smart, he’ll have something lined up. I would expect that they might do something in Washington so that their younger daughter can finish up at the same high school as her older sister.)</p>
<p>Post #42, I was joking that Obama will be newly unemployed when his daughter applies for colleges and may need FA. Just a joke, although he will be able to check the ‘displaced worker’ box on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>the Obamas have already said they plan to stay in Washington until the younger daughter finishes high school. I suspect they’ll sell their Chicago house when they buy a permanent residence. I don’t think the Chicago house has a ‘presidential security system’ and may not be able to be retrofitted for one. There hasn’t been a president lately who hasn’t bought a new home (Clinton) or returned to a big ranch or estate after leaving office. Security on an in-town house might be tricky.</p>
<p>We are all looking at his compensation from a US point of view. Other countries may allow the corporations to pay all expenses, all tuition, all costs and not have it be taxable as it MIGHT be to US employees. My friends (US citizens) lived in Beijing and everything was paid for - tuition for their kids, a house, vacations. He wasn’t that high up in the organization, but that’s the deal. I think his salary was very modest, but he had no expenses. That was allowed by the tax laws.</p>
<p>Even in the US some employers require their employees to live at the job site and that isn’t included as income. If the employer provides the housing and REQUIRES you to live there, no tax. Ministers, night watchmen, some mine workers, emts, doctors.</p>
<p>We can’t guess. His father needs to fill out the financial aid forms.</p>
<p>
Only, the US taxes its citizens on foreign earned income & compensation.</p>
<p>If a Canadian expat professional is “poor” in the eyes of US colleges because the Canadian earns zero income in the eyes of the Canadian tax authorities, then there is something really messed up w the system. </p>
<p>GMT, I don’t think the system is messed up. I think the OP may not have been fully transparent (not passing blame, this situation is quite complex) in the initial FA forms. </p>
<p>OP- call both Chicago and Penn. Explain to them that due to being overseas and the holiday period, you need time to discuss the financial situation with your parents tax adviser.</p>
<p>I suspect that once the dust settles, you will not be getting as much aid as the early letters indicated. So you and your parents need to figure out how much you can actually afford.</p>
<p>If your family owns the Canada home but are currently living in a rental in Belgium which is provided/paid for as a benefit by your father’s employer, then only the Canada home should be counted as property they own, and therefore is not a “second” home. Your father could theoretically get fired or laid off at any time, immediately losing the Belgium rental. If you father is laid off, you presumably will continue to use (or resume using) the one home you own.</p>
<p>The value of the Belgium rental will count as income/compensation to them.</p>
<p>The simple answer may be that Penn uses CSS Profile and Chicago uses their own calculations. Does Chicago expect your parents to take out home equity loans on their Canada home? </p>
<p>The difference is enough to politely ask each school to double check their numbers (and it’s okay to tell them that the reason you are asking is the huge disparity in calculations between schools), but not so great as to conclude that one of them must be in error.</p>
<p><<<
The Obamas consider their Chicago home their permanent residence, not the White House where they have lived for 6 years.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>That is typical. Presidents don’t list the White House as their PR. They are residents of their home states. And their VP’s must be residents of another state otherwise they forfeit the EC votes from that state.</p>
<p>FCC, I wasn’t implying that the OP did anything wrong. But the family has one primary residence (the Canadian home) even though they are currently living elsewhere. It is likely that MANY of this family’s expenses are being covered by the dad’s employer (imputed income or non-cash income) that do not show up as line items on the income side of the ledger. Yes- the dad could get laid off at any time, just like any other employee. Financial Aid doesn’t deal with “could the parent get laid off”, financial aid deals with current assets and last tax year’s income.</p>
<p>And it is likely as ex-pats, that this family’s income is somewhat (or significantly) higher than the just the paystub would indicate.</p>
<p>Several posters are suggesting that there could be an error NOT because of the disparity between Chicago and Penn, but because most ex-pat’s have GREATER disposable income when they are overseas, not less. And it is possible that the initial financial aid data provided to both schools understates the income… which will get corrected by the time the final award is made.</p>
<p>What happens to the student in Sophomore year when the parents head back to Canada if the package THEN gets normalized and they can’t afford to keep him at a US college? The year of the move back to Canada is likely to reflect even higher income (especially if the company hands the employee a check to cover moving expenses which is not grossed up for tax purposes, and likely reflects a number higher than the actual cost of a move). My own company no longer deals in itemized moves overseas- got too complicated worrying about employee A’s piano or employee B’s pet dog.</p>
<p>So we do a lump sum (depending on various factors) which we DO gross up for tax purposes, but which often leads to an inflated income year.</p>
<p>OP- get some professional eyeballs on your situation before committing.</p>
<p>OP really needs to clarify who did the paperwork. I still think based on estimated global salary alone that an internationally seconded engineer of the OPs fathers age and experience, would qualify as an internationl for no FA in a US school. Let alone 20 or 50K. The OP is a kid, where is an adult is doing the real math? </p>
<p>Contact UPenn, they should match it. I’m pretty sure Cornell will match any financial aid given by another Ivy League or “Ivy-like” university (Duke, MIT, UChicago) so I would imagine UPenn does the same. That may only apply for US Citizens though. Also did you use the NPC before applying ED? If it told you $20,000/yr and you still applied ED, you’re obligated to go unless you want to risk getting your UChicago acceptance rescinded too.</p>
<p>Well…the Penn offer is ED…isn’t it? Part of the deal with ED is that you don’t get to typically compare financial aid offers. My giess is Penn won’t really care what Chicago gave this student. The ED contract says the student will enroll if accepted. Penn computes financial need…and by their calculations, they have met full need. Still…if finances preclude enrolling…the student can decline the offer of acceptance.</p>
<p>The ED contract says the applicant has to accept if it is financially feasible.</p>
<p>If UPenn with the current fin aid is not financially feasible, then either UPenn increases fin aid or the OP declines.</p>
<p>All this chatter about how much expat engineers make is rather immaterial.</p>
<p>I think what I will be doing now, is calling Penn’s office and telling them that my ea school gave me a much better financial aid package. Hopefully they’ll be able to match it or at least increase their current offer.</p>
<p>On an other note, my original question was how come two comparable universities can offer such different need base financial aid. As @PurpleTitan is saying, you guys started going on and on and on about how rich my parents supposedly are. Unless you wish to answer my original question please refrain from posting here. </p>
<p>Personally, I think you should call and say that their financial aid offer isn’t feasible, so if they can not increase it, to please let you out of the ED commitment.</p>
<p>Then mention that an EA school gave you a much better fin aid offer that would be financially feasible if you want to (don’t mention UChicago unless they ask).</p>
<p>Do not ask them to match since this is the ED round, so if it looks like you are shopping around, that may rub them the wrong way.</p>
<p>The difference in the two offers is because of a number of factors.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The schools used different financial aid application forms for early applicants.</p></li>
<li><p>The schools have different formulas they use to compute need based aid.</p></li>
<li><p>The schools look at assets like primary home equity and business expenses in different ways. This is very common.</p></li>
<li><p>Possible that your status as a canadian citizen affects this all.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Fortunately, it sounds like you have an affordable option if the award from Chicago is indeed accurate and won’t be changed once the FAFSA is filed. I would want to know this. But since Chicago is EA, all you would lose by declining Penn…is Penn. You could still apply to other schools regular decision.if the Chicago offer changes, you would have other options on your plate…just not Penn.</p>
<p>@thumper1 Thank you for your points. am I allowed to apply to schools in the RD round given that I currently have an ED acceptance? If I can work something out with Penn, that means I’ll be canceling my application very shortly after actually filing it. I have been trying to contact my counsellor regarding this but it is proving to be difficult to get in touch with her. Also, documents such as transcripts and letters of recommendation won’t be sent until we get back from break as my counselor and I were both under the impression that I was pretty much going to Penn… Would that be a problem? </p>