<p>Our kids did not apply ED anywhere.</p>
<p>Definitely in my case. My school list would be filled with more elite, Top 20 LACs and less that aren’t as good but give merit aid. Financial aid is why I have an insane list of schools I’m considering- because getting in just isn’t enough in my case.</p>
<p>I’m in the same boat with FauxNom. My daughter would love to do ED at Brown, however, we have no clue how much financial aid they would give her. Yale & Princeton both have financial calculators on their websites and she would do well with them. We fall into the upper middle class income but she still get a nice break on the tuition. Of course, she wants no part of Princeton. We did tour Yale and it was great but getting in there is like playing the lottery. She has a better chance at Brown because she’s a legacy. My husband went to graduate school there. So we’re discouraging her from ED simply because she may get a better deal from WashU or Emory or wind up in Pitt’s honors college. It’s frustrating to say the least. I would love for her to go to Brown but I do not want to pay over $50,000 a year. I like to have some money to enjoy our retirement.</p>
<p>The aid deal at Brown is MUCH better since my D attended (she graduated in 2008 right when the new aid policies went into effect, though she got aid all four years under the old policy…but would have gotten more now). I think you could get a handle on what your D might get offered at Brown as their new policies have different income brackets and what the deal is for each. You could also inquire at the FA office to get a general idea. Just because there is no financial calculator on the website doesn’t mean you could not obtain similar information if you ask. </p>
<p>Is this your oldest? Will you have two in college at the same time? Our D who went to Brown is our oldest but overlapped 3 of her four years at Brown with her younger sister (at another school) and so her FA package at Brown shot up starting in the second year and so evaluating the FA package just with one in school may not be the entire picture for all four years if you will ever have two in college at once.</p>
<p>In any case, Brown has really good FA now, and I can’t imagine it being better at Yale.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info, Soozievt. My husband has looked at the Brown FA website info but it’s confusing. We just dread the idea that she gets accepted but has to pay the full freight. She’s the youngest in the family. My son is out of school and working but still living at home. So that wouldn’t affect the financial aid. We really like Providence. She wants to continue dancing at Brown while majoring in neuroscience. So if she’s in Providence, I can still see her perform. If she’s at WashU or Emory, we’re talking plane flights from Pennsylvania to get there.</p>
<p>Ronib…you say you are “upper middle class” but everyone defines those terms differently. </p>
<p>I just visited Brown’s site where they give examples of FA packages. </p>
<p><a href=“https://financialaid.brown.edu/Cmx_Content.aspx?cpId=333[/url]”>https://financialaid.brown.edu/Cmx_Content.aspx?cpId=333</a></p>
<p>A family of four with one student attending Brown as a sophomore in 2009-10 with total income of $105,000 and $63,000 in assets has a parent contribution of about $20,000.</p>
<p>A family of five with one student attending Brown as an incoming freshman with total income of $160,000 and $150,000 in assets has a parent contribution of about $40,000. </p>
<p>I don’t know where you fall (and I ain’t askin’) but the deal in the first case which is considered at least a middle class income, is pretty nice. In the second case, the aid is just a little but there is still some aid. If you fall in between these two scenarios, then figure something in between (they provide formulas on their site). If you make more than $150K or so, I think you will not find a lot of need based aid from ANY college. I don’t think Yale’s deal is gonna be better than Brown’s. Your D could make out better at a MERIT based school, but in terms of need based aid, I don’t think you’ll get a better deal for a school in this level of selectivity than Brown would offer…roughly speaking.</p>
<p>I’m with Soozie. We needed FA, but we did not let finances dictate applicatons with the exception of SUNY application for first just in case we got zero FA and absolutely couldn’t afford it without selling kidneys.</p>
<p>We were fortunate that kids qualified for need-blind, meet 100% of need schools and FA did make it possible for them to attend.</p>
<p>However, we were willing to sell the house and downsize if that hadn’t been the case.</p>
<p>C2 (Child2) didn’t even apply to a financial safety because we had a good idea of the aid we qualified for.</p>
<p>Soozie, I admire your grad school philosophy, but I don’t know if I could ever find the money for that.</p>
<p>^^^mythmom, that is why I must get back to work now pronto! :D</p>
<p>I do believe that money does make a very big difference for a number of kids as to how applications are done. THere is a thread asking about the effect of limiting the number of apps to 6 per student, and my remark was that it would particularly affect those students who have financial constraints. You have fewer options if you apply to fewer schools. Just a matter of numbers. There is a point of diminishing returns for most students as the work of applying a certain number of schools (varies by student what that number is) starts affecting the quality of the apps and performance during the school year, but for those kids who do need financial aid to go to selective private schools with high costs, it’s often a crap shoot as to which school will pan out.</p>
<p>Soozie, in your case where your kids were eligible for financial aid, it appears that they did not NEED it to be able to go to their first choices because somehow your family could come up with the funds needed. The scenario could have been very different if there were true budgetary constraints on what the family could pay. I have known families who had to eliminate certain options when the acceptance letters were received because they flat out could not pay the amounts needed to take those options. I know a family who tried to wing it in hopes that something would turn up, they could somehow make it and the student is transferring to a state school this year for monetary reasons. Clearly there are families where money is an important factor in the number of apps and the choice of apps and schools.</p>
<p>Cpt…clearly there ARE families where money is an important factor in number of apps and choices of schools! No doubt about that. </p>
<p>I wasn’t advocating how we went about it but just stating what we did. </p>
<p>I have also read cases on CC where a parent could not afford college out of pocket (we surely could not!!) but was unable or unwilling to borrow for education. And that is one thing we are willing to do. Pay this out over time. It is a very top priority. But my kids NEEDED the aid and we surely have benefitted from the aid and it has helped make this all possible.</p>
<p>There is need and there is NEED. For some families, unless an aid package is offered bringing down the cost to a certain amount, their kids are just not going to go to that school. That, to me, is NEED. Such families cannot/will not borrow the money. Sometimes the availability of such loans is not a good financial or family choice to make even if education is way up there on the priority list. </p>
<p>I know a local family whose daughter has borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to college. It is now a huge problem as to how she and the family are going to pay back that money as it does not look like a job with sufficient income to make a dent in the amount is forth coming any time soon, and the family had the financial need–it just got met with loans at the particular school that was chosen. </p>
<p>For certain graduate/professional schools, loans are very much the way to go because the income that is generated from such education is highly likely to be able to repay those loans. Not so with many undergraduate programs. As highly as any family puts educational choice on the priority list, health, physical, mental and financial can trump that spot when they reach certain threshhold points.</p>
<p>"(FWIW, IMO she was a better candidate for admission to the most selective UG’s than she is to the most selective med schools. ) "</p>
<p>Completely off topic…but…curious about this statement. She’s a recepient of one of the top national undergraduate science honors. What made her a better candidate for a top UG than a top Med School?</p>
<p>Curmudgeon, it remains to be seen whether that is true or not. Until the med school app results are in and compared to the ug results, it’s hard to say. Though, most of the time, I would agree with you. Friends of ours whose kids ended up at the most selective colleges and accepted by any number of other selective schools for ug, did not get as much choice in medical schools. The ante apparently goes up. In one case, we know of a kid who applied to a number of ug/md combined programs along with the most competitive ug schools. He was accepted at Harvard, Princeton and all of his other ug only schools but did not get any acceptances at any of the combined programs even though a number of them were schools that were not anywhere nearly as selective for the ug college. The med school part was the issue. He only got two interviews for medicals school at that time. When he graduated from Harvard and applied to medical schools, he was accepted to half (6) of his choices which was surprising to me given his top MCAT scores and excellent academic record at Harvard. He did not get into the most selective med schools such as Harvard or Johns Hopkins, again surprising to me. </p>
<p>Let us know how it goes with your D.</p>
<p>cpt…all you say is quite true. </p>
<p>By the way, the loans taken out for my kids UG and Grad schools, are being paid by us, not the kids. So earning potential is not a factor for us when it comes to the loans. We are paying the student loans like Stafford and Perkins ourselves, as well as the Parent Loans ourselves.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I know this is going to sound nitpicky, but I don’t think it’s a true need if there is another option. When a kids family cannot get loans, no matter how willing they would be to do it, that creates a need. When you can borrow but, of course, prefer not to do that, it’s a want. </p>
<p>One of my kid’s friends had to withdraw from a college she was two weeks away from attending because one of the loans fell through. They scrambled and really tried, but they are low income and there was nothing they could do. </p>
<p>When I compare her to my child, where we could borrow but doing so would be financial suicide in terms of savings for disability or retirment, I have to admit that what our family has is a want, not a need.</p>
<p>“If money were no object…”? Maybe pretty much the same list for applications (except the financial safeties); but she might well be at a different school now.</p>
<p>soozie: But I’m already working!!! Two jobs. H might add income, but I’m maxed out. Though I may sell a book.</p>
<p>2boysima, let’s just say that going to a lesser-known but still quality school, instead of the one whose name creates oohs and aahs, leaves much less a margin of error in top med school admissions. It can and is done, but you better be pretty dang close to perfect. And that ain’t my kid. She does things her own way and sometimes that “don’t work out per-zactly like she planned”. ;)</p>
<p>As to the question earlier from atomom, my kid does want a career in academic medicine (some combo of teaching, research, and practice) and until recently planned on MD/PhD (and she still hasn’t ruled it out as many programs allow you to apply from med school). She wanted more freedom to zig and zag than an MD/PhD. program would provide. (See : do it her own way, above ;)). </p>
<p>Academic medicine is widely considered the only reason one should consider the “ranking” of a med school. For the vast majority of med students, I would wholeheartedly agree that rankings are pretty inconsequential (though some argue that the most sought-after residencies would be another exception). Any med school is a good med school , and my kid has been mightily impressed by all of them .</p>
<p>atomom, one more thing…I’m sooooo glad she’s a Texas resident. We have excellent in-state almost 
affordable options.</p>
<p>No. In our house, FA is not an issue. If he gets into his top $55,000 a year school we can afford to pay for it. </p>
<p>However, if he can’t get into one of his reaches (and they are all ‘brand-name’ schools), we would encourage him to look seriously at the merit offers he receives from his matches and safeties. Unless he is ‘in love’ with one school over all others, it seems silly not to take advantage of money being offered to him by schools trying to ‘sway’ him. </p>
<p>Since he has not expressed an intense interest in anything other than his reaches yet, I have encouraged him to add a few LACs where I know he has a shot at some merit aid to his list. Also, if he stays in state, he already qualifies for a fair amount of scholarship money based upon his scores and GPA.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if FA was an issue for us, I would have changed the strategy a bit and encouraged him to apply to more schools where he is likely to be very competitive in hopes of getting some big merit aid offers.</p>