<p>You are correct…they are 14th. And believe me, we are a LONG way from getting a scholarship there. Be great just to be accepted.</p>
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<p>I am in the same situation as a small business owner and we went through the hoops and did all of the FA forms including FAFSA, CSS and IDOCS and were more than pleasantly surprised at the grant aid “scholarship” that DS-11 received as part of his package. This is from one of the non-ivy top 25 universities.</p>
<p>Also, some of the NPC’s for some of the ivy and top LAC’s provide FA with family incomes approaching $200,000. Every family situation is different. In summary my advice is to apply and see if you get offered anything.</p>
<p>Good luck with your D’s search.</p>
<p>Yes, I would say you should go ahead and apply for need based aid. I have a small business, and also an ex-H who has remarried. D applied for FA at the schools that we thought were NOT likely to give her any merit aid, plus one that does but wants the FA info filled out to even consider kids for merit. It is kind of a hassle (every school has different stuff they want in different formats). But we figured if merit aid was highly likely, they probably would not give her need based aid on top of that. So she did apply for FA at 5 schools, did not at 3. We were right about the merit at those 3, she did get sizable merit aid. Plus merit from 2 of the 5 where she applied for need based aid, too.</p>
<p>So… one of the five schools where she applied for need based aid gave her a need based grant (all also offered access to subsidized and unsubsidized federal loans, and a couple put in some work study). Her top choice school initially did not offer any merit or need based aid. But I contacted them after accepted student days and told them she had narrowed her choice down to two schools, and the other school had made COA about $10,000 cheaper through grants and merit aid. The other school that had given the money was definitely academically comparable to her top choice, which I think is important. I asked them to please “review” her FA again just to see if they could give us any more help, and attached a copy of the other school’s offer. And lo… a $9,000 grant and some work study appeared from the top choice. So this is just for the first year, may be nothing in future years. But for ~$10,000, it was worth the hassle. And if you ask politely for a “review” of need based aid because COA is cheaper at another option, sometimes they will come through with more aid.</p>
<p>MirabileDictu, I LOVE your spreadsheet and color-coding system!! Absolutely brilliant. You should patent this and make a form available online. Your system would be so helpful to a lot of undecided kids and parents!</p>
<p>Our family does not spend a whole lot on things like nice clothes, nice furniture, vacations, and our kids are not as indulged materially as most of their peers. We have big house in a convenient area and we paid for private school for our kids from prek-12. If we’d cut back on the house, not had private school, maybe we’d have been able to pay for any college our kids wanted. I wish we could, but at this point in our lives, in order to be financially responsible, our kids do have to work summers and we cannot afford a $60K a year school. We should be able to , but we cannot, if we want to be fiscally sound for other things. But, I do indulge them up to the limit of what we can afford for school choice, and they would be allowed to pick any school regardless of cost, if we could reasonably pay for it. I don’t see any problems in being indulgent about it It think it’s a huge plus and incentive for a kid to make college work out when he’s the one who chose it. When things go wrong, and they often do. there will be more internal drive to fix the problems rather than come come.</p>
<p>Not sure why this thread was moved?? Not an FA question. I was looking for opinions from parents.</p>
<p>Anyway…</p>
<p>I am there with you CPT…no private school but lots of vacations all in the justication of “culture exposure and enrichment”. Truth be told, we started our eldest (junior) S in private for kindergarden, but he hated it. And it was the best private, in my opinion, in our area. So not like I didn’t try it. Started 529 then moved to different state (to take care of parent) so stopped it, since we took healthy pay cuts. Some how it didn’t stop me from getting the house. Your babes will be fine - heck he’s at my flagship! They will take good care! And don’t get me started on the rediculous amounts I spent on many many Christmas’s. All the ECs. Hindsight I should have banked it all instead of trying to stimulate and nurture every part of their being. Down to their big toe it seems 
Didn’t realize till now that some of it has to be learned and not bought. No worries - don’t look back. At least I can’t…</p>
<p>No, can’t change the past. And the truth of the matter is that certainly things were important to me, some wants that really added to MY quality of life too. Choice of college (and yes, for me, there is something I get in having a kid go to a college that has some reputation lustre, name recognition to it, I admit it) is important. I lick my wounds in that area, as we didn’t quite make it in being able to keep up with the costs of the most expensive schools. But my kids have turned down prestige for thing that they liked at a number of schools. </p>
<p>So in my case, i don’t put an artificial ceiling as to what we can afford for their college, and if the truth is to be known, we really have a bit too much on the table, more than we should. And if one of mine ever should get accepted to HPY, I will go scrub Port a Johns to make it work. But that is me.</p>
<p>I dont’ have anything to add on the COA issue but think it’s great that bigdaddy obviously thinks the world of his daughter and love the mindset that she would be a success anywhere!</p>
<p>Not sure what to think about the full tuition promise at 'Bama. I’m certain I would have to see something in writing guaranteeing the offer prior to accepting. I have spoken at length with our regional recruiter and have no reason to think there is any funny business going on.</p>
<p>the offer is in writing. There isn’t any “funny business”. They’re not going to play “fast and loose” with any scholarship offers. Even when scholarships have changed in the past, those with existing offers do not get any negative changes. Furthermore, when the scholarships have improved (such as offering tuition coverage up to 20 credits per semester), even the existing scholarship holders have gotten the upgrade.</p>
<p>^^ Agree with M2CK on that. My D received everything regarding her Presidential Scholarship in writing long before she had to commit. Additionally, two days after we dropped her off, before classes had even started, she received an e-mail from UA offering her an additional $5K scholarship (followed up by a letter so it was all in writing). At that point, she was already there and was already committed to the program to which the scholarship was related, so there was no recruiting aspect to it. It was a very nice, very unexpected surprise. I wouldn’t worry at all about the Alabama scholarships.</p>
<p>I was not at all concerned about the offer from 'Bama. I was just responding to another poster. We are very much looking forward to our visit and truly hope our D loves it.</p>
<p>Bigdaddy88, families I know here will often say $20K a year for college from the parent’s till, because that’ s about what a state school experience costs here. In some states, the cost has gone up to over $30K these days, shame on those schools. We wanted to double the amount for our kids, but we are really stretched a $35K, and we find we are actually spending more like $40K a year anyways even as we budget for less. Yeah, lack of discipline.</p>
<p>I guess no matter how much planning we put into this process, it will probably come down to waiting until all acceptances and offers are in then making a decision. After all, I always tell my kids not to make important decisions without having all the pertinent info!</p>
<p>Just hoping and praying she has several great and viable options come next April…</p>