<p>We don’t qualify for any FA either. Even during the two semesters when my H did not have a job and we filed for financial appeal due to special circumstance, all we got was loan offers. </p>
<p>^Pepper and anyone else- I am wondering how much difference will it make on the FA needs by having two kids in college at the same time?</p>
<p>2girls, If I remember correctly what we did for D13, CSS starts with a standard base of questions. You list the schools you are applying to and it imports any extra questions that your schools want answered. So you fill it out once, but it could get quite long depending on the particular schools. I understand there are some schools that even want to know the value of your cars. As far as home equity, many schools consider that, but each has its own formula as to how that affects the FA. I heard somewhere the top half dozen schools give you a break on primary home equity, but she didn’t apply to those.</p>
<p>I always run the NPC, because I don’t want her to fall in love with a school that is beyond our reach. I know exactly how much I can afford to pay on a monthly basis, so I look for schools that fall within that range with a monthly payment plan. I am not averse to her taking out small loans to supplement the difference - that’s what my older daughter did and it hasn’t been burdensome for her post-graduation. </p>
<p>If your EFC is above $60K, but not too much above, and you have 2 children in college at the same time, it is worth the time to fill out the forms. From what I’ve read, EFC for 2 might be 15%(not sure of this number exactly) higher, than for 1, but that is split between 2 children. Even if the first is full pay at public for $30K it could help. Say your EFC was $60K, so for 2 children it’s $70K. Then at a meets full need $60K school for the 2nd child, you might get $20K in aid, $15K of it in grants. If first child is paying more than that at a private, it’s even more advantageous. </p>
<p>You do have to be careful with NPCs. If you say you have 2 in college, they will assume 2 in similar priced colleges and impute half of EFC to your EFC with them. But if you are paying less(or in our case much less) for a child in public and/or with large merit, the NPC underestimates what you will owe them, as it doesn’t ask how much you are paying for the 1st child, just assumes. They will want more of your money if you are paying less somewhere else.</p>
<p>The above is all from my reading, not personal experience, so not sure how accurate it is. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>We ran some NPCs and they indicated no financial aid. At that point, I don’t see the point of filling out all of the forms and doing all that work and getting nothing. Some indicated merit aid (but then I don’t think we would need to apply for FA but I will have to check). We, too, fall into the middle where we can’t easily write a check for $65K each year but don’t qualify for aid.</p>
<p>When we were at Villanova’s open house, the financial aid person said to make sure you fill out the forms if you have more than 1 child in college even if you never qualified for any FA in previous years.</p>
<p>We have a certain amount of money that we can pay each year. My goal is for my D to get enough merit to cover the difference between what the school costs and what we could afford. I am sure most of you have the same goal. We can pay for our state schools without merit. Some schools on the list are affordable to us with $10,000-12,000 in merit, while other schools require more. After all of the acceptances and offers come in I am hoping she has a few choices. I think she will. She will be very busy in the fall filling out scholarship forms!! I have to decide what to do about the CSS profile- not sure yet as I don’t think we will get anything but I need to investigate it more. She is only applying to schools that give merit money. There are a few that are very competitive as far as merit goes, but guidance agreed that she should go for it so she will. The remaining schools are not quite as competitive. </p>
<p>I am sure that somewhere in this craziness is a school for her!! We may have to dig a little to find it, but eventually we will- and so will everyone. </p>
<p>Hi All, This is my first post ever…I just created an account here. I have been reading all your very very informative posts about this whole high school and beyond process. Reading about all the 4.0 kids on these forums has been giving me some restless nights thinking about where she could end up at. This year has been rough for my DD she ended first semester with 4 Bs. Her GPA as it stands now is 3.77 UW (class rank is 32 out of 557) and 4.02 W. Her PSAT score is 227 (well above our state’s cut off) and her SAT score are 710 m, 800CR and 720 W.Do you think these are good Stats? I did not go to undergrad school here…came here for grad school so the whole process is very nerve racking.</p>
<p>Welcome anxiousma! My D has a similar GPA to yours, 3.8UW or so. It’s easy here, on CC, to feel like that’s not a good GPA or a 700-something is not a good SAT sub-score but the fact is, they ARE. Kids with those stats who craft a college list that includes match schools and safety schools should have terrific options to choose from.</p>
<p>I think the only issue is when people assume that these great stats guarantee admission to MIT or Harvard or Stanford or whatever, when there are zero guarantees for any student at those schools where 19 out of 20 applicants are rejected. </p>
<p>Does anyone have advice in regards to D or S applying to schools that you are not willing to pay for? We’ve had the talk with D on multiple occasions that Stanford is not affordable for us and she understands that. I’ve run the NPC, and it showed some small aid, but not enough to make it a good value in my opinion. I’m really not willing to jeopardize our retirement or financial security to allow our D to get a bachelor’s degree from a very elite school when there other great options that are much more affordable. Odds are high that she wouldn’t get in, and we’d just be out the $90 application fee and her time and work which might be better focused elsewhere. She certainly has the GPA and test scores and extracurriculars to make it possible however, and that is my fear. If she got in I would feel terrible just saying congratulations and sorry but we already told you that we wouldn’t pay that much…</p>
<p>Hi anxiousma! I think OhMomof2 is exactly right. Those are great scores and great grades! This place can be a wonderful resource for information, but can also give you a skewed idea of what is the norm. You will find plenty of great schools for your D with those stats.</p>
<p>woodsmom, I haven’t figured out what to do about the scenario you describe. This is happening with my kiddo vis-a-vis Northwestern. Even if she got in, I don’t see that it’s affordable. The only caveat is that my company provides some scholarships that would MAYBE make it affordable if she were awarded one. (That’s a whole 'nother story though. They don’t announce winners until mid-summer. I’m trying to get that changed.) In any event, I have told my D that I don’t see how we can swing it, but she still wants to apply. I’m hoping she’ll change her mind later. I know, this was not very helpful.</p>
<p>woodsmom - had to do that with ds11 and Michigan. Told him repeatedly that if he didn’t get the slim chance merit scholarship, there would probably be no way we could afford it. Being the type of household who normally shops only sales, has coupons, etc…he knew he needed a “coupon” to go there. But he wasn’t/isn’t the most financial savvy and it still took awhile for it to sink in that I really really meant what I said. It didn’t help that his friends heard he got in and said “whoa dude, that’s it, you’re done, Michigan’s a great school.” Eventually he resigned himself to it, accepted the nice offer with merit at a school that matched his interests. Don’t think he regrets not going to his “dream” except when they go to a good bowl game.</p>
<p>anxiousma, Welcome to our ‘looney bin.’ With that PSAT and SAT, just make sure there are no 'C’s, since your D is a sure NMSF and will get NMF if no 'C’s on transcript. That will provide her some certain financial safeties, at any rate. Even if those are not schools she is most interested in, it is a good feeling to have an assured full ride in the back pocket in November. Then you know even if you and H are in accident or some other awful thing happens senior year, there is an easy option. Those are great stats, by the way. You should be proud. Anyone can have a bad semester. A lot depends on where you are looking. At our flagship it’s getting difficult to be admitted with under a 3.8 UW, though that’s still hard for me to wrap my head around. Parents whose kids have lower GPAs apply anyway and cross their fingers. With good ECs it can still happen. But there are so many good schools out there and lots of them will happily welcome your D. Hope she finds a place she’ll thrive. That’s the best we all can hope for. My H is not from US, so the college app/$$$ business is very fraught process for him, much worse even than for the natives. Talking the other day with parents like my H, from EU who attended grad school in US and then settled here, and they are similarly baffled and horrified by turns.</p>
<p>woodsmom, seems like kids can apply where they want if they pay the fees for app/transcripts/test scores, or even if you indulge them and pay. As long as they know your financial position, that is the most important thing. Some kids might like to be able to say "I got into XXX " for the brag value, even if they know they can’t ultimately attend. Nothing wrong with that, except for the way it puts yet more money in university coffers… </p>
<p>The bad thing is when parents encourage, or even pressure their kids to apply to these places, without having investigated whether there is a way they can realistically pay for it and make it happen. Then after kids get in, they realize “no way” and have to squash years of parent-enabled dreaming. </p>
<p>I know society encourages this by not having enough frank clear discussion about costs. Everything is clouded. “Oh, apply and maybe you’ll get lots of aid. You never know” sort of talk. The other day a parent was telling me to have S apply to these places because avg. cost of Dartmouth to students is $11K/yr. I was like- first of all, that isn’t the avg. cost. It’s the avg cost to the 40% who aren’t full pay. And 2ndly, I know exactly how much Dartmouth would charge our family, and it’s H of a lot more than $11K. I understand the parent was badly informed, but still. That kind of talk makes me crazy now that I know better and see how it hurts kids.</p>
<p>Woodsmom - I’m afraid of the costs too. DS and DH leave tonight for a CA trip and Stanford is one of the 3 stops. Financial aid will play a big part of where DS decides to go. His only official college visit before this week was to his instate safety. He would qualify for at least full tuition there. DS does seem to have a good head on his shoulders. I don’t think he would want to go to a school that would cost us $60,000 per year when he could go somewhere else for virtually free. </p>
<p>^I didn’t actually say that to this parent. Not THAT mean. It was all in my head.</p>
<p>Thank you for your replies. My D is looking at small schools (2500-5000 ) She is very quiet and reserved (like 3G3Cs daughter) so I think a small school would benefit her more. The largish public school she goes to is filled with overachievers at the top and many who end up not going to college at all at the bottom so the guidance counselors have made it clear that their priority is to help the bottom tier only. There are about 4 counselors for 550+ kids. </p>
<p>Welcome to the group, anxiousma. I think your D has great stats and will have lots of choices. </p>
<p>As for having kids apply to out-of-reach because of $ schools, I’m really not for it. This is just my opinion, but CC is full of threads started by kids who worked hard, got accepted by their dream school, and are now devastated because they can’t afford to go. If it’s a matter of possibly getting merit, I’d say go for it (with a warning about what happens if they don’t get the merit aid) but if you know it’s not possible, I think it makes things harder for the kids… I’m watching this happen with some friends right now, and the wonderful merit-aid schools look less appealing when there is an acceptance from a “dream school.” But it really depends on your DC and what you think is best.</p>
<p>anxiousma, my kids are big school kids, but I’ve checked some small school websites for fun. Many seem to have tables with test scores vs.GPA and merit one would automatically qualify for. I get the feeling there is plenty of discounting prices for good students like your D. Denison (OH) is a small private school that gives 4-yr full tuition scholarships to 20 freshmen NMF. There are quite a few parents here looking at the same sort of schools you are, so you will get better advice from them.</p>
<p>Our GCs don’t do financial. At all. They just don’t. The college app stuff in general is pretty much up to the kids and families, though they are good about sending out their section of common app. It may be that they help the low-SES kids more with financial and other aspects of college app process. Not sure about that. But not much assistance for the middle class and up kids as far as I can tell. I guess they try, but they don’t know much. They have huge caseloads with school budget cuts, too busy.</p>
<p>I forgot to add that my H went to the FA meeting at our school – they did say that if you have 2 or more kids in college at the same time it can dramatically help your chance for FA for #2 (even if you get no aid at all for the first one). </p>
<p>D’s team goes to mock trial again today. I’m feeling nervous. </p>
<p>anxiousma, welcome! Your D has great stats. Join CC may give you a lot of information you need. </p>