<p>Very valuable thread. Thank you fogfog.</p>
<p>“Princeton Review, Paying for College Without Going Broke” Kalman Chany, 2011 Edition should be out very soon, to use with your 2010 Tax Returns… </p>
<p>We have never been surprised or have suffered from “EFC Shock” because I have been buying this book for years & it has saved us $1,000’s for all 4 children! </p>
<p>Fog, sorry about your Early Read! If you have high out of pocket expenses for 2010, I suggest documenting them by making copies of the bills & putting a Summary Sheet on the top! If the Out of Pocket Medical Expenses exceed a certain % of your AGI, then you may get an allowance on that! I have been doing this for years! Usually it is so damn thick H brings home a heavy duty stapler for me to use. </p>
<p>If your child has his/her heart set on this school, apply for “Special Circumstances” with the medical expenses or whatever else you feel they overlooked! Usually the FA office has a form for this! I have filled out quite a few over the years! </p>
<p>But it seems as though every school has a different % in mind when it comes to these medical expenses exceeding your AGI. </p>
<p>In Kal Chany’s book he does discuss self-employed income & what schools add back in etc, like depreciation on vehicles or other assets or your vehicle expense & the like. </p>
<p>I recommend the book, everybody should get it & calculate their EFCs on the work sheets in the back of the book. Be an educated consumer!</p>
<p>What is wrong about expecting a student to work during the summer? The only way I could go to a good college was to work 40 hours a week for nearly all of the summer. I typically started 3 days after school ended and stopped one week before school started. I worked on-campus as well. Most of my peers did the same.</p>
<p>CSS doesn’t take debt into account. To some, it’s less about negative home equity and more about “fair market value.” You may owe more than it’s worth. It is still a potential resource. No, I don’t like this either.</p>
<p>As far as I know, all CSS schools also require the FAFSA. Rather than 100% reinvent the wheel, they adapt the Fafsa EFC to their standards. Eg, some CSS schools count your cars as assets. Knowing your FafsaForecaster EFC is far better than just going in with a quick calculation.
I suggested OP may not have been fully armed because she implied it here. I also suggest perhaps she inadvertently included “employer” retirement contributions in the non-business portion of the finaid forms- which could throw off the picture of her financial standing.</p>
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<p>Absolutely not. Monies contributed by an employer to a defined benefit pension plan are excluded from both fafsa and Profile. But if you are ineligible for a wholly-paid DB pension plan and have to contribute towards your own retirement in a 401k/SEP, you are SOL since those are considered voluntary contributions.</p>
<p>Perhaps “odd” and not “fair” but Congress wrote the law for fafsa, so write your Congressperson…</p>
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You are welcome.
I realized after starting to read some of the posters, how its easy for those to throw stones…
Getting a pre-read is not possible for everyone…so many will be surprised at some point.</p>
<p>so</p>
<p>OK Folks
while there seem to be a few of the haters posting,
Lets just say, we did our homework.
We saw tax planners and our taxes are done annually for both personal and business and you can rest your minds we dont have hidden assets etc…</p>
<p>And so we used multiple calculators, extimates, work sheets, all to get a ballpark figure…and<br>
still, no matter how much planning you will do–
I am posting this thread to make this point:
YOU WILL NOT KNOW THE TRUTH INSIDE AN INSTITUTIONAL METHOD
because they simple do not want you to know how they calculate things
…and as one expects,
every institution does it differently.</p>
<p>My point to post is not to whine, or have to defend myself against those wo think we didn’t do our homework etc…
- the package EFC is far more than the calculator
- yes, frankly my kiddo expected to be cleaned out of any birthday money from the last 17 yrs, (I am sorry kiddo didn’t enjoy that $ over the last 17 years…) and kiddo also expected a job during school etc…
- our scholar-athlete will be working/playing for a school --which means putting in 30+ hours a week; I am concerned about studies and maintaining an on campus job on top of that. </p>
<p>We did the homework and spent many hours on this for more than a year…
Bottom line-
no matter what your homework says,
and what your tax returns say,
and what those lovely charts in those glossy viewbooks say,
and what the admissions reps say at the open houses etc…
The FinAid office will use an institutional methodology that may in fact shock you–and they may in fact do things to your numbers - like include the Employer’s contributions to your pension…and who are YOU to argue with THEM what they do with your tax returns, allowances and deductions! It may not be standard accounting, it’s their method. Welcome to OZ.</p>
<p>And as for our student: yes, our student has for many more years handled the academic rigor, transcript, gpa, scores, ECs, service, sport, and alot to be an attractive candidate for a school like this. We will make the choice that is best for our student and the family as you will for your student and your family</p>
<p>Wish you all well and that you are well versed in your Profile/FAFSA forms. Tick, Tock ;o)</p>
<p>a dated, but valuable resources on the why’s of finaid, both fafsa and profile. It is what is is…</p>
<p>btw: the analysis starts on page 49, the first half is pablum.</p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools;
<p>I’ve got no dog in this fight–no student applying to a school with super-generous FA, no student athlete, and we don’t own our own business. My knowledge of HYP’s aid policies is from the initial news stories. Yet consider these quotes from the Harvard FA website:</p>
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<p>Harvard, at least, isn’t looking at home equity, so that piece is off the table.</p>
<p>There’s the oddity of the contribution being on “average” 10%. The second quote implies this is true for all incomes up to $180k. Since those below $60k pay nothing, I could see that families near the $180k number would be paying much more. However, the other quotes refer to families in the $120k-$180k (or $60k-$180k) paying on average 10% of income. If I hadn’t heard fogfog’s tale of woe, I’d be inclined to think the lack of exactitude in Harvard’s quotes matching each other was a bit of casual writing. In retrospect, it looks a bit more suspicious. Perhaps there are more details about Harvard’s policies that give families more insight, or at least a heads-up about how business owners might face different rules.</p>
<p>The thing is, for the vast majority of tippy-top highly selective schools, families in this income range know going in that they’re going to get nothing. A CC-educated family earning $170k a year with typical assets, no unusual expenses and a student applying to Dartmouth, Brown, Swarthmore, U of Chicago, Amherst, etc etc etc, would never think that they’d be eligible for significant need-based aid. Yet ask that same family what they’d expect to pay for a kid at Harvard, and they’re going to figure on $17k/year. Because that’s what Harvard has trumpeted to the world. They’ve made it sound like a slam-dunk. For other schools, parents might caution their children that even if they get in, final acceptance will depend on FA or merit aid. For Harvard, that same family would think that the only issue would be getting in. </p>
<p>Princeton does win points for some more transparency. They provide a financial aid calculator that’s been recommended on CC as a good stand-in for institutional methodology from a generous school. fogfog, what do/did you get when you ran numbers through that? <a href=“https://sweb2.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/FinAid/finaid_form.pl[/url]”>https://sweb2.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/FinAid/finaid_form.pl</a></p>
<p>The Harvard forum (or Yale and Princeton) from past admissions cycles might have more specific examples of how the aid initiative plays out in real life. Anyone seen anything like fogfog’s story before?</p>
<p>I stopped reading on page four because, frankly, I don’t like the tone of some on this thread. Example, OP mentions being upside down in a house and someone comments on “a big house that you got stuck with when the economy tanked”. How do you know what kind of house the op has! Small footprint homes are just as upside down as big ones!!! It has nothing to do with the size of the home and everything to do with the timing of the purchase. And implying the op went about this blindly, while the righteous “sweated out trying to understand as much as we could, to be prepared”. Again, how do you know how much time and effort the OP has put intp preparing for this? </p>
<p>Some of you are so quick to attack without an understanding of the situation. The op explained that her kid was a recruited athlete Do you have any idea the amount of time commitment this requires? And on top of that, to have an academic profile to be recruited by an Ivy League school? When is this kid supposed to work? My own child is an athlete and she does not work nor will she work in college, unless there is absolutely no other way to manage. Not only is there the time commitment for training, travel and competition, but the sleep requirements of athletes are far greater than that of the average student. I can certainly understand the “skin in the game” argument, but my kid has had skin in the game since she began training at the age of four! And I’m sure this recruited athlete is no differesnt. Every time they missed a party, a dance, or other school function because they had practice or a competion or had to study, they had “skin in the game”. And what about spending every summer training while their friends are hanging at the beach or traveling or whatever! A summer job would be a whole lot easier, I assure you!</p>
<p>Fogfog, I am so sorry that you are having to deal with this and I hope that you can get the answers you need as quickly as possible. Best of luck to you and your student-athlete! Some of us understand and sympathize with what you are going through.</p>
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<p>We probably all know a neighbor/friend who was recruited at D1, so yeah, we probably DO have an idea. </p>
<p>But the real point is that it does not matter whether we individually/collectively have “idea”; the point is that the Ivies, by definition, do not offer athletic scholarships. They make it clear that all need-based aid requires a student contribution – either earned by the student or/parent. They don’t make exceptions for athletes. They don’t make exceptions for Intel science winners (who could be future Nobel winners). They don’t make exceptions budding poet laureates. They don’t make exceptions for future Carnegie Hall stars…</p>
<p>And, as sybbie notes upthread, some (many?) of the athletes would not even be considered for HYP, absent athletics. </p>
<p>Congrats on the wonderful achievement.</p>
<p>yes, frankly my kiddo expected to be cleaned out of any birthday money from the last 17 yrs, (I am sorry kiddo didn’t enjoy that $ over the last 17 years…)</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>WHAT? Your kids are not obligated to keep that money in their accounts. They can go out today and buy themselves a new laptop, the latest smartphone, new clothes, new purse, new shoes, or whatever else. They could do their dorm shopping very early.</p>
<p>fogfog, sorry to hear your news. I’ll send you a PM about our experience last year. We were in exactly the same boat.</p>
<p>For the most part the student “contribution” is not paid to the school to offset the direct cost of attending college. The student contribution is used for the students own expenses (travel/misc.). If the student does not work that is fine. However, the school is not going to make up the difference by increasing the financial aid award (they will however offer a loan).</p>
<p>Some students look at ways at decreasing their spending like purchasing used books, only attending activities on campus that are free or cost a minimal amount of $$.</p>
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The IVY league schools are NOT ALLOWED to give different FA packages to student-athletes that it gives to non-athletes … I agree having a job in season is tough … there are two howevers … first, the student does not have to work in season; they can work more hours off-season to allow them to not work in-seaon … second, if the typical FA package requires work study than athletes must also. (BTW - this issue would be similar for a lot of folks with a time-intensive EC - music, theatre, school paper, etc).</p>
<p>The tough thing is how much misinformation is out there. One friend, who’d actually worked at a private college, assured me that Amherst would “figure out” a way to get our highly-recruited son in. Uh, they didn’t.</p>
<p>Cannot answer for all schools but at Yale, if family’s GROSS income (AGI on first page of tax return plus any other nontaxable income) is above 60,000 but below 120,000 is subject to 0-10% as part of EFC–example: Family’s GROSS income is 75,000 then approx. 3-10% of the full $75,000 can be expected to be part of EFC. Above 120,000 the % is higher (not sure how much). Regarding your assets, Yale includes your home equity (amount your home is currently worth minus current amount you owe on it), stocks, bonds, savings, checking, other real estates’ values, business or farm values, etc. then deduct 200,000 then take 5% of the remainder of your assets’ value as part of EFC also–example: Home equity $500,000-325,000=$175,000 equity amount plus $100,000 in other assets = $275,000 total assets -$200,000 =$75,000 x 5% = $3,750, which is also part of EFC. Hope this helps. Student contribution figures have been pretty much accurately explained. I’m sure other Ivies’ methodology isn’t too far off from this. A finaid guy from Yale explained this quite thoroughly to me.</p>
<p>@3togo, I did not imply that the Ivy League gives/should give different packages for athletes, not sure how you got that from my post. My comment was meant to illustrate that an athlete with Ivy League academic stats would have a very hard time finding time to work, that is all. As far as working off-season, some sports train year-round, there is no off-season. My daughter trains 15 to 20 hours a week, year-round. I know that her financial aid package will require her to contribute, but it will not be through work study if we can help it. </p>
<p>I know very many college student-athletes, several at Ivy League schools, more at D1 scholarship schools. A very tiny percentage of them work during the school year. </p>
<p>Regarding, “if the typical FA package requires work study than athletes must also.”
No financial aid package requires a student, athlete or non-athlete, to work. Many finAid packages include work study that students are not even able to get at some schools! A financial aid package may require a student contribution, but cannot require a student to work.</p>
<p>Friends, on behalf of everyone who took the original post literally, I apologize.<br>
We simply read that and tried to make sense of it, based on our experiences. 70 posts later, I still don’t think we understand.<br>
We all face the fact that finaid is a mystery. I’m detail-oriented and couldn’t figure out what some info required on the forms was. Or, when x applied and when not. My CPA said, “Taxes? Call me. Financial Aid? Not my specialty.”<br>
When I read on CC that it was typical for a school’s final EFC calc to be 10-20% more than the FAFSA figure, I went back and checked- that’s where ours falls. Our total Family contribution is 25% of our gross income- and (without going back,) I believe it’s about 32% of our AGI. We earn far less than 200k and, because of the college situation, live a simpler life than we did at 22. Our kids are at a great college, do sports, are part of an extra program that requires 10-12 hours time commitment/week, are in crazy rigorous classes (one taking an extra class this semester.) One has 3ECs, the other has one that requires practice and travel. They earned all their own spending money in the summer before freshman year and since. They earn money on-campus. They bought their own laptops. My point is: this is what many families on CC experience; we expect a lot from our kids. We do everything we can for them, including taking loans and turning down the heat, sticking with old cars and so on.
Many theads get vicious when seemingly higher income families gripe. It’s awful. Here, I think there were a few pokes, but we all feel your shock.<br>
I still maintain that, despite submitting your taxes, having no hidden assets, getting advice from a CPA, running calculators, etc, you may have made a mistake somewhere that works against you. I agree with the ^ suggestion you try to get this reviewed with the school. (Perhaps you have.) If I were in your shoes, in addition, I would go back over every single entry in my finaid forms, triple check that I had not erred. I know HYP do not offer athletic scholarships, but I suspect the more they want a particular athlete, the more coaches may try to influence Adcoms and FA folks. I would consider calling the coach and asking for a realistic assessment of my kid’s desirability, projected play time, etc, (maybe even admit, in light of the package.) You may have done that or you may not like the suggestion, but I would wonder if my kid were a top athletic recruit or somewhere in the middle.
I have not read your posts on other threads. If I misread you, sorry.</p>
<p>I’ll echo post #12 here – when there is self-employment, you can’t rely on those charts about income.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that self-employed individuals have more control over what numbers show up as income, because we have choices to make about how to handle business income. We can reduce our personal income by opting to pay for legitimate business expenses – investing in new equipment, renting more business space, hiring additional employees, etc. – or we can increase our personal income by tightening the belt at the business. It is often in our interest to keep our personal income low while investing in our business – it keeps our tax burden lower and enables our business to grow, for greater long-term benefit. </p>
<p>But when it comes to college financial aid, we are asking an outside entity to subsidize us. And it makes sense that the outside entity is going to want to second guess some of those business decisions.</p>
<p>I don’t know about S-corps – I and my ex-husband are merely sole-proprietors & schedule C filers – but I do know that the colleges looked over the schedule C’s and added back in all sorts of business deductions. Depreciation, travel expenses, expenses for new equipment… all added right back in. </p>
<p>I’m sorry this is coming as a shock to you – but that’s just the way it works. I have been very frustrated over the years – at least you probably aren’t facing the problem of having your husband’s business also valued as an “asset”, which is what I faced when my son was in college, and which was very frustrating to me because I work freelance from home. My son’s first college insisted that my “business” (which was <em>me</em> working) - has an “asset” value equivalent of the total income the previous year – so essentially my income was doubled for financial aid purposes – or, since half was treated as an “asset”, I was subject to roughly a 6% surcharge on my income. (That wouldn’t happen now, given that I had no employees – but it’s an illustration of how things worked).</p>
<p>But as frustrating as it is — I know that when I decide to buy a new computer or digital camera or sign up to attend a business-related conference in another city – those are all choices I was making. Maybe I could manage with the old computer, maybe I could skip the conference one year, or find something equivalent locally. So I understand why the college is looking at those issues when weighing how much of their own financial aid budget should be allocated to my child’s needs. </p>
<p>Bottom line: those nice little charts apply to people who don’t have much in the way of assets and whose income comes solely from employment (and/or sources like social security). And also only to people who are currently married to their child’s other parent. I’m sorry you didn’t figure out that part sooner.</p>
<p>Even though my senior is applying to at least one-two ivies and another top-rated school (this school started sending him info. after his freshman ACT even though he didn’t send out ACT scores to colleges till he was a senior), he knows the only way he’ll go to either is with a considerable financial aid pkg. Both of these COA’s is between $55,000-$60,000 per year and obviously very selective. We will not dip much at all into our assets or take out loans and, although he would do work study and summer job, he also refuses to take out loans (he thinks its not worth it). He has already been told unofficially that he will be given a FULL ride with additional stipend and nice on-campus apt. as a freshman thru honors college at one state school and FULL ride with additional stipend and an OK honors dorm at other state school if the other schools don’t work out either by not being admitted or bad finaid pkg. He’s been taught from early on (Elementary) that school and good grades was his “Job” (not ours), and that if he kept his grades up, college would be available thru scholarships probably (without a guarantee of where). Well, he goes to a small public school, has a 4.0 unweighted, taken 5 of 7 AP classes offered (two this year, ones not taken were Art, Chem-took college biology instead), ACT 32-Junior year (which I thought at that point he should stop taking it) he wanted to take ACT again in Sept. as senior and got a “34” and scored either highest or tied highest in all 4 ACT sections. His EC’s consist of heavy theatre/Thespian/community theatre participation all 4 years, NHS 2 years, Rotary Interact service organization 3 years, Science Club 4 years, Skills USA computer chapter 4 years, Quiz bowl, 4 years, marching band senior year (wanted to be a participant, not a spectator, his words), church youth ministry. He has held 3-4 school club offices, and worked on average 15 hrs. a week in summer and school months since he turned 16. He has had a few writing awards on state/regional level. He’s interested in computers/engineering as major, creative writing, theatre as possible minors. He knows if he goes on scholarships, it’s his responsibility to maintain the grades for them or he’s out of college, even at a state school. He never considered applying to an Ivy before this year, as none had ever contacted him. This summer, Yale, Harvard and Princeton began sending him unsolicited emails, mail. He’s actually quite humble and would be embarrassed by this post, lol. I’m very proud of him but don’t get me wrong, he still has faults, he’s a teenager (ha)! I’ve read various threads the last 6 mos. on CC-some extremely helpful! I’m not saying anything regarding this particular student athlete but I’ ve seen some kids post on CC that seem expect “silver platters” from both colleges and their parents. I guess that’s their perogative; just glad my senior has a different perspective. BTW, anyone care to chance him for IVY admission (Yale, Harvard?). Thanks if you care to.</p>