<p>For us it was Haverford. My D1 and D2 applied to 21 schools total this year, and Haverford stands out as being the least generous. They were way off from our FAFSA number, and 8K higher that the next most expensive school (which was also off from our FAFSA number).</p>
<p>It might be helpful if the posters to this thread include a little more info about these schools. Haverford, for example, used the Profile in addition to the Fafsa. They compute the awarding of their need based financial aid ABOVE what is federally funded based on their own formula using the info provided on the FAFSA. The schools using the Profile do not meet need in the same ways and their formulas vary wildly. </p>
<p>Many many students and parents find that Profile schools compute what the family can contribute differently than what is shown on the FAFSA.</p>
<p>Let me clarify… Haverford was one of about 11 schools applied to that use the CSS profile as well as the FAFSA. Also it was one of about 5 schools that give only financial aid, no merit aid or athletic scholarships. Somehow, their formula for my D was just far, far less generous than all the others. Had we known that in advance…, she wouldn’t have bothered applying.</p>
<p>Greenwich…your observations about the variability in financial aid awards is an important one. Schools compute differently. Some give merit aid, and other scholarships…others (like Haverford, Stanford, all of the Ivies and a few other selective schools) do NOT give anything but need based aid. Some schools meet full need…others do not. </p>
<p>It sounds like your family cast a wide net when applying to schools…and that there is some school in the mix that meets your financial criteria.</p>
<p>In our experience…U of San Diego gave DD the worst financial aid. And they would not discuss it at all. Despite having a sibling in college at the same time, they didn’t come close to the other schools offering DD aid. Oddly, USD uses only the FAFSA and other schools using the Profile gave her more significant awards. HOWEVER this was several years ago…and her aid also included merit awards as her schools gave those.</p>
<p>Since some schools practice “preferential packaging” when putting together FA packages, it would also help if you stated whether your child was in the top 25% of the school for SAT/ACT, was from an unusual state, or was especially desirable in some other way. (you can check on collegeboard) </p>
<p>One student may get a worse FA package if he’s from a state where the school gets a lot of students and/or his stats are good, but not high for the school. Another student may get a better package because he’s from an odd state and/or has stats in the upper quartile. If a school is trying to improve its diversity or male/female ratio, that can also impact preferential packaging.</p>
<p>I wonder if the choice of major also impacts aid???</p>
<p>Greenwitch, what other small LACs did you apply to? They gave us not a great package but it was slightly better than Wesleyen.</p>
<p>PROFILE schools can differ wildly for families with particular financial situations/arrangements… But you never know what exactly might be treated differently at College A versus College B.</p>
<p>Boston University - without question - was least generous for us. My son is in the top 25% of their applicant pool for his test scores (2100 SAT, 32 ACT) and in the top quarter of his class. Excellent EC’s, a good mix of leadership and the arts. He’s also a legacy, as his dad is a BU grad. We were offered generous merit scholarships/grants/financial aid packages at all of his acceptances, adding up to about $30k at each school but BU. BU offered us $3000 in subsidized and $2500 in unsubsidized loans.</p>
<p>My son actually would have liked to attend BU but the total lack of grant money offered to him made it the first school we crossed off of our list.</p>
<p>out of the ivy leagues, these are the aid packages ranked from worst to best:</p>
<p>Brown (25 K a year, gotta be kidding me)
Columbia
Dartmouth
Penn
Cornell
Princeton (10ish K a year)</p>
<p>(cornell and princeton were pretty much tied, which is very surprising)</p>
<p>@GTalum - Kenyon, Hamilton, WUSTL, and Columbia all gave at least a decent amount of aid. Haverford gave none. I was surprised, and I guess offended, because I had believed their hype about meeting 100% of need. </p>
<p>Preferential packaging is fine for admission, or merit aid, but it seems a bit out of place for a school that is known for it’s Quaker values, it’s excellent honor code, and for meeting demonstrated need. If they can’t afford to meet everyone’s need, that’s understandable too. But playing what seems to be the admit/deny game, and having that great honor code? It doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>@pigs - I don’t understand your list. Is Brown the worst? It looks like the highest number?</p>
<p>oh, i wasn’t clear, i meant that they expect me to pay 25 K a year.</p>
<p>^^^Thanks, now I understand. Have you chosen yet?</p>
<p>meeting 100% of financial need, YEAH RIGHT! not even close.
obviously, each school makes up its own definition of “financial need” Brown was soo off from my EFC, even Princeton was off by a significant amount.</p>
<p>Yes you are right, each school has its won forumla for determining need.</p>
<p>Some of the things that can affect ones financial aid is home equity. FOr example, Princeton does not factor in the equity in ones primary home. Some schools cap home equity at 1.5 to 2X annual income while others consider home equity an asset (even in this economy).</p>
<p>Carmen, I am suprised about BU, because they have a grid giving the approximate idea of one’s prospects for financial aid at Boston University</p>
<p>[Boston</a> University - Office of Financial Assistance - Applying for Financial Aid](<a href=“http://www.bu.edu/finaid/apply/incoming_probability.html]Boston”>http://www.bu.edu/finaid/apply/incoming_probability.html)</p>
<p>Since all you received was loans, the school determined that you had no financial need for need based aid, while it could have been a very competitive pool for merit $$.</p>
<p>OK, it makes me feel better that others got as much as a 10K difference in their packages. Too bad because D really loved the schools with the lease financial aid so far. Once the financial aid packages come in I’m planning on doing an endowment/financial aid analysis. I suspect those with the biggest endowment give the best financial aid.</p>
<p>It has always been so puzzling that a school considers meeting one’s financial need by including steep, debilitating loans in the aid package. How can “allowing” someone to take out a loan be considered financial aid??</p>
<p>My son’s results had a hug range of what we were expected to pay (our EFC is about $6,500 on FAFSA). Dollars shown are what we have to pay after merit and financial aid:</p>
<p>U of Rochester $13,500 (he’s going here!)
George Washington $18,480 (what’s cool about GWU is that they lock in tuition and FA for all four years)
American $27,900
Northeastern $35,800 (LOL - we knew going in they were reputed to have bad financial aid, so my son knew he probably wouldn’t be able to go, but he really liked it, so he applied)</p>
<p>What huge differences!</p>
<p>^^^I had one “no loan” school put my EFC at $26000. I had another “loan school” put it at $1600 but included $6000 in loans/year. The loan school had the better package.</p>
<p>Fortunately, another no loan school also put my EFC at $16000. Since I have another in college, I will be taking out loans anyway.</p>
<p>Sybbie - yes I have seen that grid too. We have a total family efc of about 45k, and my son will be my second kid in college. Adding him to the equation worked out to an efc of 25 or so per kid (I really don’t know why it goes up when “split in half” but it does). Our experience with need based aid starts this year - my daughter has a merit scholarship at her school so we have been ineligible for any additional aid.</p>
<p>Without looking at the grid again, I recall that my son had either about a 98% chance of getting grant aid, or a 58% chance, if you choose to go by his test scores or his class rank. I would guess they average the two a bit, so it should be somewhere in the 75% range, but who can tell. The “financial aid” letter he recieved from BU specifally stated that they didn’t have enough grant funds available to offer it to every candidate, so they weren’t going to offer any to him. In other words, we don’t want you!</p>
<p>I thought about calling them and questioning the decision, but truthfully if they are going to be so cavelier with him, he has other schools that are equally good choices and are making a full court press to get him to attend.</p>
<p>greenwitch - I don’t think Haverford practices preferential packaging. More likely you have some asset or unusual income situation that HC’s formula treats differently than the others. I would encourage you to appeal, since you have received vastly different need-based offers from comparable peer schools.</p>
<p>FAFSA EFC is almost useless for privates, IMO. Better to run an institutional calculator (Amherst and Williams both have them on their websites), which gives you federal methodology AND the institutional methodology of a top/generous private. Princeton’s calculator is not good because P’s formula is usually more generous than any schools other than HYS (though obviously there are exceptions).</p>
<p>It all depends on your individual situation. I’ve yet to hear of a wide FA range at full-need no-/capped-loans schools where parents are married to each other and earn fixed salaried incomes with no assets other than 10-20k in cash savings, and where the only child (college-bound) has no assets and no income. Once you start adding on other factors–home equity, significant assets, multiple children–it becomes ever more complicated and difficult to predict.</p>