If you have Twins or kids a year apart and K1 gets a nice full need package from College A, will College B (also a meets full needs school) match it for K2 (assuming K2’s package was not quite as good?)
I am thinking specifically of the statement on Dartmouth’s NPC which states that if you get a need offer from another school that is better to bring it to their attention so they can reevaluate your need.
While the could be minor differences between siblings (one had money saved, the other did not save money from their summer job), the basic need is the same.
I am thinking specifically if K2 does ED or EA (yes I know not the best idea for ED if you have need) or only gets a couple of RD offers, this is a way to get a sense of what schools are willing to do for the particular family. K1 will be at a school known to be generous. For the rising sophomore, how early in the freshman year can the FA office tell them what will happen when their sibling starts at another college the following year?
If you want to know if a school will match aid that a sibling gets…no, they won’t.
Financial aid for returning students is based on their new financial aid application forms. With the new prior prior info being used…and the October filing potential…it is possible schools will notify returning students earlier than in the recent past.
If you are using Dartmouth’s statement, I can tell you first hand that Dartmouth only match peer schools and schools where there are head to head admits; the other Ivies, AWS, Duke, Notre Dame & Wash U.
They will not entertain a siblings package unless both kids are attending Dartmouth and there was a discrepancy between the packages.
Both schools are meets full needs/need blind for acceptance. They do not weigh merit for FA, just for admission, once admitted, award is on need. Each kid has the SAME EXACT Need. Assuming each kid got into one, it does not matter if one has a 36 and the other a 26, as long as the schools are peers.
Lets say the schools are peers, such as two ivies. If Dartmouth will match Brown or Columbia for the same kid, why wouldn’t match it if the kid’s twin is the one with the offer from Columbia. Both schools are looking at family need.
Does anyone know of a school refusing or agreeing to do this?
Sybbie, Dartmouth refused to match a package for you?
Because when Brown or Yale matches another school, it is no longer matching need. Yale has determined need, awarded need, and now Brown has offered a better deal. If Yale wants the student, it coughs up more money. It’s not need at that point, or if it is Yale has to admit that it didn’t meet full need by its formula. If Yale had two students (not related) with the same need, and one also was accepted to Brown but one wasn’t, the award to one student would change and the other one wouldnt. They have the same need but one gets more. How is that not quasi merit aid?
Schools don’t agree to meet full need as determined by another school, just full need as they have calculated it. They only have to match another school if they want to and want that student. If your second child is not going to that school, why would they care what you are paying?
Pam, look up the legal trouble the Ivies got into a decade? maybe 20 years ago? for allegedly colluding on tuition price and financial aid.
It seems to me that “aid matching” comes perilously close to what they were charged with, i.e. price fixing. If memory serves, part of the remedy was that each school independently develops its own formula for identifying “need”, and bases financial decisions on their own formula matched to their own resources.
Too tired to look it up. But the colleges are now meticulous in NOT matching aid. If one of the colleges agree to review your package and exercise professional judgement, it may be in response to you telling them that you got a more generous offer from a peer school but I doubt they will “match” to the penny.
Even at colleges that meet full need for all…the formulas for computing that need vary…and sometimes the net cost can vary by thousands of dollars. You can’t expect school A to use the same formula as school B.
Some schools consider differing amounts of primary home equity. Some schools exoect a larger student contribution. Some schools award aid to higher income families than others. For example…if one sibling was accepted at Harvard and the other at UVA, it is highly unlikely UVA would offer the same need based aid to a family with an income of say…$150,000 a year. That student would get aid from Harvard…but not so much so from UVA.