Agreed, @tk21769 my point was only that a profile school defines very differently than a FAFSA school, thus EFC is not equal. For some that may be a benefit and for others the reverse. One must run the NPC for each with their own financials to determine what may be offered and some have no interest in filing at all, especially the more invasive profile form.
Your post mentioned EFC in a way that could be confusing to folks who are not well versed in the 2 different methods. My point was only to state that whatever your FAFSA EFC is, which all FAFSA schools will treat as a set number, will not be the same at PROFILE schools. In our case, for example, most PROFILE schools (Santa Clara and Mac included) assume we can pay about 10-16k more annually than FAFSA does and that is with 2 in school. For others it could be the complete opposite.
Need is also calculated annually so is not something that can be guaranteed all 4 years, whereas most merit offers are. As @Marcelle has not mentioned need based aid as a component, recommendations were provided based on merit alone. I also think using the common data set for each school is prudent to understand the chances on merit if it isn’t auto based on stats.
I will say however that I firmly believe everyone should file FAFSA and/or PROFILE at all colleges on the list no matter the financial situation as you really never know. My current sophomore at an OOS public school received an additional merit based grant for his 2nd year that he would not have, had we not filed and really goes against conventional wisdom for our EFC, as well as the CDS, especially given the scholarship he already had. I absolutely agree that everyone should really check each school to see based on their own financial situation. Many go into this thinking need aid will magically appear, it’s important to do homework to understand chances. It is true that offers may both surprise and disappoint and not match the NPC results but it is a solid place to start.