Accuracy of Net Price Calculators

[Anonymous]

We have been playing around with the NPC of various colleges. It’s amazing how drastically different each college’s award would be. My question for those who have been through the process is whether you found these calculators to be accurate. If they are, we would advise our DD against even applying to some schools. Thanks for any insight!

[Anonymous]

It was a mixed bag for us. We had a couple of SLAC's that were off by $10-$15k once the dust settled after being accepted.

[Anonymous]

For us they were dead on - (freshman now) and also all over the place (family contributions ranging from $26-50,000).

One school came through with significantly more need-based aid than expected. None were less than expected. We viewed them as a worst case scenario—how much we should assume we would qualify for and to be pleasantly surprised if it differed.

DS did apply to a couple colleges that were out of reach financially, but only if there was no application fee and no supplemental essay.

[Anonymous]

Before DC drops a school because of the NPC estimate make sure the estimate makes sense in terms of the schools endowment and where DC fits into the school's stats. Many of the top reaches have huge endowments and will do more with FA IIIFFF DC gets in. Similarly if DC has 75th% stats, you have to wait to see how merit aid shakes out.

If the $ numbers from the NPC are a few thousand high on one school and a few thousand low on another soon DC is missing out. Each NPC isn't very wrong but the overall picture without the dropped school is worse than it really would be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Before DC drops a school because of the NPC estimate make sure the estimate makes sense in terms of the schools endowment and where DC fits into the school's stats. Many of the top reaches have huge endowments and will do more with FA IIIFFF DC gets in. Similarly if DC has 75th% stats, you have to wait to see how merit aid shakes out.

If the $ numbers from the NPC are a few thousand high on one school and a few thousand low on another soon DC is missing out. Each NPC isn't very wrong but the overall picture without the dropped school is worse than it really would be.

Can you clarify what you mean by this?

[Anonymous]

This is OP. Thanks for the responses. It’s helpful to know we should think of it as a base.

[Anonymous]

It was all over the place for us so I would take the numbers with a grain of salt. I'd be hesitant to totally dismiss a school just because of the NPC.

And don't forget if you get a great package from one school you can appeal and see if the school you want will match it. Only works if the schools are "peer" schools.

[Anonymous]

Nope don't base anything on it. For us it didn't work. We are in DC (DC Tag) so looked at a lot of state schools but also some top private with the big price tag. Really results came in all over the place.

As it turns out he ended up at a state school with a full ride which had NPC had said we would be full freight. The private schools were closer to the NPC though.

[Anonymous]

Do the NPC calculators take into account merit aid, or just financial aid based on parent income/assets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the NPC calculators take into account merit aid, or just financial aid based on parent income/assets?

Most NPCs only take into consideration family's assets and income and project a financial aid package based on that. That is the minimum required by the Department of Education.

Some colleges that make merit awards based on stats will factor that into their NPC (examples I recall from a year ago were St Mary's of Maryland, Knox College in Illinois, Case Western). Some state flagshps, like KU, post a grid where you can see the discount you would get for high scores/GPA.

You should do both -- run the NPC and search for whether the college gives merit aid. Those aren't always described on the same page.