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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I went through this process last year (and will do so again for another DC in a couple years). We have a moderate income $140-160k and a decent amount of equity in our house due to its doubling in value in the last decade. My DC was high stats, which allowed us to target extremely selective schools with big endowments.

I ran a ton of NPCs the spring and summer before apps were due. Most schools offered fairly similar NPCs relative to their endowment-per-student. WASP was fairly similar. Dartmouth, WashU, Vandy, etc. were fairly similar. But there were also many outliers. Wesleyan, which has a smaller relative endowment, offered WASP-level financial aid. Yale, on the other hand, was twice as much as Wesleyan or WASP. And Vasser, which has a reputation for good financial aid, was 3-4x as much.

In the early fall before applications, I made a virtual appointment with a financial aid officer a certain school. For 30-40 minutes, we walked through DC's NPC and our tax returns so that we felt confident that we were processing the NPC accurately.

When it came to actual FA packages (DC was admitted to 10 schools), most were close to the NPC or slightly below. Only one school was meaningfully above its NPC (Dartmouth). I think Dartmouth's FA package was about 20-25% above the NPC. When I appealed, they increased the FA package a little but it was still well above the NPC.[/quote]

In every conversation about financial aid people post things like this which would be super helpful if they were clear.  But I can't tell if Vassar offered 3 to 4 times as much aid, or if the net tuition was 3 to 4 times as much.  Same with Yale.

Can you clarify?[/quote]
Vassar was 3-4 times more expensive than the most generous schools. Yale was twice as much as WASP.

To be clear though, Vassar and Yale may be very affordable for others. And Wesleyan might be super expensive. Each school calculates financial need differently, which is why one needs to run the NPCs first.[/quote]

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