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My best friend went to Loomis Chaffee (and continued on to Georgetown) and loved it. Just looked at their financial aid chart...looks sort of similar to Exeter.
Why not a private Catholic school? There are some with very good ones, in the state, as well. Most of those are slightly more affordable, between 13-17K a year, I believe.
It definitely depends on the school. Most (all?) private schools (assume college/university) want you to fill out the PROFILE in addition to the FAFSA. It is a more comprehensive form and asks about other tuitions you may be paying. I will say that our experience has been that financial aid packages from private schools are more generous than their public counterparts, and once all of that has been taken into consideration, the overall cost of attendance is comparable. YMMV, of course, depending on your financial situation. We were pleasantly surprised that our son qualified for a substantial merit scholarship although we did not qualify for need-based aid.
I do not understand how the Federal financial aid works. I know a family with two college aged kids going to different schools. One gets merit based aid, the other did not. The school giving the aid is smaller and a lot less expensive than the one that did not give it. The grade point average of the student getting the aid was lower than the one not getting it. The aid student was the first child in college not the second so the college burden was not the same initially. The parent tried to get an explanation from the school but they could not explain why one got aid and one did not. Oh yeah and both schools were different state schools in the same state. Just did not make sense. Jay
Most of the schools also require you to fill out all of the applications and get all the required forms in for applying and also fill out all the financial aid forms.
However, it seems like a lot of work if they end up telling me that I won't qualify for any money because then my kid can't attend anyway. Seems a bit backward. The schools websites that I have checked have not given any kind of rubric on what your income needs to be historically to obtain aid.
I do not understand how the Federal financial aid works. I know a family with two college aged kids going to different schools. One gets merit based aid, the other did not. The school giving the aid is smaller and a lot less expensive than the one that did not give it. The grade point average of the student getting the aid was lower than the one not getting it. The aid student was the first child in college not the second so the college burden was not the same initially. The parent tried to get an explanation from the school but they could not explain why one got aid and one did not. Oh yeah and both schools were different state schools in the same state. Just did not make sense. Jay
If it was truly merit-based then that makes sense to me... merit aid usually comes from different endowments dictated by the donor's interests, e.g. specific sports or majors, people from certain backgrounds or interests, etc. so it's not just the GPA. For example one of the scholarships I got to college was due to some volunteering work I had done in high school and only those who had volunteered x amount of hours were open to receiving it. They can get quite nichey... e.g. Slavic student intending to major in Jewish Studies or something.
I wonder if the private schools consider which you town you live in and what public schools are available? I doubt a resident of, say, New Canaan can apply for aid while maintaining that the public school is 'not good enough' but could be wrong about that.
I have nothing against private schools; in fact my youngest attended private school after we moved to California (lots of reasons!). In FFLD County, however, if you live in one of the towns with a great school system available, I don't understand why a private school would offer aid for tuition. If you lived in an area with 'bad' schools, that might be a different story.
Whatever happens, good luck to you and your child. I hope you find the right place for him/her.
Has anyone had children attend private schools that can attest to how much you can make and still be able to get financial aid?
We are looking into some schools that cost from 25,000-39,000 a year and simply cannot afford that, however, we do make a large enough amount of money where I wonder if they would qualify us for aid. Do you think a family making over 100K a year can still receive financial aid for more then half the tuition?
I have a gifted child whom I would love to switch to a private school to offer better opportunites but just cannot afford it.
I guess the question is...just how gifted is your child? My parents were in education and saw that word tossed around left and right and can truly say that they only saw one child so gifted that he couldn't function in a traditional school system. I would look around though. I'd think most private schools would do what they could do assist a gifted child. I'd stay away from the catholic schools though. I have yet to see one that is any better than a public school. They are more a safe haven (at least in the parents' minds) from public schools.
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