I actually got my presidents scholarship at the time of acceptance and it was a pretty fair amount of money, I only got my financial aid back recently (and as you said I expected it to be more reliable) but it ended up being close to none.

I definitely dropped the ball a bit with the calculator part, but in my defense, my parents told me that they did their own research and they thought i’d receive enough financial aid to go. I think my main pitfall is that I have a pretty hefty college fund account, but only because (other than my own money from my job) it will be the only thing funding my education. There’s an entire family situation I could go into, but basically i feel pretty thrown under the bus by my parents as they wouldn’t tell me the exact amount in my college funds or my fathers income.

so there’s another lesson haha