Chicago Private-School Financial Aid for Fall 2027

The short version

An aid application is not an award calculator.

Clarity and FACTS collect and organize your family’s information. The school makes the award. Clarity says it doesn’t give applicants an expected family contribution, and that each school applies its own formula, so the same information can produce different amounts at different schools. FACTS says the school alone determines the award, and it doesn’t send its assessment to the family.

Schools also differ on whether need affects admission. Lab says ability to pay isn’t considered in admission, and that all families are expected to contribute some portion of tuition and fees. Parker says it separates admission and aid, tries to meet full need, and may not when requests exceed its budget. Latin describes itself as need-sensitive: an admitted student who shows need will be funded, but the number of aided students who can be admitted is limited by the budget. So the same family can read an aid policy three ways, depending on the school.

Three platforms, one decision-maker

The platform carries your paperwork; the school sets the award.

Latin, Parker, and Lake Forest Academy (LFA) use Clarity. Parker’s Clarity fee is $60 unless Clarity waives it, and LFA says one Clarity application can be shared with other Clarity schools at no extra fee. Lab, Beacon, and Saint Ignatius use FACTS, which asks for the federal tax return, W-2s, and documentation of nontaxable income. FACTS asks you to allow about two weeks after documents arrive before checking status, and business or non-W-2 income carries extra document requirements. BISC uses Ravenna Financial Aid.

The first aid deadline is December 1

Aid and admission calendars overlap but don’t match.

Saint Ignatius says it won’t promise or predict an aid amount before your child takes the entrance exam, so its aid file can be due before you know much about the offer. Loyola Academy’s aid calendar isn’t listed here because we haven’t confirmed a Fall 2027 version of it. Treat any school whose calendar we don’t show as unconfirmed, and don’t convert a 2026 deadline into a 2027 one.

Price the complete school week

Compare dollars, not percentages.

Prices below are the 2026–27 published baseline. Fall 2027 entrants will pay 2027–28 prices, and Parker says its schedule arrives in February 2027.

Lab publishes its 2026–27 tuition table on its own page. Its price covers many regular-day extras, such as classroom materials, activities, and gym, but not textbooks, instrument rental, some field-trip fees, or AP exams.

LFA also offers a limited number of merit scholarships of $10,000 to $15,000, and says they don’t require a separate application. Latin says it offers no academic, athletic, or activity-based awards.

Here’s how a bigger percentage can still leave a bigger bill. Take two hypothetical Grade 9 offers at 2026–27 prices. A 45% grant on LFA’s $57,150 day price leaves $31,432.50 to pay. A 40% grant on Parker’s $51,420 Grade 9 total leaves $30,852. The larger grant is the larger bill, and neither figure includes the extras each school lists separately.

Boarding changes the arithmetic again. LFA’s boarding price is $22,625 above its day price before travel.

Explain complexity; do not hide it

Separate households, businesses, and assets need an early note.

Latin and Parker require financial information from both parents and their current spouses or partners, even when a family says only one parent is responsible. Latin doesn’t follow a court’s allocation of who pays tuition. Parker allows a waiver request when the other parent isn’t involved in the child’s life or support, so ask before the deadline. LFA also asks divorced, separated, or never-married parents, and any step-parent, to file.

Latin also reserves the right to impute $25,000 of annual income to a nonworking parent who has no child under five at home. It makes exceptions for a critically ill or disabled adult, or one caring for a critically ill or disabled child, parent, or grandparent.

Business owners should expect extra documents. A short note helps: what’s recurring, what’s one-time, where the supporting number appears, and what treatment you’d like reviewed.

Annual means annual

Consistency language is reassuring, not a multiyear guarantee.

Latin and Parker both require a new aid application every year. Latin says it intends to fund families consistently, including through a tuition increase, if their situation doesn’t change dramatically. Parker says renewal isn’t automatic, though it’s reasonable to expect an award to continue if circumstances haven’t substantially changed and the student is in good standing, with modest increases as tuition rises.

Two Latin details are worth knowing. An appeal has to add information that wasn’t available at the first review, and outside grants count as part of the aid award. Latin’s aid page also says late or incomplete files are not held open, and it won’t release a re-enrollment contract while the current year’s balance is unpaid.

Read beyond the deposit

The contract can create a full-year obligation.

Latin says contracts for Fall 2027 become legally binding April 15, though its due date for new families was still TBD. Beacon’s new-family deposit is due March 8, and BISC’s contract March 12.

Before you pay a deposit, ask for the actual contract and write down six things:

• Tuition and mandatory fees at the Fall 2027 entrant price, not the application-year baseline.
• Which costs the aid covers. A tuition grant may not reach lunch, care, support, travel, or transport.
• The deposit, and whether it’s refundable. Nonrefundable money measures what it costs to hold the seat.
• The date the contract binds, and what you’d owe if you withdrew afterward. It can be more than the deposit.
• Payment-plan timing. FACTS notes that ending a payment plan doesn’t by itself cancel charges owed to the school.
• Renewal assumptions: tuition growth and a changed grant across all the years you’ll be there.

Ask which numbers are estimates and which are contractual. Don’t subtract an outside scholarship until its interaction with school aid is in writing. Tuition-refund insurance isn’t a blanket cancellation right, since coverage, triggers, and exclusions vary by policy, so read the policy certificate before you rely on it.

Public and private clocks collide

Grade 9 public answers arrive early; elementary answers may arrive late.

GoCPS high-school offers arrive February 12, one day after Latin’s Grade 9 decision and before Parker’s February 26 answer. Elementary offers arrive March 12. A private elementary contract may therefore fall due before, or on, the public answer. If that happens, ask the school once about a short extension, and plan as though the published date will hold.

CPS’s rules for accepting an offer and joining a waitlist differ by program type, and its homepage doesn’t list every later response window. Read the results guidance before you accept, decline, or pay a private deposit. Keep the CPS result, the private deposit, and the binding date in one ledger.

No tuition doesn’t mean no cost. Budget transit, meals, activities, and devices, and check CPS’s transportation page for current eligibility after an offer.

When the plan changes

Use documentation quickly, and separate reconsideration from wishful budgeting.

• A missing aid file: contact the school and the platform at once. Ask what’s absent, whether the file can still enter the first review, and whether funds remain. Admission flexibility doesn’t imply aid flexibility.
• An unexpectedly small award: reconcile what you filed against the school’s assumptions. Appeal with a specific error, a change, or information that wasn’t available at first review, not a rival award alone unless the school invites it.
• Job loss or a medical change: send the new pay, benefits, invoices, and a revised budget. Lab’s page directs emergency changes to its financial-aid office; ask other schools directly.
• An unsustainable renewal: tell the school before the re-enrollment deadline, and keep an academically credible transfer or neighborhood option open. Hope isn’t a multiyear aid plan.

Next

Put money beside fit, time, and travel.

Continue with the Chicago timeline, fit and commute guide, and main Chicago admissions guide. For residential cost and life, compare Lake Forest Academy with the wider boarding-school guide.