DC Private-School Financial Aid for Fall 2027

Systems and deadlines

One region, many clocks—and a strong move toward Clarity.

Current fact: twelve of the thirteen surveyed schools publicly name Clarity or link to it; Flint Hill’s open page publishes a date but does not name the assessment platform in its visible text. The aid application is separate from Ravenna or a school admission portal. “Admission complete” does not mean “aid complete.”

Current fact: Clarity gathers and organizes family information; it does not give applicants a universal expected family contribution. Each school applies its own formula, policy, and budget. That is why identical family data can produce different offers.

Clarity, SSS, FAST, or a school form: what changes?

• Clarity: one household account, separate applications for separate households, IRS or manual tax verification, school-specific document requests, and a school-made award.
• SSS / Ravenna Financial Aid: a Parent Financial Statement can be shared with multiple participating schools, but each school sets its documents, deadline, policy, and final grant. The 2027–28 workbook is live.
• FAST: the legacy FAST administrator portal says operations ended August 31, 2026. If an old school page or saved bookmark says FAST, do not reuse it; ask the school for its Fall 2027 link and provider.
• School-specific: supplemental questionnaires, business returns, custody waivers, pay stubs, foreign records, and explanatory letters can remain due even after the platform says “submitted.”

Cost beyond tuition

Price the child’s school day, the family’s July, and the whole year.

Current fact: AISGW tells families to evaluate uniforms, meals, books, supplies, trips, clubs, sports, and transportation in addition to tuition. Schools package those items very differently.

A full-cost worksheet

• Net tuition and every mandatory fee.
• Deposit timing, payment-plan fee, and tuition-refund insurance.
• Bus, Metro, fuel, tolls, parking, ride-hail, and adult time.
• Before care, aftercare, early-dismissal coverage, and no-school days.
• Books, device, insurance, uniform, laundry, and replacement cost.
• Athletics, arts, instruments, trips, service travel, and prom.
• Outside tutoring, therapy, evaluation, medication, and care coordination.
• Summer bridge, camps needed for work, and school-recommended programs.
• Annual tuition growth and one bad-financial-news reserve.

Opinion: if a cost is predictable enough to happen to many families, do not call it “incidental.” Give it a line.

Households, income, and assets

The form sees categories. Your explanation must show the family.

Separate, divorced, remarried, or guardian-led households

Current fact: Clarity generally expects a separate application from each separate household, lists stepparents and other caregiving adults in the home, and directs safety or no-contact cases to support. Potomac explicitly requires each household and considers parent and stepparent resources. Beauvoir describes a similar policy.

Unknown: a platform’s general rule does not decide a school waiver. Custody, support, abuse, unknown whereabouts, incarceration, estrangement, and protected-address situations need early school-specific handling.

Income is larger than salary

Current fact: forms can collect wages, self-employment, capital gains, business income, child support, benefits, gifts, and other taxable or non-taxable resources. Several schools publish an expectation that able parents work, with room for circumstances such as full-time caregiving.

Opinion: do not use the explanation box to argue that every voluntary choice is necessary. Use it to reconcile a real mismatch: prior-year income versus current pay, pass-through income versus cash, one-time capital gains, elder care, medical expense, a temporary posting, or a documented job transition.

Assets need both a value and a liquidity story

Current fact: Clarity’s current help covers primary and additional real estate, retirement accounts, shared property, trusts, annuities, 529 plans, business value, and liabilities. It instructs a shared-property owner to report the full property and debt and explain the ownership percentage.

Opinion: that packet is the clearest way we know to make a complicated family legible without writing a defensive memoir. Supply what the school asks for and keep the explanation short enough that the important change cannot hide inside it.

Government, military, diplomatic, and relocation families

The Washington paycheck often needs translation before it needs persuasion.

Federal, military, multilateral, embassy, contractor, and internationally posted families can have allowances, reimbursements, housing, different tax treatment, delayed orders, and currencies that a prior 1040 does not explain. Report resources in the category the platform and school direct; then reconcile the school-year cash reality in Other Considerations.

Opinion: the document list below is a practical starting point, not a platform or school requirement. Ask each aid office which evidence it wants before transmitting sensitive records.

Current fact: Bullis publishes a specific need-based Upper School scholarship path for children of active or retired military families. Episcopal says international aid is possible in special situations but gives US citizens priority; St. Albans says local, national, and international applicants may apply. School policies are not interchangeable.

Current fact: D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship statute permits scholarship funds for tuition, fees, and transportation at participating DC private schools, subject to the program’s rules. It is not a generic credit usable at every DC, MD, or VA independent school. Confirm current eligibility, award, participating school, and interaction with school aid directly.

Siblings, renewal, and the long horizon

A one-year grant is not a thirteen-year promise.

Current fact: surveyed schools generally require an annual reapplication. GDS says a family with no significant change can expect approximately the same support adjusted for tuition increases. Episcopal says assistance normally continues absent a significant change in income or available assets. St. Albans adds continuing need, good standing, no financial arrears, and complete documents. These are school-specific expectations, not guarantees.

Current fact: Holton does not offer a sibling discount, but says multiple children in tuition-charging schools are relevant to need. Episcopal likewise says more than $300,000 income can still qualify when other children attend tuition-charging institutions. Income alone is not a regional cutoff.

• Ask whether the award tracks a percentage or a dollar amount.
• Model tuition increases and the family’s contribution separately.
• Ask what happens when a sibling starts or leaves tuition-charging school.
• Ask how a one-time bonus, inheritance, home sale, or business event affects one renewal year.
• File by the returning-family deadline even when newer tax records will follow.
• Do not assume the future sibling will be admitted or funded.

Opinion: a K family should run at least three forward years and one bad-news year. A Grade 9 family should run all four years through graduation. The purpose is not prediction; it is seeing what could break the plan.

Appeals and changed circumstances

An appeal is a correction or update—not an auction.

Current fact: the platform does not control an appeal. The school owns the award. Public pages rarely publish a Fall 2027 appeal deadline, form, committee calendar, or promise to reconsider. GDS’s current FAQ invites contact when a family has questions or an unexpected setback, but resources remain finite.

Opinion: mention another school’s offer only when it clarifies a genuine affordability mismatch, and share it accurately. “Can you help us understand why these assessments differ?” is more useful than “match this.” Never sign first on the assumption that an unresolved appeal will later change the contract.

Unknown: whether funds remain, whether the committee will reconvene, whether the school accepts the family’s framing, and whether any revision will be tuition aid, auxiliary support, or a payment accommodation.

Contracts, deposits, revisits, and public timing

The two-week decision window is short. The obligation can be long.

Current fact: AISGW recommends no electronic notification before 4 p.m. on Friday, February 26, 2027 and no new student reply earlier than Friday, March 12. Tuition becomes binding at 4 p.m. May 1—or the next Monday when May 1 is a weekend. In 2027, that Monday is May 3.

Current fact: an individual contract states the deposit, fees, payment plan, insurance, withdrawal rule, signatures, and responsibility across households. Clarity’s contract help says two households may receive separate contracts and both may need to sign; the school must approve changes.

Current fact: not every school uses the AISGW day-school rhythm. Episcopal High School says its boarding applicants receive admission and aid decisions in March and have 30 days to reply. A family comparing day and boarding offers should put both written calendars on one page rather than impose February 26 and March 12 on every school.

Use admitted-family time to answer—not to be sold again

Opinion: revisit programs can help a child test daily texture. The adults should use the same window for the aid office, business office, transportation office, division schedule, care, and support questions. Ask for a sample weekly route and cost, not a promise that “families make it work.”

Public and private calendars may not line up

Current fact: My School DC’s public page still displays the 2026–27 lottery calendar as of this review. The Fall 2027 result and enrollment dates are therefore unknown, not safely advanced by one year. The prior cycle released results after the AISGW private reply window, which shows the kind of conflict families should plan for without proving the next dates.

Maryland and Virginia do not have one DMV-wide public-choice calendar. Boundary enrollment, magnets, selective programs, charters, and transfers are district-specific. Keep every public application, boundary right, and current-school reenrollment alive until the family knowingly gives it up. Ask a private school for an extension if necessary; do not represent it to the child as an entitlement.

Admission wait pools and aid wait pools

“Waiting” can mean three materially different things.

Current fact: St. Albans publicly describes a financial-aid waiting list for some accepted families. Landon says it maintains a waitlist from which students may be admitted as funds and/or space become available. Neither statement publishes rank, movement probability, or timing.

Opinion: a child should not be emotionally parked on a waitlist. Celebrate the available path. Adults can keep one quiet line of communication open without turning every day into a referendum on whether a “better” school might call.

A decision tool that respects money and childhood

Compare offers with five numbers and five sentences.

Opinion: this compact tool keeps the school, the money, and the child in the same decision without pretending they are the same kind of evidence.

Score only after writing. A spreadsheet can compare dollars and minutes; it cannot decide how a nine-year-old experiences a 6:25 a.m. bus or how a family feels with no emergency fund.