Most schools have an Outside Scholarship policy, which governs how they handle scholarships that are not granted by the school itself. It can vary pretty dramatically. Some (very generous) schools will allow you to lower your EFC (Expected Family Contribution) with outside scholarships. They tend to be the really wealthy schools with huge ...

They're fairly accurate.  The Federal methodology on the College Board Calculaor yielded a number within $2000 of the SAR from FAFSA.

How close have the EFC numbers you've gotten from online calculators been to your actual EFC after filling out the FAFSA? I've used the calculator on this site (www.CollegeToolkit.com) and on FinAid (www.FinAid.com) and gotten the same number. Should I be pretty comfortable with the results?