A Question regarding ED at Cornell

<p>I am an international student willing to apply Early Decision at Cornell. I will also apply for financial aid.
I have heard that , Cornell has need-blind admissions for internationals, but, due to limited funds, it provides financial aid for few of those accepted.
So, suppose i get accepted in Cornell early decision, but, they do not give me financial aid, is it still compulsory for me to attend Cornell, or can i back out because of inability to pay for Cornell education and attend any other college that gave me financial aid.</p>

<p>Please help! I am really confused regarding this matter.</p>

<p>If you get into another school that’s significantly cheaper you can claim you can’t afford it but you have to go to the cheap school.</p>

<p>If you legitimately can’t afford it, you can’t be forced to attend. Just don’t lie about it (as said above).</p>

<p>So, basically, if i get accepted into Cornell early decision, but, they do not provide me financial aid, it is not binding for me to attend Cornell(since i cant afford it, and i was not given aid),thus, i can go to another school that gave me financial aid.
Right???
because i dont want a situation where if i am accepted early decision (yay!) but not offered aid(oh no!) and then i cant go to any other school that offered me aid.</p>

<p>I wasn’t implying to lie but in hindsight it may have seemed that way my bad :P</p>

<p>@123456A and yes pretty much, Cortana will know more about this process than anyone else so you may want to talk to them if you get in that situation.</p>

<p>

Close … this scenario may well happen</p>

<p>You apply to Cornell ED can get accepted and have your Cornell financial aid package. At this point you likely will not have heard from any other schools and you will have to tell Cornell yes or no. You can decide if Cornell’s aid package is good enough but you won’t have the other packages to compare to. IF you accept Cornell’s offer you have to retract your other applications and will never see their financial aid offers.</p>

<p>If you do not get accepted ED and you get accepted to any school EA or in the RD round then you will be apply to compare your offers across schools.</p>

<p>So for someone in need of financial aid applying ED is somewhat risky although Cornell’s FA tends to be pretty good with only a few school (HYP etc) who typically give much better aid.</p>

<p>If you don’t get a good amount of aid from Cornell I wouldn’t expect a lot from other colleges unless you get a scholarship. Cornell was the cheapest school I got into by far in the end.</p>

<p>If you don’t get enough financial aid from Cornell, you simply call the admissions office, explain your situation, and you will be put in touch with the head of admissions for whatever college you are applying to and he/she will release you from the ED agreement and you will receive official confirmation in the mail. </p>

<p>Cornell is one of few schools that give financial aid to international applicants, and the ones that give better aid than Cornell (That meet 100% of demonstrated need) are Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, MIT, and Dartmouth however some of these schools are not need blind, meaning asking for financial aid may and will hurt your application. </p>

<p>Cornell also will match any financial aid offer from the Ivy league, Stanford, Duke, and MIT. So if you think you are strong enough to be accepted to MIT, HYP, Dartmouth, and/or Columbia, you should apply Regular decision so that in the event you are accepted and receive a substantial financial aid package from any of those colleges, Cornell would match that offer, if you already weren’t offered enough aid. </p>

<p>If you apply Early Decision and are accepted, you need to respond by the middle of January whether or not you will attend Cornell or try and withdraw your acceptance. So unless you applied EA anywhere else (and of the full need international schools, MIT is the only one that has unrestricted Early action, and I’m not sure when MIT sends the financial aid packages) you won’t hear back from any other colleges. </p>

<p>Once you receive your financial aid package, there is really no bargaining unless there was missing or wrong information given to the financial aid office i.e your parents income is much lower than what was reported. For internationals however, there may be a merit based aspect to financial aid awards since only a fraction of admitted international students receive financial aid.</p>

<p>

One risk is that some other school may be more affordable. But since one should be applying ED only to the by-far first choice or “dream” school, this shouldn’t matter, because the question should be only “Can I afford it?” If you can’t, you sadly say thanks but no thanks, and apply RD elsewhere. The risk is also that the ED school made you the best off you’ll get, but you find out too late, but then it shouldn’t matter since you couldn’t afford it anyway, and you must attend, e.g., a lower cost community college.</p>

<p>ED remains popular enough due to its conferring the best chance of admission to most schools that offer it, and getting the whole process finished early is also attractive.</p>

<p>Thanks for all your help! I guess, finally, i am going to apply ED to Cornell and then hope that they accept me and give me atleast some need-based aid (hopefully 50-100%)!!! Because the only other option i have is MIT(which offers 100%need-based aid), but, then, its very difficult for internationals to get into it(and it doesnt have ED or EA for inernationals, which might have increased chances)</p>

<p>But, without doubt, Cornell is my first-choice, and i really hope i get accepted ED and also get Financial Aid.
I dont know if i am that great a student, but, definitely i might have a chance.</p>

<p>If anyone knows something more regarding this matter, please do post.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>