<p>Received notice that my student is accepted ED. Financial aid award is not what I was hoping for but we are so thrilled to be accepted. Do they ever increase the scholarships? We want to avoid loans. Grants available? Not sure how we will manage financially. Dilemma is should we go ahead and accept or is it better to not accept while trying to negotiate for more? Problem is we are told that housing/dorm preference is based on when we accept and pay deposit. Is there a significant difference in the different dorms? Should we accept or try and negotiate? Are we giving up priority choice on housing/dorm when there is little chance of any change? On paper, we look like we our income/assets are good. Still shocked over having to come up with over $40K per year! Any advice? Also, would appreciate advice from anyone on what next? what should we know? Again, we are absolutely thrilled - just want to be prepared. RPI is a great school</p>
<p>You can appeal for more financial aid. I’m not sure if there is a form for it, but I do know that you are required to write a short letter explaining why what you received may have been too low.</p>
<p>You may appeal as many times as you like… I know a few people who did it ~4 times and each time received more aid.</p>
<p>You have a while to say “yes” to the acceptance, so it wouldn’t hurt to get a letter in soon. </p>
<p>The housing is done online; you print out the form and send it in. Even though I was one of the first to accept ED, I was put in Bray initially (while I had put on my form Barton as my no1 choice). Get the form in quickly and you’ll be ok hopefully.</p>
<p>Thank you for the reply. I will look for the housing form right away. Please tell me what your impression has been thus far of RPI. What do you like best? and what do you like the least? Any tips for my student?</p>
<p>I have my intro to engineering analysis final tomorrow, so I won’t be able to reply tonight with a detailed response. I’ll see if essie wants to though!</p>
<p>A good idea is to view past history of this forum and see what other students say as well, we all have our own biases.</p>
<p>I’m confused. Isn’t early decision binding?</p>
<p>I am not sure why you ask this question? Do you have a student who attends or attended RPI? Am seeking all available information I can obtain in order to enable my student to be prepared. For instance, apparently the housing application is on line, which I have not been informed of.</p>
<p>Yes Early Decision is fully binding at RPI.</p>
<p>Hi cleomom - I have son applying Regular Decision to RPI. </p>
<p>I asked my question because one of the schools we looked at has an ED/binding option… but it seemed like there was caveat for bailout if scholarship/aid package too low. Never heard that anywhere else. But per your post, I thought maybe similar thing at RPI. I was wondering about it because RPI has an ED2. </p>
<p>It turns out it would have been a moot point either way. I see ED2 deadline was today.
[Dates</a> and Deadlines - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)](<a href=“http://admissions.rpi.edu/freshman/deadlines.html]Dates”>http://admissions.rpi.edu/freshman/deadlines.html)</p>
<p>The caveat applies anywhere the Common App is used:
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>Just to back up vossron - yes, if you are applying for financial aid and determine that the finanncial aid package offered does not meet your needs, you can back out of ED. That is the only way out of an ED acceptance.</p>
<p>I would strongly encourage you to file an appeal on your financial aid decision so long as you have specific, detailed information that would justify an increase in your aid package. Being shocked by the amount of money you are expected to pay won’t cut it with financial aid offices because everyone is shocked by how much they have to pay. I’ve worked with a number of families who have appealed their awards, and the ones who’ve been successful with their appeals had very good reasons why the original offer was inadequate: a parent had lost a job, a parent had received a large bonus last year but no bonuses are being offered by the company anymore, a sibling had been diagnosed recently with a serious illness that is requiring enormous out-of-pocket expenses, severe storm damage to the family’s primary residence that is not covered by insurance.</p>
<p>As for loans, college financial aid packages almost always assume the student (and their parents) will pay for college with a combination of grants/scholarships, current income, savings, work-study and – yes – loans. If you don’t want to accept a loan you should expect to cover that amount with savings or income. </p>
<p>Good luck with your appeal.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarifications above. cleomom - Good luck to you. I’m hoping that you get some good advise here (or offline PMs) from folks who understand college procedures and RPI better than I do.</p>
<p>Is that $40k AFTER need-based aid? If not, there might still be hope. In any case, I’d call the financial aid office and see what they say.</p>
<p>I am a freshman RPI student, and so far I love it here.
I applied ED1 and was given a 12,000/year scholarship(not including loans, work study, etc.). My family appealed and I was given an extra 6,200(5,000 can only be used on housing or food.)</p>
<p>What do you like best about RPI? The least? My daughter is accepted ED. Can you recommend the best dorm? Can you share, if you know, what other students have received in financial aid? Our award is disappointing. Hoping to hear from Amherst and UCONN and two others before we have to commit. Thanks very much for your help. I’d appreciate hearing from anyone who can share their experiences.</p>
<p>ED is binding. If you are accepted ED to RPI you must immediately withdraw all other applications. That is the downside to ED.</p>
<p>Please see below (from the RPI web site), particularly the last sentence:</p>
<p>Early Decision (Binding)</p>
<p>If Rensselaer is your top-choice school, Early Decision (ED) is a great option for you. You may apply to other colleges, but you may have only one ED application pending at any time. There are many benefits to applying for ED. In addition to earlier notification of your admission decision, you will also receive an earlier financial aid package. Knowing early on that you have already been accepted into your top-choice college can reduce the anxiety and stress of the college application process.</p>
<p>Rensselaer offers a second round of Early Decision (ED II) that allows you to apply at a later date but with the same benefits and commitments of Early Decision.</p>
<p>If admitted under ED I or ED II, you are obliged to enroll at Rensselaer, as long as your scholarship meets your need. Rensselaer requires a nonrefundable deposit. Immediately upon acceptance of your ED admission offer, you must withdraw all other applications and make no subsequent applications</p>
<p>Thanks, but it is my understanding if the financial aid award is not enough for us to be able to afford it then we can opt out of the ED. At the orientations/tours/information sessions at both our high school and at RPI (we went to several) we were told this as well - so did RPI. We have until 1/15 to accept/decline - hence the hope to hear from others by then. We were also told that if another school offered more that we should tell them. Our school guidance counselor had told us that we should not be hesitant to apply to private colleges as the listed costs are like a “sticker price” and financial aid could often bring it down to the cost of a state school. That did not happen. So, I am trying very hard to figure out finances not just for this year but for the next four years (and have two more kids that are “college bound”). And it seems there are so many “extras.” Also, although not a basis to decline ED, since going on this web site and others I keep finding references to how unsafe the campus is and how “vile” the dorms are. So, seeking as much info as I can since these are two things that I was led to believe were not a problem during our many contacts there - and we were only shown the same dorm on every visit. May be I am needing a bit of reassurance as regards those two issues. Note my “name.” Everything else about RPI is wonderful and my entire family had a very good feeling about it at every visit.</p>
<p>I have a son at RPI and a daughter on the way (we hope, she applied ED2). I don’t consider the dorms vile at all, especially the new ones. Barton is great and amazingly sound proofed so we didn’t hear a vacuum going next door. Students we talked to in the older frosh dorms seemed to like the sociability, though my son raves about Barton. This year he is in Blitman , the former hotel, and the rooms are HUGE for two and he really likes the fancy computer menu for the dorm food. (I think Blitman is now for Juniors/Seniors only in future years). </p>
<p>Campus safety doesn’t seem any different than any other campus though it does take street wisdom around Troy. My daughter had a friend held up by knifepoint on Cornell campus, Carnegie Mellon students get held up. No where is completely safe and it would be wrong to assume any campus is “safe”. RPI students don’t need to wander into a college town in order to have a life, they can be pretty content on campus, or head on the buses to Albany, Cross gates Mall, Union College, etc etc. I actually like quite a bit of Troy down by the river, though there are sketchy areas to be avoided.</p>
<p>Beyond my comprehension that you apply ED with the following condition:</p>
<p>“Immediately upon acceptance of your ED admission offer, you must withdraw all other applications and make no subsequent applications.” </p>
<p>and then you just decide not to follow the agreement.</p>
<p>As soon as you see the financial award, you either decide it does or it doesn’t meet your financial needs and you either accept the offer of admisison (and immediately withdraw all other applications, as the agreement you knew about at the time of application specified) or you declined the offer of admission.</p>
<p>“… and then you just decide not to follow the agreement. As soon as you see the financial award, you either decide it does or it doesn’t meet your financial needs”</p>
<p>This is generally not the case. Schools give a reasonable period to decide; two weeks has been mentioned.</p>