<p>Hi all. Sorry for posting another appeal question, but I am just really shocked by my situation. Like many of you, I am completely in love with Brown.
However, schools like Williams, Chicago, and Duke gave me 25,000+ in aid. Brown gave me 5,000. Is this disparity typical of Brown? Should I call them up and say that they’re giving me 1/5 of what my other schools did? My FAFSA EFC was close to 30,000, so 57,000 is too much. </p>
<p>Yes, you should absolutely call. With one exception – if Chicago and Duke’s package included merit, Brown won’t match it. </p>
<p>Did you run the financial aid calculator on the Brown website? Do that. If the number is vastly different than your package, you need to point that out, too.</p>
<p>Thank you for the quick response! These other schools don’t include merit. And Brown’s online calculator had a ~15,000 dollar difference, so we were super shocked. Does Brown usually practice a matching policy for peer schools?
I have one more question: In your opinion, should I still register for ADOCH? Would it be more meaningful / effective if a parent were to talk in person, or will the phone call suffice? </p>
<p>In the past, Brown has tried to match peer schools. I honestly don’t know if Williams, Duke and Chicago would be considered peers. </p>
<p>So you’re saying that the online calculator estimated that you would get $20,000 in FA, compared to the $5000 you did get? </p>
<p>I’m really not an expert on this, so I can’t give you advice based on real knowledge of how Brown handles this. You might want to search here on CC for past examples of students who have appealed their aid. You might want to look at the Financial Aid forum – there are lots of questions along these lines there.</p>
<p>As for ADOCH: I don’t know why you wouldn’t register, because I suppose you can always back out. I would call financial aid first – you might tell them you are coming for ADOCH and ask them if a face-to-face would be better. As for whether it should be you or a parent – I don’t know. If you don’t know all your financials that well, then have your parents do it. </p>
<p>Brown’s policy is that if they’ve accepted you, they want to make it possible for you to go. They do not gap students on purpose. The fact that 3 other schools have more generous aid, and Brown is such an outlier, suggests to me that there was a mistake. </p>
<p>Good luck. Report back what happens, so that future CC readers can benefit from your story, whichever way it goes. </p>
<p>fyi, My daughter received better aid from Brown that Chicago because the Chi package included loans and Brown’s didn’t. Otherwise the contribution was the same. I don’t know about other people but that was one situation and she got a lot of aid.</p>
<p>Hi again. You all asked for an update of my story, so here’s what’s going on right now:
Penn gave me 2x as much as Brown. Brown moved a bit, but it was still a bit above what the calculator said, and twice as much as the FAFSA.
I’ll be attending Duke on a full tuition merit scholarship, though. Thank you everyone for your help. I hope that my experience can be of use to the class of 2019 and beyond. </p>
<p>OK tks. Sounds like you made a fine choice and making a very sane decision.</p>