<p>Hi!</p>
<p>I've got a question. The best colleges like Harvard and MIT provide the full financial-aid. I'm rather poor and I don't have any money to pay for my undergradute. Apart from MIT and Harvard I'm going to apply for Caltech, Princeton and Stanford. I've read that they don't have much money for aids. </p>
<p>If I got to Caltech and didn't get financial aid that satisfies me, would I just resign from this university?</p>
<p>Can I apply for financial aid in each of this university at one time and choose this that provides me the best aid?</p>
<p>Waiting for answers.</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford… and MIT, I think, too… will award students with financial need enough aid so that they are able to attend. Here’s the BIG thing to understand though, first, the college will decide what your financial “need” is, not you. They do this based on financial documentation you will provide from yourself and your parents – usually <em>both</em> parents, even if you just live with one of them.</p>
<p>Second, these colleges are exceedingly difficult to get accepted to in the first place, so you need to have a back-up plan. If you are an international student and you have high financial need this can make acceptance even a bit more of a stretch at some of these schools.</p>
<p>I do not know about Caltech’s financial aid policies. Others here may know more about that.</p>
<p>You will apply to each college separately, and each will have its own financial aid application process. Some forms will be used widely, but each school will process the information in their own way, and often come up with quite different aid awards. This is when (usually the month of March/April) you look at where you’ve been accepted, what kind of aid you’ve been awarded, and then you figure out where it makes sense to attend.</p>
<p>You don’t have to “resign” from anything if the aid is not sufficient for you to attend, you just won’t choose to accept the admissions offer from schools you can’t afford.</p>
<p>Have a backup plan – a school that you’re pretty confident you’ll get accepted to, that you can afford, and that you’d be content to attend if nothing better is available.</p>
<p>Ok. Thanks for reply. On Harvard’s page they say that if income of your family is under 60.000 $ per year, they provide full financial aid. Or am I wrong?</p>