<p>My family has some financial abnormalities that unfortunately may result in us receiving an unacceptable financial aid offer from CMU. If that's the case, will the university be fine with releasing me from the ED agreement? Would I have to prove that I couldn't pay or anything like that?</p>
<p>I have sent an email to CMU about this, but I'd like to see if anyone on CC has any experience with such a matter.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Well first of all the only way you will be get 100% of your need met is ED. So your only option is ED. Also, CMU has a very accurate financial aid estimate form on their website. As long as you give accurate numbers you should find out how much aid you will get. If I were you and I really wanted to attend CMU I would do ED.</p>
<p>^ Untrue. CMU doesn’t meet anywhere near 100% of Early Decision applicants’ need-- I was an ED applicant, as were several of my friends, and we all got significantly less (5000-10000) aid than our peers who applied regular decision.</p>
<p>The ED contract can be broken in circumstances of dire financial difficulty. Email the Hub (our on-campus financial department) or whomever’s contact you’ve been given and let them know that you’d love to attend but that the financial aid award was not substantial enough. Sometimes they’ll bump up your aid award; sometimes they won’t. In that case, they’ll drop you from your ED commitment and let someone else in.</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear that. I was just repeating what they told me</p>
<p>“Would I have to prove that I couldn’t pay or anything like that?”</p>
<p>Because CMU is a Common App school, you don’t have to prove anything; it’s your decision, and you just say thanks but no thanks. But first try an appeal for more.</p>