<p>Duke is my top choice, but I didn't recieve any merit or finacial aid (don't qualify). I did recieve merit scholarships to almost all of the other schools that I got into. I also got a full tuition scholarship plus 4000 more from the University of Pittsburgh. My other merit awards were around 10,000 at schools like USC, U Rochester, Boston U, RPI, etc. I even got 600 from Cornell (wimpy, I know, but the letter said it was proportional to financial need... which I don't qualify for.... so the 600 is for books or something like that). My question is, can I appeal for scholarship money?</p>
<p>excellent thread! is this possible?</p>
<p>i am going to the blue devil days thing on monday. I have two schools(upenn and carnegie) that have significantly more aid than duke. so i will show the financial aid officer those offers and see what he does. Worst case scenario is that he will laugh at us...</p>
<p>hmm...what about e-mails? do those work too?</p>
<p>I sent an email, and they replied, saying to wait 5-7 business days.</p>
<p>^Predator, did you ask for merit aid, or financial aid? because I don't qualify for ANY financial aid. All of the money I've gotten so far is merit aid.</p>
<p>It is too late for merit aid...the FA office said the ADMISSIONS office gives out merit aid when decisions are made. Also, to be honest, I don't think they have "real" merit scholarships, after all it is DUKE and it could be extremely hard since almost all applicants are extremely qualified academically.</p>
<p>I asked for financial aid (in terms of more grants and maybe a work study)</p>
<p>Sandy Beach, what exact "merit aid" did you get? Was it just a grant? (cause grant is financial aid not merit aid I believe)</p>
<p>They are merit scholarships. None of them are grants. And I only qualify for 3500 in loans in addition to my merit scholarships.</p>
<p>i thought there only merit scholarships were like AB, BN, and Robertson... maybe a couple more...</p>
<p>Yeah it's those...which most of them are limited to us normal people, or the other "scholarships" they give out are given during admissions. Also from another school I contacted for FA, a lot of merit scholarships that are handed out go hand in hand with financial aid...if you are out of the financial aid bracket for that specific scholarship, you will not receive it regardless of what your merit.</p>
<p>oh darn... gah, well I guess it doesn't hurt to try, right?</p>
<p>Nope. I tried and I'm still waiting on a response ha.</p>
<p>I talked to the President, the Dean, Director of Financial Aid, and several admissions officers when I was there lol.</p>
<p>Appeals don't work unless another school offered you a better package that they will beat. And no, merit aid doesnt count.</p>
<p>padfoot, did you talk to them while you were here this year? So if I wanted Duke to try and match an engineering scholarship given by U of M, I am pretty much out of luck??</p>
<p>I'm in this same situation...I got TONS more aid from Hopkins and UPenn, and contacted Duke fin aid about the possibility of matching that.</p>
<p>First, I went to the duke fin aid site, where I found this under FAQs;</p>
<p>"I received a better financial aid award from another university. Will Duke match the other school's award?
Duke does not "negotiate" or match financial aid awards from other universities. It may be that another university is offering scholarships based on things such as merit, and not demonstrated financial need. If, however, the other school has information about your family's financial situation that you did not share with us, or if you have reason to believe we have made an error in our evaluation, please contact us to discuss a possible re-evaluation."</p>
<p>Pretending not to have read that, I contacted the fin aid officers to ask if they would match anyway. I'll paste the relavant part of their response below:</p>
<p>"...I can't speak for other schools and how they made their determination of need, but the contribution seems to have been calculated correctly on this end."</p>
<p>alas. screw duke. the finaid office, anyway.</p>
<p>haha, U of M is no Duke... highly doubt they'd match that... it would be cool if they did though... maybe they'll match my full ride to clemson? hahaha</p>
<p>U of M is definitely on a higher scale than Clemson...in fact most of their engineering departments ARE in the top 10 of the nation...but I agree, Duke most likely won't see them on the same level.</p>
<p>Duke has plenty of accepted students who are willing to pay the full price to attend. They will pretty much ignore your request for more money, unless they made a mistake (like adding a "0" to your EFC i.e. $3,500= $35,000).
Good luck to all of you and please let us know if you can convince Duke to be more generous.</p>
<p>I was at Duke last weekend and I went by the financial aid office because Duke's fin. aid office was the worst package of any school I got. My Parent contribution was something like $30,000 vs. Yale's $15,000. The conversation went something like this:</p>
<p>Me: Is there any way that Duke might be able to match financial aid offers from other schools?
Fin. Aid Lady: No. Let me think of a nicer way to say this...no.</p>
<p>So I guess that's where they stand.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Fin. Aid Lady: No. Let me think of a nicer way to say this...no.
[/quote]
Wow - that's cold</p>