So I have narrowed down carnegie mellon to my top choice, however I am worried about the costs… After doing a financial estimate it came out to 34k a year. Swarthmore’s estimate was significantly less at 25k a year. I’m wondering if Carnegie would match swarthmore? I know carnegie is known to match competitor schools but Swarthmore is a liberal arts school and carnegie is a research university so would they match them?
What I heard about matching is that they based matching on what they consider to be “peer institutions”. These include MIT, Duke, Rice, Cornell, RPI…
http://www.cmu.edu/ira/factbook/pdf/facts2012/12_peer-comparisons-section-final.pdf But CMU is not bound to match at all but supposedly they do in some cases. I’ve seen no evidence they’d match a LAC like Swarthmore based on what I’ve read. But perhaps there are others with more insight.
Swarthmore meets 100% demonstrated need. CMU only meets 100% demonstrated need for students who apply ED. They do not guarantee to meet need for students in the RD round. Should you get accepted at both schools (which is not a lock) you can certainly ask for a financial review. However I would not count on CMU giving you any additional money
Absolutely give it a go for a match if it turns out you are in that situation. No guarantee, but give it a try.
Right, I understand it isn’t a lock, was just wondering whether I should even be considering Carnegie Mellon at this point since it doesn’t really look like it will work out financially. Thank you cptofthehouse, sybbie719, and patertrium!
Impressive that you heard from those 2 schools already! Were they non binding EA or RD?
I think OP is working from NPCs. Without acceptance and aid offers, it’s just a theoretical issue. I know one student who did get CMU to increase aid package enough to make it doable, but it was not a match Others I know, only got more loans and work study. So YMMV