congrats/financial aid.. please help

<p>i just want to say congratulations to everyone accepted. currently i'm deciding between duke, UNC, dartmouth, and johns hopkins, and i feel extremely lucky to have that choice.. but i'm leaning toward duke. it seems like the combination of academics, athletics, and the social environment might be too much to pass up.</p>

<p>my only worry is how generous duke is with financial aid. my family's calculated contribution is around $16,000, and so far i've had UNC give me a generous award. how does duke usually meet this kind of need? what percentage of my ~28,000 need will be grants? loans? anyone have any experience with this? anyone already get their package who has similar need?</p>

<p>i'm having the same problem...between duke and johns hopkins....my efc is 0; that's right...i'm broke...lol, so in order to go to duke, i am going to need money, lots of it</p>

<p>haha, i got more aid from duke than from unc.</p>

<p>my EFC for freshman year was about 17k
they expected about 17k from family contribution and gave me about 20k in grants 1800 in work study and about 5000 in loans (perkins and subsidized stafford)
but don't worry ur aid package will come long before you have to make a final decision. I was in their office the other day and I already saw boxes full of aid package letters ready to be send out.</p>

<p>Duke will probably match or beat your offer from UNC. Like querida, Duke gave me the better offer.</p>

<p>this is kind of random, warblers, but can you talk a little about housing? i'm just curious as to which freshman dorms have larger rooms, which are air-conditioned, etc.</p>

<p>There are three AC dorms on East Campus - Randolph, Blackwell, and Bell Tower. I live in Randolph, and can vouch that the rooms in it and Blackwell (which is identical) are very small. Bell Tower is amazing...it's brand new and they really went all out when building it.</p>

<p>Basically, before this year (Belltower), you either had a big non-airconditioned room (10 dorms) or a small airconditioned one (Randolph or Blackwell). That is to say, Belltower now has large-ish room and A/C, wrecking the whole "trade off" idea. But honestly, you don't really need it too much. I'd say today is the first day that you would want A/C...and there is only about 1 month of school left. Odds are, you'll get a room without A/C and you'll survive - I'm from San Diego and I would have wanted it for about a month during fall and a month during spring. Plus, by the time you make it to West as a sophomore, all the rooms will likely have A/C (the overwhelming majority of them do right now).</p>

<p>it ends up duke gave me ~28k in grant $ and ~6k in loans, beating my offer from hopkins by a long shot and my UNC offer by a bit as well. duke it is</p>