Dartmouth Fin Aid Negotiation

Hi all! I wanted to post this in the financial aid section, but I wanted to know specifically if anyone had experience with negotiating aid from Dartmouth. I recently got accepted into the class of 2022. I was hoping to ask them to match my aid from JHU, but am not sure if they would do it since it’s not an Ivy League. Does anyone know how I should go about doing this? Does Dartmouth respond better to email or call? Also, does Dartmouth do “side letters” guaranteeing to keep the aid for 4 years too? Does anyone have any other tips and advice? I would choose Dartmouth over JHU, but only if they match my financial aid- my family and I cannot afford to pay the full price. Thank you in advance!!

I know I requested a financial review, but it was from a peer school. Dartmouth met the package given by the peer school and the aid was consistent for the 4 years my D was in Hanover.

Is your financial aid package from JHU all need based aid or is there a merit money component. Dartmouth only gives need based financial aid so it will not matter if you get merit money from someplace else.

Dartmouth may not consider JHU to be a peer school (they mostly look at cross admits: the Ivies, AWS, Notre Dame, Duke, perhaps Wash U).

Either way you will have to submit a request for a financial review. Fill out the form along with the financial documentation and the financial aid award. You can scan in everything and email to the financial aid office.

https://financialaid.dartmouth.edu/supplemental-forms

Our experience is dated, but @sybbie719 is correct that the request for review is the place to start. I found them very responsive, although we were simply asking them to match Harvard. They may or may not view JHU as a matching institution, although it’s hard for me to see why not (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities), but you have absolutely nothing to lose by asking.

Our experience is also dated, but H requested a review based partially on a change of income and D came up significantly, matching S’s offer from Pomona, and also restructured the package. I don’t know whether they actually matched it on purpose, or whether the figure was arrived at because of the change of income and a restructuring based on some other issues.

Good point, @Consolation. I had actually started with pointing out some factors that weren’t apparent from any of the forms and mentioned Harvard only in passing, but that was what caught their eye – and they went from nada to matching within a couple of hours after I faxed them [ah, the old days] a copy of Harvard’s letter. No way to know how they would have responded without that, but D still thought I was marvelous, so … good times.

Thank you everyone! Update: they matched JHU :smiley:

Yay! Go Big Green! We all hope you have a wonderful four years in Hanover.