<p>I received way better FinAid at MIT than UChicago.</p>
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<p>You can try calling them. Don’t get your hopes high, though, unless you have extra paperwork to send in that notes some drastic changes in your financial situation. UChicago’s FA office has perfected its technique of refusing to give people anymore money to such a degree that you may consider it a work of genius.</p>
<p>. . . kidding aside, they are extremely stubborn. Speaking from personal experience: you’ll have to have a will of iron and possibly a heart of stone to get past them, and even then, it’ll just be like the unstoppable force meeting the unmovable object.</p>
<p>Yeah, I had hoped all the rumors of Chicago’s “tightwad” aid were false. Whatever, maybe WUSTL will be more flexible.</p>
<p>ugh this upsets me how some people got amazing aid.
chicago full out rejected my finaid application, even with my mom earning less than 10k annually due to unemployment and my dad doesn’t really contribute to the family at all.
i don’t know… is it worth taking out about 30k of student loans for 4 years?</p>
<p>^ Call the finaid office. There’s something not right about that. Are you sure you submitted all the forms?</p>
<p>30k per year, no. 30k over four years, yes.</p>
<p>Definitely write a financial aid appeal if you feel they don’t understand your situation. FAFSA really doesn’t explain much. Be specific with specific #s and changes in your income for this school year. You have to mail it or fax it, no emails. You can’t really complain about it if you don’t try this. They will let you know within 10 business days. I found U of Chicago to be extremely organized and accommodating when the proper channel was taken!</p>
<p>Also be extremely polite and grateful you got accepted in your appeal letter!</p>
<p>Sigh. I wondered if I was the only one extremely frustrated by the aid I got. I received much better aid from the other three peer institutions I was accepted to. And no. I didn’t receive any merit-based aid at all. Yet one school gave me full scholarship while UChicago expects me to pay 22k a year.</p>
<p>And all four promise to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need.</p>
<p>Just to let you know we did appeal and were able to get a little more FA grant money on top of the University scholarship but it still fell short. It was a difficult choice but at the end, my D decided on another school. Thinking forward, they will keep increasing the tuition, which is already one of the highest at 59K and because it is financial aid and not merit, you are not guaranteed future grants. Currently our 39K out of pocket would keep growing and become unaffordable and we would have to enter into substantial debt, which we are trying to avoid.</p>
<p>wow…that is tough :/</p>
<p>zakuropanda: I got a big package myself, paying at most around 16k a year.</p>
<p>In case anyone was wondering, if you got an outside national merit of $2500 it’s actually better than the $2k/year that Chicago would sponsor b/c the latter won’t reduce the loans. I had NO idea it didn’t until I talked to an aid counselor a few days ago.</p>
<p>I am quite satisfied with grants+scholarship UChicago offered. I still think that some of the stuff they sent were not necessary.</p>
<p>zakuropanda, thanks for that info on NM scholarship.</p>
<p>auuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh</p>
<p>damn im paying the whole thing if i get accepted cuz im an international student</p>