<p>I know the answer in terms of what a school rep would say would be that the answer is no, but I have heard from those who were accepted early action saying that they got a generous financial aid offer. I recently went to a campus tour and they said that if you are really serious about the school, they encourage you to apply early action. Maybe a greater financial aid offer is a reward for being committed to attending the school?</p>
<p>What about merit scholarships? Does early action affect those since you are showing greater interest in the school? If you show a great amount of interest in the school and you are a well qualified applicant, will the school try to accommodate you and try their best to get you to attend?</p>
<p>I was also wondering if financial aid officers take location into consideration when giving out financial aid. I calculated my projected EFC on Collegeboard and it was extremely high. My parents annual income is pretty high, but that is because we live in an area in which the cost of living is extremely high. I guess this question isn't specific to Northeastern, but I am still curious...</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>This is probably best asked in a different non-northeastern specific forum. Besides any answer someone would give you here would be a guess, no matter how correct it sounds.</p>
<p>I should point out that you DON’T find out financial aid when you get your early action admission decision, because the FAFSA form hasn’t even come out yet. But the idea that most people would agree with is that for both financial aid and merit scholarships is that there is only so much money the school can give out, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. Often people with high scholarships came from EA, but at the same time, a lot of the stronger students applied EA (so there could be a more deserving percent of students in EA than RD, who knows). </p>
<p>Also you said the word “committed”. Early action is NON-BINDING, as in you can apply to a hundred schools EA and find out in Decemberish. Early decision is different; you can only apply to one school ED and if you get in you pretty much have to go unless you can prove extreme financial hardship. Northeastern only has EA, not ED, so applying EA has no ‘commitment’, you just applied earlier so you can find out earlier.</p>
<p>Often the “financial aid officers” really just are there to subtract what the government thinks your EFC is and your federal loans are from the cost of the school, and then they do stuff to figure out how much to give you (most schools claim they’ll match the rest- don’t think NEU does- but that’s always up for dispute). So your EFC is determined by your FAFSA form and your parents’ tax returns, which really has nothing to do with Northeastern, so we’re definitely not the people to ask. Try emailing the financial aid office to see if they know or maybe there are people in a different forum who know more about it.</p>
<p>If you are in gear to get the common app done early, it doesn’t hurt to do EA since non-binding (see good details above). For many reasons discussed in detail elsewhere, ED/binding is usually not a good idea. EA is nice because you get an earlier answer. I</p>