<p>Does one give you better chances at financial aid vs the other?</p>
<p>If you get in with ED, there’s less of an incentive for them to grant you financial aid since you HAVE to go.</p>
<p>^This is not exactly correct. They guarantee full need met if you do ED. Some of this is in loans, of course, but just want to point that out.</p>
<p>Thanks for your replies. Just for my clarification when you say ‘full need met’ I am assuming that means that if your EFC is below the cost of attendance then they make up the difference (provided of course that you get admission) correct?</p>
<p>How good is CMU at giving merit based aid? what kind of a profile does one need to have to get merit aid?</p>
<p>Jerseyshor- I would definitely search some threads at CC on this topic to get a better idea, but my sense of it is that Merit Aid at CMU is far and few. The Financial Aid based on need is more generous. Read the materials CMU will send you- “Carnegie Scholarships are awarded to artistically and academically talented middle income students who qualify for little or no need based financial aid…”.</p>
<p>My son will be in CFA- Design for Fall 2012 and he loved the summer camp and sleepover weekend- really solidified his decision to attend. He ended up turning down an almost full ride to a LAC. Full pay family here. My advise is to visit the colleges you apply to if it is at all possible.</p>
<p>CMU is an extremely selective school in itself. Getting merit aid here means you are at the top of the applicant pool and would probably be very competitive at schools like MIT and caltech and HYP.</p>
<p>IF you are admitted Early - CMU will meet full need. However, say your EFC is $40,000 and cost to attend is $60,000. That leaves a $20,000 GAP. This gap will be filled with Student Loans and Work Study and Grant Aid. They will have you take $5500 in stafford loans and then possibly another 3-4,000 in perkins loans and then $2500-$3000 In work Study. So at most you would recieve 9-10,000 in grant aid.</p>
<p>If you are not admitted early - all bets are off. Then it really depends on how much they want you - that will determine your grant aid.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. I did review some of the other threads and the info you all provided gives me an idea of what to expect.</p>
<p>One final question - we do not qualify for need based aid and our EFC is higher than the COA. So if we apply ED and they do not provide any ‘grants’ not loans then can we still back out of it?</p>
<p>^Realistically, not really. It’ll be a bigger hassle than its worth.</p>