<p>Just a warning based on personal experience (my family is suburban middle class but loaded with educational debt from my two older siblings): you will not get a good financial aid package from Cornell if you apply ED. This includes several so called "committment scholarships" that they intentionally give only to RD applicants as a way of enticing them to come here. I ultimately felt that Cornell's FinAid was very unfair and when I took it up with a FinAid rep later, she callously pointed out that "you pretty much have to be on welfare to get good FinAid in the ED round."</p>
<p>Oh, thanks for your encouraging words, I will sleep much better tonight!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>C'est la vie.</p>
<p>:( I'm going to be needing a lot if I get in, my parents are both teachers and don't make too much money (~65k/year total income). Getting in a stretch for me to begin with, but is it likely I won't be able to pay?</p>
<p>Meh, before I applied we called Cornell and they said getting out of the ED contract was easy. If the FinAid isn't within our range maybe they'd be more willing to negotiate. All the statistics I read on average aid fell just within what my parents can pay so I'm optimistic, although I'm expecting it to push my parents to the limit of what they're willing to pay.</p>
<p>eh, my girlfriend got more aid from Cornell than from any other college she applied to.</p>
<p>I'm wondering how the financial aid for subsequent years would be for those students manage to get good bargains as freshmen. For example, if you get in as a RD freshman and you persuade Cornell to give you, say, $5,000 more grants, can you get the same or similar more amount of grants down the road? If Cornell will use the standard formula for coming up with your grants in subsequent years, then applying ED or RD would have potential difference in Financial aid only for the first year, am I right?</p>
<p>It's too late for this now, but I did ED for ILR and before I clicked submit on commonapp I found out my "Early Fin. Aid. Estimate" from Cornell from ms. radbord... check into this... my package is great so I was confident in my choice to ED</p>
<p>where did u get your estimate?</p>
<p>to the OP this is not true across the board--my son got a good finaid package ED--our efc was within 500-600 dollars of what different calculators came up with.</p>
<p>Don't discourage people from applying for financial reasons, especially with RD coming up. Money is there for people who need it.</p>
<p>Cornell's grant package, for me, was bigger than any other need based, and most merit based packages I was offered. The two schools that beat cornell's offer for aid were Union College, and RPI (by about 20% more grants), but both were merit based packages. </p>
<p>Cornell rarely gives full rides, but they were the most helpful and open school about financial aid policy (some other schools had catches about outside scholarships coming out of grant money), and they will do everything they can to put the cost in financial reach.</p>
<p>As far as the finaid rep you spoke to, were you speaking to a student working the phone in the office? I don't believe than any financial aid representative would ever say that to you.</p>