<p>Contrary info:</p>
<p>You cannot apply anywhere else and must withdraw all other apps after you ACCEPT the ED FA offer, not before. You don’t yet know if CMU will offer you enough, so can’t yet jeopadize other chances.</p>
<p>ED is an honor system agreement, with possible consequences for frivolous reneging, but is not a contract (no damages are specified).</p>
<p>@vonlost: Yep - not a contract. :)</p>
<p>If you are an ED and don’t yet have a financial aid award (which is non-binding until you send everything in to verify estimates given of 2011 income) it’s really important to email admissions ASAP. That letter needs to be in your hands in a timely manner so that if you need to seek out other schools you don’t miss Dec 31 deadlines.
Hopefully that will not be the case and you’ll be able to attend now that you’re accepted.</p>
<p>The general admissions email address may not be monitored as regularly over vacation - ?? who knows?</p>
<p>Call Monday morning and then hit the CMU directory search engine to email an actual adcom person rather than the general email address just to be sure all is in order.</p>
<p>You can pull out of ED only if you receive a package that you cannot handle. So the key is to have the package in time to be able to make that determination.</p>
<p>Should we still apply to other schools after getting ED, we really like CMU and it is still the first choice. However we don’t know what FINAID package we are going to get, as we have sent all the FIN estimator information</p>
<p>CMU does matched other selective schools, however if we are not going to apply to apply to others or if we withdraw existing applications, we wont know the package information from other school anyway. Sort of catch 22 situation</p>
<p>Folks,</p>
<p>I am reading the threads on ED and there is one question I have to ask - unless you are an exceptional student who is guaranteed to recieve fin aid or can easily afford the full bill at CMU - ED is essentially a trap for any one else…correct? If a student is not exceptional but still stands a very good chance of admission to CMU based on the admitted student profiles - should’nt that student apply for RD? so if they do not get fin aid they can pick the next best college on their list. How does one ensure fin aid at CMU is there a “guaranteed profile” that get’s it?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>ED is a trap for no one. If the FA doesn’t work out you apply RD elsewhere as if ED was not attempted. No school will attempt to force attendance if the bill can’t be paid.</p>
<p>Jerseyshor - ED is not a trap. CMU has had on their website since September a Financial Aid estimate form that should have been sent in by all BEFORE they applied ED and then most likely we would not be having this discussion. The ED applicant would have had the FA information well before the ED application deadline and would make an informed decision.</p>
<p>During the ED round, you will receive loans (stafford and perkins), work study and grants to meet your demonstrated need as calculated by CMU. This is way it is done at many top schools. Only very few do not include loans as part of the package but almost all require the submission of the CSS Profile which will include many assets not accounted for in the FAFSA.</p>
<p>We received our FA estimate from CMU on September 7th - well in advance of the ED deadline so we were able to make an informed decision an whether to apply to CMU ED or not. </p>
<p>First we discussed whether this school was my son’s first choice school. We visited twice and he also did a sleeping bag weekend. He told us it was his first choice.</p>
<p>Then we reviewed the estimate to determine if we could swing what was offered as we have another DS at Northwestern. We felt if would be hard, but we could swing it. We of course would need to take some Parent Plus Loans as well.</p>
<p>These are all decisions a family must make and they are all tough decisions.</p>
<p>JerseyShor - their are many calculators out there that will help determine your EFC. That will at least give you a ballpark on what you can expect and then send in the estmate form.</p>
<p>And always apply for outside scholarships.</p>
<p>What about outside scholarships?
If you receive outside scholarships, they will be used to meet your unmet financial need and where applicable, offset/reduce loans and work–study. </p>
<p>Institutional grants will not be reduced due to the receipt of outside scholarships unless one of the following conditions occur: </p>
<p>•If you receive federal grants or loans, these funds, in combination with any outside scholarships exceed your financial need.
•All outside scholarships, in combination with all aid received, exceeds the cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Outside scholarships are not from federal, state or institutional sources, such as Federal Pell Grant or SEOG. Examples of outside scholarships are: Coca–Cola, Gates Millennium, Rotary, etc.</p>
<p>If i was CMU, financial aid person: I would allocate the FA to those students who fit our specific needs and profile and to those students who want to come to this university. KNOWING that these students are also applying to mit/Stanford/Berkeley/some ivy/peers, and using the public as their safety.</p>
<p>ED. One go round. No competitive options from either side other than yes or no.</p>
<p>@25 jerseyshor
I would essentially agree. We are full freight.
We opted for RD to see if other schools would give an acceptance and any FA. He got a competitive FA but not a matching FA, on showing a much high FA from a near peer school.</p>
<p>@24, 25
Correction, we Were full freight. DS Has long graduated. He,s off to SF to visit his roommates and friends. Because he can.</p>
<p>Ultimarely the choice will be Its About the Money, or Not. If Stanford offers 2k more than CMU~ will you go to Stanfort or go to CMU?</p>
<p>Next scenario, You say, that’s nice of Leland, What can Andrews do? Where cmu now stands behind their policy and match Leland’s offer. You now have to make a decision that compares whatever criteria you have, Except for that Money part.</p>
<p>Suppose you get a 100% tuition or fullride at a reknown public. The chances are that CMU cannot give a free edcation where that aid can given to many.</p>
<p>Suppose you are full pay, like DS. It is unlikely that there will be any aid, other than a token merit aid. For fullpayers, this token merit aid will not be of great consequence in the final decision but it may be the tipping factor.</p>
<p>Finally the only guarantee that you have is that you apply to many schools…which are doing anyway-Right?</p>
<p>I don’t think we can apply to any other school. Comparison wise CMU is the best school in our chosen field, and matched by MIT and Cornell (3/4) other Ivy leagues do not really have specific courses.</p>
<p>I am not sure if I would be getting any FA package from CMU, although they do have the estimator information from us. Therefore I am in a quandary</p>
<p>longprime…which school(s) would you refer to as a ‘near peer school’ of CMU?</p>
<p>Don’t understand ,DKDTXS.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A near peer, would be a school that comes close and would attract a student that would be a A-, a matching school or a near reach.</p>
<p>LongPrime,</p>
<p>Your answer in #30 is very interesting. If I understand correctly you are saying that you got FA from a school one tier below CMU and CMU responded with some FA but not what the other school offerred …is that correct? Would Lehigh or Lafayette be considered a near peer school?</p>
<p>CMU peer institutions in CMU eyes are:</p>
<p>[Peer</a> Institutions-Institutional Research & Analysis - Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/ira/infox/external/peer.html]Peer”>Peer Institutions - Institutional Research and Analysis - Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning - Carnegie Mellon University)</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology
Cornell University
Duke University
Emory University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rice University
Stanford University
University of Pennsylvania
Washington University in St. Louis</p>
<p>jerseysho,
don’t know. The point is to get an monetary award, non public if possible, at the best possible university. It is your wild card. This is the reason for RD vs ED, because this is the one piece of information that CMU does not know about. CMU even states that if financial aid is required, RD gives you the opportunity to entertain other offers, and which CMU will match peers. For fullpayers, ED offers the acceptance, no aid, and no chance to decline. Any school would love ED’ers.</p>
<p>The Other private school, is pretty good, we would’ve been proud of his attendance, and he would have a boatload of remaining UGMA after college, offered 50% tuition. </p>
<p>If you were CMU, looking at this candidate as an academic success and future success, would a 1/6 tuition incentive be a worthwhile investment vs losing this candidate?
If you were CMU, viewing this candidate as a profit center, would a 1/6 tuition investment, be better than offering another candidate even more money for that matriculation. How fast can this student repay CMU in future alumni donations and what is the value of this investment in terms of Goodwill? If that candidate does not accept the 1/6th discount, then the issue IS about the money, and any more money would be buying the student. Buying students can only continue if you have enough funds to do so and could eventually endanger all and everything.</p>
<p>After DS acceptance, I liken the experience to buying a new car. The Dealer would more likely offer a discount to an affluent customer than to a customer who needs financing.</p>
<p>^@longprime:</p>
<p>Full tuition from ED only applies for higher income, full paying families. As you mentioned, there are benefits for RD. However, ED also has its benefits. For a “reach” student, admissions from ED is generally easier than RD. While CMU’s ED acceptance rate is actually lower than RD, do keep in mind that the applicant pool for ED is probably full of reach students like myself, while the RD applicant pool will be stronger with some students choosing CMU as a safety. Also, CMU can afford to accept more during RD because they do not meet full demonstrated financial need and know that they will have a lower retention rate of RD admitted students vs RD attending students. ED also has the benefit where CMU promises to meet full demonstrated financial need.</p>
<p>So, in my <em>opinion</em>,
RD: Good for higher income families because they can leverage with financial aid offers from other schools. Good for smart students who will get accepted into CMU’s peer institutions.</p>
<p>ED: Good for lower income families because CMU will meet demonstrated financial need. Good for reach students who may not even get accepted if they apply RD.</p>
<p>If you plan on doing RD and negotiating financial packages from different schools, keep in mind that you need to get accepted into all of those “different schools” as well.</p>
<p>The best way to get some solid, reliable information would be to submit a free and simple early financial estimate form at CMU’s website. I chose ED applicant on the form and they sent me two estimates, one for ED and one for RD. The ED one gave me far more aid. Based on the RD and ED estimates that CMU sent me, had I applied RD and been admitted, I would not have been able to attend. Obviously, different students have different financial situations and academic standings. Some will benefit doing RD and some will benefit doing ED.</p>
<p>Spaghetti
you viewing the Picture from only the front. CMU see the picture from the rear and from the front. </p>
<p>This is the school of John Nash.
You’ll see the argument enlighten later. When you begin to see the transparency in CMU,s objectives, drop me a pm.</p>