<p>How is it? I heard it wasn't that generous, but hopefully not ridiculous like NYU's financial aid..right?</p>
<p>I can only speak from our experience. CMU went by the FAFSA EFC and filled our need with a mixture of loans and grants. However, our EFC was much more than we could really afford and they expected us to take additional loans to cover that. My son had EXCELLENT credentials (pm me if you want to know specifics), and was offered only $500/year (that is five hundred) "presidential scholarship" as merit aid. </p>
<p>I believe that one of two things happened. The first possibility is that they knew CMU was his first choice and therefore didn't offer any enticements to attend. The other possibility that I can see is that they saw no need pay for another middle class suburban kid who is not URM and not from a geographic area they were looking to recruit. Every other college my son applied to offered MUCH more merit aid. We were all rather hurt and insulted, and because of the poor financial aid, he is attending elsewhere. In fact, some of our high school personnel are now suggesting to certain students not to bother applying to CMU if they need any financial aid. </p>
<p>I think it's worth a try, though. Maybe as a woman you will have better luck.</p>
<p>We I guess were lucky. CMU was generous with my son's fin aid...they covered about half with mostly grants, some loans though but they are manageable. This was compared to Johns Hopkins which offered him merely about 3000 in loans per year no grants, and BC (honors) which offered him 2500 grant and some loans. Basically CMU was in line with son's financial safety schools which also offered large grants with some loans where basically half the costs were covered.</p>
<p>We also appealed his aid package and they upped his grant 2500 per year. So I'll agree lfk's son and others didn't get a workable package, but some do... they were more than fair with us.</p>
<p>Lfk, that's terrible. I also heard that CMU is very stingy with their aid also from other parts of this forum.</p>
<p>Yes, we were all disappointed. We did go through the appeal process, but only got a tiny increase. Also, I was surprised that after several college faculty and representatives said that CMU would be perfect for DS, and we agreed, that the financial aid people were not so nice. To me and DH, they came off as slightly uncaring/annoyed/hostile/insulting about our seeking additional aid. Oh well, at least DS is happy where he is, and has all A's so far. There's no benefit in looking back. The only advice I can offer is that with "enrollment management" at work, there is not necessarily any correlation between adcom enthusiasm and FA generosity.</p>
<p>CMU is one of those schools that will match financial aid from "competitive "colleges. The key is that you must be made an offer from a college that they think is competitive. If you do get a good aid offer from another college, you need to immediately call up CMU and ask for more aid.</p>
<p>After the fact, I found the specific list of colleges that CMU considers to be their peers. Unfortunately, this list was not included in any FA info that we got. It certainly could help future applicants with a strategy to get better FA. For example, if my son had to do it over again, I'd be sure he applied to several of these colleges even if he had no intention of attending. A nice award from some institutions on this list would increase your leverage for the CMU FA appeals process.</p>
<p>Agree with Lkf's post.....D got a very nice merit scholarship offer from CMU, with a note telling her that they would up the ante if she could provide documentation of better offers from PRIVATE schools only. We sent her eye-popping offer from our state flagship anyway...CMU said, "Sorry...no dice."</p>
<p>Our mistake was in her not applying to another small private uni where she was eligible for a full tuition scholarship and loved the art program and facilities, but hated the campus and the - in her eyes - too small/rural/nothing-fun-to-do town. Should have had her apply and take the offer to CMU to match, or at least up their own offer.</p>
<p>I don't think the IRA peer institutions have anything to do with financial aid. CMU is not trying to steal kids away from Princeton or MIT. For aid comparison, the schools have to be private, can't compare apples with oranges. We faxed CMU aid packages from 2 private schools, neither on that list. I remember one was Boston U I can't remember the other. </p>
<p>Unfortunately CMU competes with some of the best schools in the country, with a much smaller endowment. Part of the problem is it's a young school, only came into its present form well after WW II.</p>
<p>S applied to a lot of schools incl a number of financial safeties (BU was one) and I guess that strategy worked.</p>
<p>If you are female, then this will help. You must view their FA policy and practices. </p>
<p>Our S listed CMU (does not accept NMS) not as primary school because he wanted any merit awards to primary (accepts NMS). Primary aspires to be like CMU and getting a good reputation but not in top 10 peer group. Primary offered $17k, CMU countered with $5k, take-it or leave-it. Tough choice on our part but S decision already made at prior to acceptance & before any awards. </p>
<p>"enrollment management" worked in our favor, may not work in yours. All schools practice enrollment management is some form. See parents forum, "Nail in ..."</p>
<p>Have strong Plan B and Plan C. You'd be just as happy. He is.</p>
<p>S has many friends at BU. Apparently his HS ihas a good rep at BU. He also visited BU-Boston, immediately after finals. Had a blast.</p>
<p>Here was my experience with CMU aid:</p>
<p>I filled out the aid calculator, and was somewhat pleased with the results. I figured I could "make it work" since I'm an engineering major</p>
<p>I aplied (at the deadline) and without doing anything else. I didn't visit, didn't interview, nothing. I assumed I'd get in becuase of high stats (which I had)</p>
<p>I got accepted, and was a little dissapointed when my financial aid was lower than the aid calculator amount BUT I faxed them back a better offer from a low-quality (super-safety auto-admit) private school, and they matched it in two days. I ended up a little better than my aid calculator amount and sent in my paperwork the next day.</p>
<p>They ended up meeting my EFC with $2000 in work-study and whatever the freshman subsidized loan amount is. Of the rest, about half is merit and half is need aid (which at CMU is quasi-merit). Outside scholarships mean I'm not using my work-study or loans this year, but I don't lose any of my grants.</p>
<p>It was still a little more than my flagship public, but totally worth it.</p>
<p>What school did you send them the other offer from?</p>
<p>a lot of cmu aid is merit based. i had a 0 EFC on FAFSA and had to take a lot of loans out to get here. The school offered me about 15000 a year, but keep in mind TOTAL cost of attendence is closer to 45 a year. it depends on a lot of things, and often times they change your fin aid once you get here. add money here or call it something else. if u get better aid elsewhere, be sure to let them know. if they accept u they want u, and chances are, they'll be willing to match+ the amount!</p>
<p>Financial aid hates me. I had a 535 EFC on the FAFSA, but CMU gave me a total of $6000 in aid per year. Most of that was loans, too. I had also applied to Case Western, which is a pretty good school, and gotten merit aid that amounted to me paying $500 a year to go there. I sent that aid offer to CMU on appeal, and they didn't change anything. As a result, my family is paying about $12000 of my tuition this year, and the rest is loans.</p>
<p>CMU's endowment is very small compared to most private universities, so don't expect generous financial aid.</p>
<p>What is the maximum aid (merit) that anyone has received from CMU?</p>
<p>Someone I know (valedictorian, 4.0 in HS, 1600, bunches of computer-related research before coming to CMU, CS major) got half tuition (I think) on merit. CMU doesn't throw money around.</p>
<p>(sorry, duplicate post)</p>
<p>If you get accepted ED,they guaruntee to meet everything except the EFC, right? My family will hardly be able to pay anything, so I'm relying a lot on aid. Will I be screwed over with a lot of loans? I think my EFC will be around 500.</p>
<p>They garauntee to meet every bit of THEIR EFC, not FAFSA's, not College Board's, and I believe that much of that will be in the form of loans.</p>