<p>how generous is cmu when it comes to giving financial aid? did anyone here get a full ride?</p>
<p>far from it, they met like 80% of my need, and thats after I submitted the re-appraisal form, and was approved for more $$</p>
<p>basically, I'll end up with more debt than the current administration</p>
<p>my package was terrible.</p>
<p>i have 20k of unmet need.</p>
<p>Not generous. In fact, if you need financial aid, be sure to make alternate college plans early so you have some options.</p>
<p>CMU is very stingy, with both merit and need-based aid.</p>
<p>I only personally know two people who've gotten significant amounts of aid (half tuition or better). One is a member of an URM (under-represented minority) and the other had worked on several high-flying research projects in high school (he's actually a CC member). Basically, unless you're a minority or a serious prodigy, you'll be lucky to get any merit aid at all.</p>
<p>CMU does not guarantee meeting 100% of need. They came nowhere close to that for me my first year (giving me a $950 grant when my FAFSA EFC was 535). Now my family's financial situation has changed and they're paying 1/4 tuition for me. However, I would bet my entire award that nobody else is in the same financial situation as my family, so I'm not a good representative sample.</p>
<p>I'm planning on applying to CMU next fall. My family makes less than $30,000 and the replies about CMU's financial aid doesn't sound too good. </p>
<p>What is a probable amount I will have to take out in loans(I just want an idea b/c I'm a little unfamiliar with aid packages)? I'm planning on playing soccer and track if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>for my family my EFC was around 26k. they gave me around 15k in scholarships/grants and $2500 work study. $2625 in federal stafford loan. the other $1000 was in a CMU gate loan which my dad declined and said we're paying out of pocket.</p>
<p>JJS9: there's no way to tell. CMU seems to be unpredictable as well as stingy when giving out financial aid awards. All you can really do is apply and hope for the best, and maybe appeal the decision when you get it (you send in a competing offer from another school).</p>
<p>Yeah, the most important thing is that you have a financial safety school if CMU gives you a bad package. I think they do guarantee meeting 100% of demonstrated need if you're an EA applicant and accepted in the early round. However, demonstrated need and how much you think you need are always different things.</p>
<p>It's worth appealing financial aid offers, but don't count on getting more that way.</p>
<p>When we attended group financial aid meetings and eventually appealed our (lack of) fa package, the financial aid people were not very nice. Those we dealt with seemed arrogant, inconvenienced and completely unsympathetic to our situation. End result: we could not afford it and son went elsewhere. Their attitude: too bad, the next kid will be happy to pay.</p>
<p>Just our personal experience.</p>
<p>Financial aid in general is an unpleasant business, made worse here by the fact that you're probably not going to get much. Most people will probably graduate from here with quite a bit of student loan payment facing them. Sad but true.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. I may apply EA and will be applying to Case Western also. Hopefully they give me a nice aid package, so I can try to get CMU to match it.</p>
<p>Don't count on CMU matching a Case Western package. The only reason I think I got money on appeal is that they were short girls in CS...</p>
<p>JJS9: I got full tuition from Case Western and appealed with it to no effect. I think CMU doesn't view Case as a competing institution.</p>
<p>I think that CMU knows that lots of people (myself included, as I did make this choice) would choose CMU with no money over Case Western with a bunch of money.</p>
<p>Our son got $20K per year from Case, and CMU couldn't care less. Their idea of matching was a couple thousand dollars. Of course, they were not short on male applicants in engineering. Then I thought he might get something for admission to a fine arts program, but perhaps they just figure you should be grateful to be one of the chosen ones. </p>
<p>Even though we think of Case as being a competitor, I don't think CMU does. If we realized this, our son would have applied to CMU's perceived peers in order to jockey for better financial aid. I sure wish they had told us this tidbid of info on one of our early visits. You can find the list here:
<a href="http://www.cmu.edu/ira/peer_institutions.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.cmu.edu/ira/peer_institutions.htm</a></p>
<p>Heh...I applied to three of those peer institutions, got rejected from two and got zero financial aid from the other. Go figure.</p>
<p>My appeal was with an offer from USC, and I got 1/2 of what USC offered. I was accepted to two of their peers, and rejected by one, but they didn't give me any money (though Rice is cheaper to begin with).</p>
<p>i had no idea cmu had this peer institutiion thing...cuz i was planning on applying to cornell and penn anyways...what exactly does it mean? do you have a better chance, benefits, anything at all if you apply to them?</p>
<p>Having been through the financial aid struggle, I think the "peer institution" thing is a way for cmu to limit the number of people appealing their financial aid package. Throughout our many visits and meetings, no one ever mentioned that competing offers had to be from the few schools they considered to be peer institutions, much less offering a list of those schools. Consider yourself lucky to find out now, as you can adjust your strategy appropriately.</p>