<p>Does CMU give good merit scholarships and financial aid to students like me? My goods are over [url=<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=75370%5Dhere%5B/url">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=75370]here[/url</a>]. Thanks!</p>
<p>CMU does give some half and full tuition merit scholarships, and in some ways seems rather random about giving them out. Make sure you interview if you want one; everyone I know who's gotten one interviewed. I didn't. :( Also, you can appeal their financial aid and merit aid offer if you have a better offer from another PRIVATE school.</p>
<p>The story I've heard is that CMU doesn't have the deep pockets of some schools. They're much more careful about how they spend what they have and tend to offer less for their more popular programs where they can fill their list without merit aid.</p>
<p>YMMV</p>
<p>CMU is still a somewhat young university, so it has a much smaller endowment by comparison to - say - Rice at $6 billion, as of a couple years ago. Therefore, it has less money to offer in aid.</p>
<p>From our experience, no (but it can't hurt to try!). CMU offered by far the worst financial aid package (merit and need) of any college on the list. Maybe if you are URM or from an underrepresented state, that might help. Case, which I see was on the above mentioned thread, gave awesome aid. Many others were somewhere in the middle. May I suggest that you try to win some local scholarships? Many have a community service component along with academic merit or need, and being an eagle scout should help with that. Good luck.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is stingy. They don't have a lot of money to give in aid, so it's understandable. They give merit aid, but don't count on it. Like somebody said above, you can appeal their decision but don't count on that to help either.</p>
<p>In short, if money is an issue, you'll want to have backups. Even if you get into CMU, you might not be able to afford it.</p>
<p>What colleges are out there that offer good computer engineering programs and are like CMU but can "hook me up"? Are there any colleges that meet 100% of need with minimal loans, have a good computer engineering department, and will more than likely accept me? Thanks for all of the information, everyone.</p>
<p>Well, part of the problem is not whether or not they meet 100% of need, but if you can't pay as much as they think you should be able to, which is a rather large issue for most middle class families.</p>
<p>RPI... whose name I can't actually spell.. might be worth looking at. Also, as always, I must plug USC (Southern California) because they were very generous for me with merit aid (1/2 tuition, plus some more and a guaranteed research thing) and it seemed very, very well run. They're not the top of the top or anything, but they just built a new engineering building, have quite a bit of research going on, and are trying really hard to attract good students. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is top ranked among public schools for engineering; UT is also pretty highly ranked and A&M isn't bad and seemed to give out boatloads of money to my in-state friends. I personally dislike the school, but that's because it's not... compatible with me.</p>
<p>I'm poor. My EFC doesn't concern me too much because my brother is currently in college, and it was very low for him. Thus, I'm trying my best to look for 100% colleges because (quite literally) I can't pay for any college out-of-pocket. I can't get the RPI medal because my school isn't signed up, and USC is in California. I can't say that's a bad thing, but it'll be difficult on my mom in terms of transportation. I'm avoiding out of state publics like that locust plague (I'm from Ohio).</p>
<p>Case = $$$. You also should check into the honors program at Ohio State. I think the University of Cincinnati also has a good computer engineering program.</p>
<p>Case will give you tons of money. They pretty much gave me full tuition; I'd have been paying about 500 bucks a year. It's quite easy to get into Case and they have fairly strong academics, so it's definitely worth a look.</p>