got into early decision, but no financial aid. what shoud i do?

<p>Hi, i got into early decision cornell, but i received a letter saying I'm not qualified for any financial aid. If I do not receive any money at all, i dont think i can afford the tuition. I'm trying to appeal, but I doubt it would work because there hasn't been any changes in our family's income. Deadline for other college applications is approaching, so I really don't know if I should just apply to other schools or just rely on Cornell. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm looking for private scholarships but they don't help much...</p>

<p>appeal and apply to other schools. then wait till April to hear from them</p>

<p>should I ask Cornell first if my decision can be postponed?</p>

<p>You know that Cornell won’t give you any more aid (or a lil if any)</p>

<p>You need aid to go to college</p>

<p>=> You won’t be going to Cornell. I’d focus on applying to other schools. It doesn’t really matter what permissions Cornell gives you, cuz it seems that Cornell tuition = infeasible</p>

<p>If i would like to withdraw, what information do I need to give to cornell?</p>

<p>Here’s a long but useful thread</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/826733-decline-early-decision-acceptance-offer.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/826733-decline-early-decision-acceptance-offer.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I am a parent. First of all, you and your parents should have known you wouldn’t be qualified for aid BEFORE you applied to Cornell ED. There are calculators you could use to figure out approximately what your EFC is. If your calculated EFC is 45,000 and expected 5,000 as aid from Cornell, I think your family could some how come up with 5000 for you to go to Cornell (summer job, work study on campus). There is no way if your EFC is 40,000 or less that Cornell would deny you aid. If your parents are like my sister (with annual income greater than half mill and still thought her son should get FA), then you really have no ground for turning down ED.</p>

<p>Lets assume that it’s a real hardship for your parents to afford Cornell, even if they have high income, then you will need to contact Cornell to get released from the ED agreement. I would apply to your RD schools now. Here is one thing to keep in mind, if you can’t afford Cornell, then you should forget about all its peer schools or higher ranking schools - pretty much all need based aid schools. To get merit aid you will need to go down further in ranking. Many of those schools do share their their ED lists. I would contact Cornell before you send in all of those RD applications.</p>

<p>I am sounding a bit harsh here, but it is a spot that could have gone to another student. I am not in the camp that your parents didn’t know they wouldn’t be qualified for aid.</p>

<p>It is a bit difficult to think that someone who’s income is too high to qualify for any financial aid was caught off guard by that decision. I am also a parent and checking what your expected family contribution would be (estimated) is all over the web, as well as many printed documents as the poster above states.
we did not qualify for aid either, but I will tell you that our son (and his parents) would have been really happy to get one of those ED acceptances. And no, we would not be able to pull it off without sacrifice and some loans… but we are talking Cornell here, …Ivy League. I look at people who will drop 30-50k on a car that drops to zero value in a short period of time without a second thought. Education is an investment. I told my son to work hard, get into the best college he can and we will find a way to make it happen somehow. </p>

<p>Its so painful to see posts from ED accepted people here who are looking to bail out of it… your smart enough to get into such an awesome school… FIGURE IT OUT SOMEHOW… don’t quit now.</p>

<p>^^^ I agree w/ Justhedad. Get a loan. But if you have other schools in mind, apply now. It’ll only cost like ~70 bucks an application and you’ll have more options in Apr to figure thigns out</p>

<p>Somehow I don’t think you’re gonna be able to get out of that ED agreement quite that easily. It’s hard to imagine a family that doesn’t qualify for aid would have enough hardship not to be able to afford Cornell at all. I would try to make it work. I was in a similar boat, but my parents were willing to pay half, and I would foot the rest of the bill with loans.</p>