<p>Hi, I applied ED to Calpoly for EE major and I recently found out that UCLA is offering me more money that SLO is. If i attended UCLA, i would pay about 3000 dollars less than if i would if went to SLO. I plan on calling financial aid office and asking them to match UCLA’s offer and pay me about 3000 dollars more. Does anyone know if this is possible and if it’s a good idea? thanks!!</p>
<p>Bad idea.</p>
<p>ED is binding. If you call Cal Poly and ask for more money, they’re going to ask why you didn’t pull all your other apps immediately on hearing about your Cal Poly financial aid. They might even think twice about your acceptance. Do you really want to take that risk? Did you not know that Cal Poly’s ED is binding?</p>
<p>I heard that it was binding but you can get out b/c of financial reasons ?? If i’m wrong then ill definitely no call lol</p>
<p>I think you should ask. I don’t know that it will change anything, but it won’t hurt. Not sure what kind of aid you got, but when you apply through FAFSA, it is one application that you list every school you are applying to on. Each school develops its aid package based on the FAFSA application, and then looks at other factors (that may include additional applications or not and are often unique to each school) to make final decisions. It is understood that part of your school selection process is cost and the amount of aid you get (merit and/or need based). That is why all schools send out the financial aid and merit scholarship information before the deadline to submit your intent to register. They will not question why you are still considering other financial packages - they hear it all the time. They may not be able to do anything to improve their offer, but then again, they might. One of the schools my D would like to attend did not give as much support as another school. So, she is going to ask them to reconsider. If they do, great. If they don’t, at least she knows she tried.</p>
<p>One drawback of ED is that you lose the ability to compare financial aid packages. You’ve traded the chance to compare aid with the opportunity to have an early notification of acceptance and the (possible) bump in admissions percentages.</p>
<p>While it’s true that you can decline your ED acceptance if you cannot make the finances work, and this is a legitimate reason for declining, you can’t negotiate for more aid based on offers from other schools. Your ED application says that Cal Poly is your top choice and you agree to attend if the finances work for you. They either do or they don’t. If they do, then you withdraw all of your applications from other schools. If they don’t, then you can ask for a reconsideration of your offer, but basing that request on aid given by some other school is really really not cool.</p>
<p>Having said all of that, and without knowing the details of your aid, CSUs are very short on money and you’re unlikely to get anything more.</p>
<p>oh, ok. Maybe i misunderstood the ED. Thanks for clarifying! I will just accept the financial aid given then.</p>
<p>alving107—my post below isn’t necessarily meant for you. It’s just a statement in *general *for those who apply ED and who might not realize what they’re getting into. :)</p>
<p>I don’t understand why students apply ED to a school they aren’t 100% positive they want to attend. It’s supposed to be a binding contract and a *lot *of thought should go into it before applying early. You’re basically taking away a spot from someone else who *really *feels this is their dream school. There are other schools who offer EA (Early Admission) such as Stanford. That’s different from ED. You just cannot apply EA to other schools at the same time, however if you get accepted to Stanford AND Harvard, as an example, you aren’t committed to Stanford.</p>
<p>ED is not the same. Once you commit to a school through Early Decision and get accepted, then you’re expected to attend. Like vballmom said, there are certain situations such as not enough financial aid that will excuse you. Or a grave illness. But, if you wanted to compare what other colleges will give you, you should have applied Regular Decision and waited for your FA packages to come through. I also see this for kids who also are still on the fence or don’t think they have a chance for another school such as UCLA. So they go ahead and apply ED to Cal Poly or where ever and then ae surprised to be accepted to UCLA or the other school. They suddenly realize they might have made a mistake and should have waited RD.</p>