<p>Hi, I received my financial package from cmu and it was only 37k. I am trying to increase this. Can I use my 47k offer from RPI to make cmu reconsider their offer? If yes, how much more will they give me?</p>
<p>What other universities can i use? Can i use Case Western or Uni of Rochester?</p>
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<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>You’ll have to call to find out. They matched RPI’s offer for me years ago when I was deciding on which school to go to; hopefully they’ll do the same for you.</p>
<p>You can also try with Case and UR.</p>
<p>keep us informed please.
I have a guesstimate but would like to confirm my guess.</p>
<p>RacinReaver-
Part of my daughter’s offer from RPI is the Rensselaer Medal. It is renewable each year, regardless of financial need. All of her offer from CMU is need-based. Any chance the RPI offer could convince CMU to make part of the award be renewable without need? (merit/scholarship vs. need-based/grant)</p>
<p>When I did this last year, CMU matched my son’s lowest offer from the other schools.</p>
<p>I do not think CMU would change the type of award from need to merit, they seem to reserve their merit for top students who will not qualify for financial aid, but cannot afford the price tag of a CMU education.</p>
<p>HoComom, I’m pretty sure my extra money was added as a merit scholarship, though it’s been almost ten years now so I really can’t say for sure.</p>
<p>Merit aid is rare now. Most seems to be financially aid-based. S had good merit offers from competing art schools and we shared this with CMU. However, one look at our financial aid forms made any hope of aid go up in smoke. CMU was quite frank about this. they also said, with striking honesty, that it also depended on how their enrollment numbers shaped up…if talented art students were turning them down right and left then my son would have, perhaps, had a little merit aid to sweeten the deal. However, they had good yield rates for accepted art students and pulled in plenty of ringers (national award winners) and were able to reserve the available funds to help students with financial issues. Brutal but honest truth…there is some merit aid but it is used sparingly and mainly is used for attracting particular students to fill enrollment gaps–schools, majors, special interests, women/minority enrollment in particular majors and for really outstandingly gifted kids. So…we may, with the same income/savings, actually see merit aid for our D if she applies and is accepted to do ME/robotics/art as a female, hispanic with sky high grades and scores. In no case would we expect much…perhaps enough to pay for that crazy meal plan! </p>
<p>I am having to admit that there are unexpected benefits in having S with no CMU merit or financial aid…he has become very, very appreciative of what CMU is costing and becoming 1) incredibly frugal and 2) intent on getting as much out of CMU education as he can. I had a LOT of concern about his choice of using his entire outside scholarship and savings on CMU when he could have set aside much of this for graduate school. It is also costing us a fair amount and he knows we will not be available to help with graduate school if he chooses to go that route. </p>
<p>However, if he had gone to a full ride or other school offering a lot of merit aid where he would have been less challenged and less painful economically, I wonder whether he would have worked as hard or become aware about the high costs of private college education. It will be impossible to say at the end whether CMU was worth the cost, but it has not been simply a drain on resources.</p>