<p>OK, so today S2 got a letter from CMU essentially inviting us to appeal his FA offfer. To summarize, we were invited to share what other schools are offering and, if he has a better offer fron another school, they will consider upping the ante. I have NEVER heard of such a thing. Has that happened to anyone else with another school? </p>
<p>USC is his first choice and offered him a better deal anyway so we aren't pursuing it. But I just thought that was a pretty nice gesture on CMU's part. I could understand if we had called to appeal his package or something, but we didn't.</p>
<p>With offers from USC, Cornell, Berkeley, UVA, Michigan, USC and Carnegie Mellon - I have to say - the CMU financial aid package was bizzarre!! Absolutely nothing!!! As in zero!! My son has scholarship offers and attractive packages from all the above schools - and we almost thought the CMU financial aid package was a misprint!!! 
He is thrilled to be committing to USC anyway (as it is also his number 1 choice)- but I hope we get that same opportunity to give CMU some feedback!!</p>
<p>Interesting, legacymom. CMU has always had a policy that invited students to appeal their FA–it’s even on their website (or was). The catch is they will only try to match FinAid offered by peer institutions, and they don’t spell out which universities are in their “league.” It is an interesting ploy. Instead of offering top FA to begin with, they wait and see if anyone wants the student more. But to put it in a good light, they do try to make a competitive offer–allowing some students who would put CMU first on their list to attend.</p>
<p>Like all schools, I imagine, CMU has those that fall in the “wish list” top of their admitted pool and those that fall a little lower. I wonder if they send that offer to reevaluate FinAid to every admit. As it turns out, both of my sons were admitted to CMU. S1 was offered a merit scholarship, but we did not qualify for finaid. </p>
<p>Interested to hear if others got similar letters.</p>
<p>Madbean,</p>
<p>I don’t think they were doing anything special for him…my guess is they sent it to everyone. I just think it is a little odd.</p>
<p>Happy Easter everyone!</p>