<p>Do call them.</p>
<p>Will do. Thanks!</p>
<p>@NorthwesternDad - I think that’s where the problem lies. My Dad has quite some money in his Saving’s account and miscellaneous investments and he does not have any sort of retirement fund. I think the NU fin aid office considered that he could use these savings towards my college education.</p>
<p>I have written a e-mail to them(on of the admissions directors) explaining circumstances and asking whom I should call to clarify on stuff… lets see what happens.</p>
<p>Hoping for the best.</p>
<p>@rishav17, in the US, we have a seperate retirement fund - 401 K, IRA, etc and this is not that clear cut in India. May be, your parents can consult a local tax/fund consultant to see if they can transfer a part of these savings to their retirement account so that there is no ambiguity. Always provide proper documentation to authenticate everything. Good Luck!</p>
<p>This probably won’t apply for @rishav17, but 2 years ago when we learned we weren’t getting any financial aid for D I was in total shock, and was convinced that we couldn’t afford it and that it was not worth that much (and of course she had full ride offers elsewhere like most NU kids). </p>
<p>Two years later we have found we could easily make the needed lifestyle adjustments and could not be happier that she chose NU.</p>
<p>It seems that NU’s FA calculator won’t tell you what you WANT to pay, but in our case it really did reflect what we are able to afford.</p>
<p>Good luck everyone!</p>
<p>Just got a nice phone call from Northwestern offering to answer my son’s questions etc.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, son has already sent in his notice that he won’t be attending. FA came in and NU will cost 15k/annually more than his other top choice.</p>
<p>Wishing NU was a bit more competitive with FA but it is what it is.
Good luck everyone.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In general, elite schools are not as competitive with merit aid (since all admitted students have oodles of merit plus they don’t need to be), but can be very generous with need-based aid. NU’s aid beat the pants off Berkeley OOS for S this year. :)</p>
<p>Best of luck to your S!</p>
<p>The cheaper school was University of Chicago (
running and ducking)</p>
<p>No merit aid, just a different assessment of need I guess.</p>
<p>Jamiecakes, I’ve never quite understood people who like both schools. They are pretty different. Chicago is more bookish, less athletics, smaller, very little partying, etc. and NU is essentially the opposite. The only similarity I see is that they are both elite schools in/near Chicago. But good luck to your son.</p>
<p>^ I didn’t really think that a whole lot of partying went on at Northwestern either…</p>
<p>Does anyone know if NU typically matches financial aid packages from peer schools? (I’m specifically thinking of Washu…)</p>
<p>Icepulse, More partying at NU than at Chicago, I assure you. There may not be as much as public school, but there is at least some.</p>
<p>Deepblue, I don’t think that they match packages, no.</p>
<p>I’m hoping the same thing as you deepblue =D Johns Hopkins for me though.</p>
<p>Ahhh well here’s to hoping they will :)</p>
<p>It can’t hurt to try for a matching aid package. Best of luck to you all!!</p>
<p>I also don’t see many similarities between NU and UChicago beyond academic excellence and (broadly speaking) geography. Both of our kids applied to NU, and neither one had any interest in applying to UChicago.</p>
<p>crimsonstained</p>
<p>His criteria was a nice campus, near or in a city with a good math program and that met full need. NU and Chicago both fit that criteria. He is a kid that is more bookish/nerdy but gets along with all kinds of people so that wasn’t a concern for him.</p>
<p>While I think college culture is important, kids are pretty adaptable and can find their niche in almost any school, especially a big one like NU.</p>
<p>@jamiecakes - The two campuses, as well as the two student bodies, seem very different to me, so it’s interesting that your S likes both of them. </p>
<p>I doubt many would describe NU’s undergrad population of 8,000 as “big” when schools like Berkeley have over 25,000 undergrads. But I do agree that at NU most kids can find their niche as it’s a famously well-rounded group.</p>
<p>Hope your S loves his college years. Exciting times!!</p>
<p>My son was accepted at both Chicago and NU. The differences we saw were geography (urban vs. suburban), intercollegiate athletics (D3 vs D1), and curriculum (core vs. distribution), none of which really mattered to us. He ended up choosing NU because Chicago doesn’t have a clinical psychology program and uses that as an excuse not to offer abnormal/psychopathology, even though other schools in its peer group do. I think he would have been happy at either place.</p>
<p>I don’t think NU matches financial aid from other schools. I called the FA Office to try to get them to adjust my EFC to match that of another school (where it was lower) and they said they couldn’t do anything about it.</p>