This past year some of the ivies would not match finanicial aid offers for my students. Yale said they only match Harvard and Princeton offers which was terible since my student had a better offer from Brown. Both Yale and Brown would not match the incredible financial aid offer my student had from John Hopkins. My student did not match with Questbridge and my student was incredibly low-income (only $15K annually). Trust me I talked to Brown and Yale until I turned blue and could not get them to match other offers.
At least that kid had no bad options. Good aid at Johns Hopkins and Brown? Count me in. What marginal life difference is going to be made by going to Yale instead of Brown? At a certain point…
But yeah I also take issue with the assertion that “you can negotiate with Ivies 100%”
Unfortunately that’s just not the reality outside of HYPSM.
@CourtneyThurston I was actually very surprised that Yale would not negotiate with the Brown offer. They kept on telling me the schools were not “equivalent.” In the case of this particular student-even a $1K difference in financial aid made a huge difference. Bloomberg created an incredible scholarship program at Hopkins for low-income students like my student and I really wish my student took that offer since everything and I mean everything was covered. With this particular student it wasn’t a “marginal life difference” that mattered, as a URM there were some issues that made a “big” difference to my student and that is why my student selected Yale over the other two schools despite Yale having the “worse” financial aid of the three. Eventually at the end of summer I “talked” Yale into increasing some aid for things like winter clothing because I found out about some specialized programs.
For the OP-if aid at Cornell is not as high as you hope and you are low-income, be sure to ask if there are any specialized programs. Since my student was coming from a warm climate and needed winter clothes- my student’s college had a “warm clothing” program for low-income students and that helped increase the aid enough for my student to purchase a coat, boots and other items needed for college. I went through and basically nit picked for any dollar I could find. Good luck to you.
Negotiate means two parties are at different points and talk to reach an agreement. It doesn’t mean that Yale just meets Brown’s offer. You were negotiating, you just weren’t convincing the other party that you had a case for more of their money.
I don’t think any schools should match another’s offer. The schools claim that they calculate the need under their formula, so why should that formula be changed because another school also offered admission? They don’t do it for ED students who might need even more money than your student. I get pointing out that ‘maybe, Mr. Yale, you didn’t see that this student has no shoes’ but to say that Brown’s formula is different so therefore Yale should change its award doesn’t make sense to me. Brown would have been good enough if Yale had rejected the student.
Brown has made no secret of its commitment to low income/first gen students (which I presume your student is). Under President Simmons and now President Paxson there have been targeted fundraising among the various alumni communities specifically to fund this effort. Yale has had more generous financial aid (in most cases) vs. Brown for a few decades now across the board, but this initiative is specifically to make Brown the top choice among talented low income kids who come from communities where going away to college is not the norm.
I think things have strayed off topic. Why has the discussion evolved into a debate about FA matching? The OP is an ED applicant-match with what? First,OP never applied for aid at Cornell to begin, nor have they been accepted! Second when you apply ED you don’t get to apply other places and use other offers for leverage.
Not that OP has bothered to come back, but let’s focus on getting the FAFSA and CSS done before assuming the aid at Cornell is an issue. Also, how about we wait to see if OP even gets accepted.
Well since Cornell decisions were released yesterday and OP didn’t check in I am guessing it was not an acceptance and the crisis has been averted?
I would think that there might still be a crisis if the QB match and Cornell ED didn’t work out?
What other options at meet full need schools does OP have?
But for now filing FAFSA and CSS profile for schools applied to is important.
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“I would think that there might still be a crisis if the QB match and Cornell ED didn’t work out?”
This. OP, please look here if you haven’t already: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/