Harvard has been my dream school for forever, and I was accepted EA into the Class of 2022!! Beyond blessed!!
Now I’m wondering, should I apply to other schools, like other Ivies? Could financial aid differ significantly between schools of a similar caliber with Harvard? Could I use one school’s financial aid offer to bargain and negotiate with another? For the other EA admits, are you applying to other schools during the RD round?
Thanks. 
@futurelegend The only schools that are likely to be as or more generous when it comes to financial aid are YPS(M). These also tend to be the only schools most people would even consider turning down Harvard for, and in practice most of the 360-400 students who turn down a Harvard acceptance every year enroll in one of these 4 schools. So yes if you also had another HYPSM acceptance at hand you could potentially play them against each other to secure better aid.
Financial aid can significantly differ within HYPSM. My financial aid package from Princeton was less than half what I was offered at Harvard (a difference of several tens of thousands of dollars!) and Yale’s was significantly less too (~$10k). I do know of a case where Yale gave a student more than Harvard did and they successfully requested that Harvard match Yale’s offer, which is why I originally applied to other peer schools, just in case.
I was in a similar situation to you after I got into Harvard in the early round. For me personally, financial aid and college costs were a significant concern for my family (we’re very working class), so I decided to apply to a few other schools RD - it wasn’t too much extra work, I mainly re-used my Harvard essays. It’s definitely possible that another peer school does offer more financial aid and you can then use it as leverage to ask for more from Harvard - it has been done in the past. If financial aid is important to you - then I would definitely recommend at least sending out your app to a couple other schools just in case, even if you just reuse your application. Good luck and congrats on Harvard 2022!
Great, thank you for the insight! @Telluric Why do you think the schools offer different aid packages? I thought since they all claim to meet 100% of demonstrated need and since they all receive essentially the same information (FASFA, iDOC), and all have close to the same tuitions that packages would stay pretty consistent?
If Harvard is your “dream school” then is it just the financial angle that would make you apply elsewhere?
I don’t think any school has better aid than Harvard, and the idea of bargaining sounds pretty unreasonable to me. You can certainly tell Harvard about any special circumstances (there is a place on the CSS Profile form for that).
If you just want to be able to say you got into a lot of Ivies etc. that is not a good reason. If getting into Harvard yourself somehow devalues it, then do some thinking about the actual experience of being there versus dreaming of getting in.
I would think you would be happy to get in and would then turn to enjoying your senior year. I just don’t understand at all why you would apply anywhere else, but that’s me.
Maybe you are so used to trying to “get in” that you cannot handle it when it happens. Seriously. That is a thing. Some kids get depressed when they get in because it has been their goal and motivator for so long, and now that goal is gone because it has been reached!!!
I can think of 65,609 reasons. 
In all seriousness, if FA is an issue, yes, apply to other schools. If you do get offered better aid from a peer school, Harvard will revisit its FA calculation. Whether they come close to the other offer is a different question. Note, however, that Harvard, and its peers, will not match any merit aid.
The colleges use their own metrics to determine parents’ contribution. As an example, some include home equity; others don’t. It’s far from transparent.
Duke and Chicago are top schools that offer
full and partial merit awards
If you (your family) can’t afford Harvard and you’re unsure of what you’re likely to get based on the net price calculator, then that’s a good reason to apply to other schools.
However, if you’re comfortable with what you’ll get and your family’s financial resources to support your Harvard education, I’d think twice. That’s because you’re likely to get accepted to other Ivy League schools, and if you don’t go, you’re taking a spot from someone who wants it a lot more that you do. Frankly, that’s selfish. You’re in Harvard! Pat yourself on the back on a job well done. There’s no reason to go anywhere else, or even try.
A fair number of the kids I know who were admitted to Harvard EA have applied to other colleges. Some because they legitimately wanted to consider what other colleges had to offer, some because they wanted to compare (and to bargain over) financial aid, and a few because they were somewhat jerks and wanted to brag about how many high-prestige colleges had accepted them.
Out of seven such people, however, I know only one who didn’t ultimately go to Harvard. He was accepted everywhere he applied, and his family was poor enough that he was effectively going to get a full ride wherever he was accepted, so money wasn’t really the issue. He got a named scholarship at the University of Michigan which gave him a little more cash than Harvard could, and some non-monetary benefits, and he preferred the somewhat more democratic version of elitism at Michigan to that at Harvard. As you may imagine, he was a very mature, very self-confident kid.
None of the kids – including the one described above – got a better aid offer than Harvard’s from a college Harvard was prepared to match (i.e., Yale, Princeton, Stanford, probably MIT). I know several who got better offers from Penn, and when they tried to get Harvard to match them were told, “Congratulations! Have a wonderful life at Penn.”
I assumed Harvard’s aid was the best, in previous post, but apparently not
While they all say they will meet 100% of demonstrated need, each and every one calculates that “demonstrated need” differently - even when given the same information. As @skieurope mentioned, some colleges weight and consider certain categories of information like home equity more or less than others.
You can kind of see this in Princeton’s aid application. Princeton requires the PFAA but not the CSS Profile, and at least when I applied, the former was significantly less detailed than the latter and ignored several things the CSS profile considered - and I suspect that contributed to me getting much less from them as I couldn’t include all my circumstances.
The applications aren’t all that expensive in light of the cost of a college education. So, beyond $200 or so, what do you have to lose by applying?
Apply where ever you wish to. Whether it is for strategic reasons financially or if it is because you would consider attending other schools.
Your acceptance to your dream school does not negate your right to apply to other schools and attempting to secure the most favorable financial circumstances possible.
Congratulations and Best Wishes!
Not always.
A bit of semantics, but Harvard (or Yale, Princeton, etc.) will not “match” aid. They will, upon presentation of another offer from a comparable school, review their own aid calculations. As I said before, it may result in more aid, or it may not. But at least the student and family can make an informed choice.
I’m sure @skieurope is correct with the semantics, and it’s certainly the case that when Harvard “reviews” its calculations it does not necessarily match the competition. If it changes its offer at all – which it often does – the new offer may still be some thousands of dollars less than a peer is offering. Still, somehow, I have never heard of Harvard reviewing a calculation and coming up with more aid than a rival school had offered. That said, from what I have seen Harvard deserves its reputation as generally making the best initial aid offer among peer institutions, largely because of its very family-friendly policies on home equity and retirement savings.
Harvard is also considerate of special circumstances, and changes in family finances in the year previous. Other schools may be as well.
Thanks everyone.
Also, my counselor told me this story about a kid a couple years ago at my HS who got accepted into Princeton and also won a very prestigious full-ride scholarship to any school in our state. He used said scholarship to “bargain” with Princeton, and apparently, Princeton offered more FA to the student. I’m very skeptical of this – is there any way this can be true? Will Harvard or its peers ever match merit-based scholarships?
As I said earlier, no Ivy League school will match merit scholarships. So your counselor is wrong.
@ Telluric - Princeton has its own form for financial aid.
How so? @carlson2