<p>I was admitted to Stanford REA but was recently also admitted to Harvard, Yale and Columbia as well. All of those schools are offering me better financial aid than Stanford. Does anyone know if Stanford will match financial aid from need-based schools, particularly from Harvard?</p>
<p>I just called Stanford and was informed that they do not match other schools’ aid awards. They are unwilling to consider my other award letters. I must admit that I am really disappointed. My parents are making me cross Stanford off my list of potential schools because of financial aid.</p>
<p>Officially, Stanford doesn’t match awards, because they don’t want to encourage people to bring in offers from other schools even when they’re happy with Stanford’s offer. Every year plenty of students have their award increased, and (anecdotally) it’s often because they presented offers from Stanford’s main competitors. This was an article from last year:</p>
<p>[Stanford</a> Daily | Admits weigh aid offers](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/05/09/1065842/]Stanford”>Admits weigh aid offers)</p>
<p>There’s a good possibility you could get a higher award through the normal appeal process for financial aid, but it’s not framed as a “we’ll consider your Ivy offers and match them” deal - it’s more “oops we accidentally didn’t give you enough financial aid, our apologies.” This is what top privates often do to minimize the financial aid budget while still trying to attract the most sought-after students.</p>
<p>So you think I should go ahead and fax Stanford my other aid awards? There really is no additional information to add to my case, except the better financial aid awards from other schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s a really good chance… What you get for your award, is prob. what you’re going to get-- I’ve never heard of a case where Stanford matches w/ your other schools or tries to offer you higher deal than what you already got.</p>
<p>Why not go to Harvard or Yale? Those are amazing schools as well-- you know… Harvard IS #1. There’s not a lot of ppl who can say they attend Harvard University. Just saying.</p>