Will they match fin aid plans?

<p>Is a good idea to, or even possible, to send a fin aid plan from another school to the Caltech fin aid office to see if they will match it or give more? Has it been done before?</p>

<p>that might be really good. for my friend with financial aid caltech is $3000-4000 more than mit. does anyone know the answer to the top post?</p>

<p>I don't know if that would work or not, but it couldn't hurt to try- not like they're going to give you any less money or kick you out.</p>

<p>I found out that they weren't giving me any aid, but my family definitely cannot afford to pay the 46000 or whatever per year price. So I think my only choice would be to contact them and ask them to reconsider since I do want to attend caltech.</p>

<p>I've gotten like a total of like $70000 from somewhere else (purdue university), so I figure I should work that in there.</p>

<p>Has anyone had success doing this? What did you say? Any suggestions for what i should say? </p>

<p>(right now i'm thinking something simply along the lines of 'i want to go, but absolutely am unable to afford it', but not sure about what to say about purdue...maybe something like "ranked similarly in some fields, giving me alot of money, but i still would very much like to go to caltech for its unique environment"??)</p>

<p>thanks in advance for any help</p>

<p>If the money you're getting from elsewhere is financial aid and not MERIT aid (in other words, you're getting it because of your financial situation and not as a scholarship) then it might be possible. If it's merit aid, then no.</p>

<p>In a word, yes. Even MIT was willing to adjust their offer once we told them what Caltech offered, although Caltech one-upped them and significantly improved their own package.</p>

<p>"ranked similarly in some fields"</p>

<p>If it was merit aid, this simply isn't going to fly. And they fully realize that Purdue isn't MIT, too, regardless of how you couch your request. I had a full ride offer from Michigan Engineering and didn't even bother to tell Caltech or MIT because I knew it wouldn't matter. (However, Caltech's need-based aid offer was $10K per year better than MIT's--I definitely would've told MIT about that had I actually wanted to go to MIT.)</p>