<p>It seems, after hearing from others, as well as looking at my own financial aid package, that Yale does not give generous financial aid packages. </p>
<p>It seems as if Yale is taking a chance that those who only got into Yale as a top school is willing to fork over money to pay the costs.
It seems as if Yale is willing to negotiate the financial aid if the student got accepted to Harvard/Stanford/Princeton. </p>
<p>While I can understand this policy, it seems unfair. The financial aid package I got from Yale is worse than Dartmouth's, Columbia's, and not surprisingly Princeton's (by $10000 and $4,000 in loans). I can only imagine what others, whose only top school or dream school is Yale are feeling... Even Harvard gives a decent financial aid the first time around. I don't know why Yale doesn't do the same...</p>
<p>My question is, while I have the priviledge this year to ask Yale to review my financial aid package by showing Princeton's and Stanford's financial, what will happen to my package the following year if I do choose to go to Yale?</p>
<p>Will my financial aid go up the following year, to the figures in the aid package this year before the reevaluation? Next year, I won't have the leveraging power...I would be stuck, and every year the home equity would consequently increase... Or would Yale be nice and keep my financial aid constant or near the same range?</p>
<p>I know Yale is a great college and will be an awesome experience... but Yale's financial aid makes me suspicious and worried about my future financial aid package. </p>
<p>Please share your experiences; please calm my worries...</p>
<p>I applied to 11 schools, and got into 9 of them. 3 of those 9 were Ivy, only one of them was a state school. Out of ALL of them, Yale gave me the most money. Yale was kinder to me than:</p>
<p>Dartmouth, Brown (Brown was incredibly stingy!), Boston Uni, Georgetown Uni, etc...</p>
<p>Have you tried posting about this on the admitted students forum on the Yale site? They're incredibly helpful over there.</p>
<p>You should definitely post this on the Financial Aid section of the Admitted Students forum. Admissions officers read the forum and hopefully they'll pass your concern on to the Financial Aid committee. I've also noticed a lot of complaints about aid from Yale; however, the small, non-random sample size of disappointed students on this forum probably doesn't accurately reflect the population of accepted students' opinion about Yale's financial aid.</p>
<p>I expect Yale to increase financial aid next year to compete with Harvard's now very generous program--they must realize that they're skimping, relatively.</p>
<p>I attended Yale (class of '06) and I'd like to opine on this one. I applied to Yale in the binding Early Decision program and was accepted; consequently, I was contract-bound to accept their offer of acceptance and couldn't even entertain offers from other schools.</p>
<p>I was initially awarded $0 in financial aid. However, my family and I felt that we really could not afford to pay full tuition, so we wrote a letter to Yale and were in touch with the financial aid office. They later upped my need based aid to just over 50% of total cost (which is far more generous than we had been expected, especially considering the circumstances that I'd described above).</p>
<p>I'm telling you that story because I feel that it can explain your observations. That is, Yale probably cares little that Harvard/Princeton gave you money; instead, the school responds favorably to requests to review financial aid. It's not surprising that they increased your need based aid. In fact, given my experience, they would have done so even if you hadn't mentioned the other schools.</p>
<p>My daughter is a sophomore at Yale. We had the original offer of financial aid evaluated and it was increased by almost $5,000. For her sophomore year, the financial aid was increased again without any special requests and with no real change in our financial circumstances. I have found the Financial Aid office to be helpful and interested in trying to find a solution.</p>
<p>Check out the blogs of Harvard, Princeton and Stanford--you'll see that, thus far, there are no complaints whatsoever about finaid. At Harvard and Princeton, I only see glowing reviews.</p>