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<p>You could request a FA review at MIT and mention that your S has a more generous package from Y. I am not familiar with MITs FA policies on reassessing FA based on offers from peer colleges, but it is an option.</p>
<p>^Yeah, I wondered about that. I know Cornell, for instance, states flat-out that it will match the aid award of any Ivy. Not sure about MIT. I always read about how “negotiating” is discouraged. But I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask politely. :)</p>
<p>MImom2012: Yes I got your PM, did you receive my response? Once I hit send I don’t see a copy of it. I wonder if there is some way to see our sent notes?</p>
<p>
When you go to send a PM there is a check box to check if you wish to keep a copy of sent messages. It’s at the bottom under Additional Options. ;)</p>
<p>^There is indeed.
After going to your private messages inbox, there should be a “Jump to Folder” line followed by a dropdown menu. On this menu, click “Sent Items” and everything you have sent should appear.</p>
<p>Got it, thanks!</p>
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<p>Right, and don’t use the word negotiate; review, reassess, etc. are the lingo you want to use.</p>
<p>Congrats! I wonder did you already get yale’s financial aid package with LL ?</p>
<p>^Not with the LL. It came on Tuesday of this week.</p>
<p>Ok, @phantasmagoric, (and anyone else who cares to weigh in) things just got a whole lot more complicated this past week!!</p>
<p>In addition to Stanford & Yale, my very fortunate son got accepted to MIT on Wed and today a LL came from Cornell. (It was dated March 14). As I mentioned in an earlier post, MIT’s aid isn’t anywhere close to Yale’s. Stanford’s is in the middle. Cornell’s letter, on the other hand, states that they match any Ivy’s fin aid offer - so they would be the same cost as Yale. Now, I realize that this is an embarrassment of riches, but our heads are really spinning and we could use some more advice.</p>
<p>So, I have two more questions that haven’t been covered previously: </p>
<p>1) I believe that Cornell has a better reputation than Yale in computer science but not necessarily as an institution overall. Is this difference in cs important enough for him to seriously consider Cornell given his other options? (He’s definitely looked into this school the least).</p>
<p>2) Not to open an ugly can of worms, but with regard to MIT, 2 things concern me beyond cost. @phantasmagoric: As I know you go there for grad school, maybe you can address/dispel these concerns from first-hand knowledge: First, the 3 undergrad deaths on campus this year and the general environment of stress and sleep-deprivation that MIT is known for. Is this reputation warranted? Or is it blown out of proportion? </p>
<p>Second, is the food situation. It seems that many kids live in housing where they have to or choose to shop and cook for themselves. I just find this incredible. My son would live on junk for 4 years if it were up to him to cook. And when we visited the campus last spring, the food in the commons was mediocre at best.</p>
<p>I imagine I could be misinformed on both fronts and don’t want us to make a final decision based on bad info. Even if he doesn’t choose MIT in the end, I want it to be for valid reasons.</p>
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I wouldn’t believe it until you had the fin aid award in hand. Typically Cornell’s net cost of attendance is double or triple that of Yale and Harvard depending on AGI. See link from 2009-10.</p>
<p>[Project</a> on Student Debt: What’s the Bottom Line?](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php]Project”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/ncoa_chart.php)</p>
<p>We will surely wait to see the bottom line, but their letter states it outright. And here’s an article on their recent change in policy:</p>
<p>[Cornell</a> Chronicle: Cornell to match financial aid of other Ivies](<a href=“Home | Cornell Chronicle”>Home | Cornell Chronicle)</p>
<p>I read the article but did you see the statement "Some of those schools calculate financial need differently. For example, Princeton does not count home equity in its needs calculation, but Cornell does. And while most of the Ivies do not offer loans in their aid packages, Cornell does." Just because they say they match aid, it doesn’t mean they do it with grants/scholarships.</p>
<p>Duly noted. Thanks :)</p>
<p>Just for fun, I ran Cornell’s calculator to see what the difference would be for my son who attends Yale. The net result was over 3X what he pays. Now maybe if you showed them another Ivie’s fin aid award they may adjust it, but their calculator still had over $6K of unmet need, even after work study and the family EFC was subtracted.</p>
<p>They may “match” grants with loans.</p>
<p>Hi robotmom1414, </p>
<p>Regarding Cornell, I think that completely depends on what your son wants. Is he okay with the ruralness of Cornell? While CS at Cornell is among the top 5, there is a bit of a larger gap between the top 4 and Cornell than there is between #1 and #2; that’s because Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and to a slightly lesser extent CMU are just behemoths when it comes to CS, and even schools ranked immediately afterward see a steep dropoff in many measures of quality (such as faculty quality, course variety, facilities, etc.). For example, see this:</p>
<p>[Top</a> organizations in Computer Science](<a href=“http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=7&topDomainID=2&subDomainID=0&last=0&start=1&end=100]Top”>http://academic.research.microsoft.com/RankList?entitytype=7&topDomainID=2&subDomainID=0&last=0&start=1&end=100)</p>
<p>Notice that the top 4 are pretty neck-and-neck (CMU’s H-index is a bit lower, mostly because it’s less-cited than the other three despite publishing a huge volume of papers). And then there’s a pretty steep dropoff after that.</p>
<p>There are many other problems with Cornell - much larger student body (more than 2-3x the # undergrads), larger classes, higher student:faculty ratio, and much less funding: its budget is 1/3 less than Yale’s, despite having 2x the total number of students and more schools (such as hotel management) than Yale. Personally, I don’t think that its advantage in CS is enough to overcome these, but of course it’s always up to the individual; many of these may be irrelevant to your son. This is not to say that Cornell isn’t great, which it most certainly is; but it’s just no match for HYPSM, in my opinion.</p>
<p>As others said, be wary of Cornell’s offer to match. If Stanford’s financial aid isn’t up to par, contact them - I know of many instances where the financial aid office upped the grant money for an admitted student to compete with other schools’ offers. I’d do the same for MIT.</p>
<p>Regarding MIT, it’s really unfortunate that there have been more deaths of late. This isn’t very common and previous studies of the suicide rate at MIT found that it’s no different than at other universities. I don’t think it’s the environment that leads students to commit suicide; there are depressed, suicidal people everywhere, and having to deal with the difficulties of stress can push them over the edge. But they’d have been pushed over the edge no matter where they went. If there is any link to MIT itself, then I think that’s mostly because MIT attracts very intense individuals. The ones who commit suicide have probably been under extreme pressure for far longer than their college careers. So my answer is that the reputation for suicide is overblown (and usually unsubstantiated until bouts like now occur), but the stress of the environment isn’t. Likewise, the stress of the environment in any STEM discipline at any school (including Yale and Stanford) isn’t overblown. That’s just the nature of the fields themselves, although a lot of the stress in these fields *can *be self-imposed. At MIT, also, there’s a lot of infrastructure in place to help students, such as the staff members and housemasters you live with, the graduate resident tutors who keep an eye on you, the many mental health resources, counseling, and so on.</p>
<p>It’s important to note that other universities deal with this as well - periods of time when there seem to be a higher number of deaths or suicides. Harvard, Yale, Cornell, etc. all deal with this. Even Stanford, with its happy/laid-back environment, has suicides.</p>
<p>Regarding the food situation, I can’t speak to the undergrad situation, so you might post a thread on the MIT forum.</p>
<p>One note: eventually it would be a very, very good idea to have your son live in a situation where he has to make his own food. Far too many college students, including those at elite schools, leave college not knowing anything about taking care of a household: washing clothes (Davidson College even has a laundry service!), cooking, cleaning, paying bills, signing leases, and so on. It’s a good idea to get this down in college before you have to go into the real world.</p>
<p>No ifs and buts, as far as I know. Cornell will match dollar for dollar any offer from another ivy; they simply ask you for your financial aid package and match it. Their own calculator is not used. Of course, no point going through the trouble of doing this (for the sake of both Cornell and yourself), unless your son is considering Cornell seriously! Though our son decided not to matriculate there, he liked Cornell a lot. He had a most enjoyable visit there. He got a chance to talk in depth to a couple of kids in his area there and they were amazing individuals. It’s a great setting if one likes rural and snow!</p>
<p>I do think that a lot is made of graduate rankings for undergraduate education, when in reality, one can’t go wrong picking any of the top schools, and making the best of the opportunities there. As people have said many times in these forums, undergraduate education is more than getting a degree. It’s an experience. Your son won’t go wrong picking one that seems just right to him. He is fortunate to have such great choices.</p>
<p>@phantasmagoric: Thanks once again for your input, I really appreciate it. Good info all around–basically reconfirms for my son that the choice is still between Y & S. </p>
<p>@Parent2015: I believe you are correct. All indications are that Cornell does match dollar for dollar, but as you say, it makes no sense to pursue it if he’s simply going to go somewhere else.</p>
<p>It’s really nice to have no debt and to go to school for free. That trumps everything.</p>