<p>You have posed some excellent questions! I completely agree with the responses that you should contact FA directly, but I would add to that by saying try to get one person in the FA office who is willing to be your point of contact. My D is in a simliar position (full need-based aid from Yale as well as numerous outside merit scholarships) and has found dealing with the FA office extremely exhausting and disheartening. Your best time to negotiate is now – before you commit. If you have offers from other similar universities, you can try to get Yale to meet those offers now. There are a few ways that you can use your outside scholarship money even if it exceeds Yale’s COA for this year. One is to have the scholarship deferred to a future year (if permitted by the outside scholarship), another (as you noted) is to use the additional scholarshp funds to pay for Yale’s full health insurance (basic is provided free of charge), and a third is the one time purchase of a laptop in your freshman year. I recommend that you explore all of these options and any others that you can find. You worked hard to earn those scholarships, and Yale is a little too quick (IMHO) to take any “extra” to offset the scholarship they have granted you.</p>