<p>Newmassdad:</p>
<p>The aid criteria by these schools differs. Sometimes Chicago will give you more, sometimes less. As a case in point, Hopkins recruited me heavily with merit aid since at the time of my application they were working hard to correct the pre-med imbalance in their UG body under new admissions leadership. Alternatively, Columbia (where I did not apply) had some retroactive funds rebate in conjunction with a national professional organization for children of alumni in public service positions who followed in their parents footsteps upon graduation. </p>
<p>But all in all, for fields where relative strength does not trickle down a lot to UGs like math or English, I would definitely tell students to follow the money amongst Cornell, Penn, Northwestern, Columbia, Hopkins, Berkeley and Chicago. All are great schools, and the differences amongst them mostly related to their cultures and locations. The prestige difference is nil for the majority of fields (although not all).</p>