<p>Just to clarify the answer for the original poster, Cornell strives to meet the needs of every student they admit. There is a formal appeal process if you are your family find that the initial financial aid package does not meet your needs. If, after the appeal process, you are your family do not feel comfortable with the financial aid package, the admitted student can be released from the early decision agreement. I would recommend talking to our financial aid office (they can be reached at 607-255-5145) as this is a personal matter. Please feel free to contact us at the email below if you have any further questions about this or another matter. </p>
<p>Thanks,
CU Ambassadors</p>
<hr>
<p>Cornell University Ambassadors
Office of Undergraduate Admissions
<a href=“mailto:cuambassadors@cornell.edu”>cuambassadors@cornell.edu</a></p>
<p>A friend brought a whole book that documents all her family expenses (with receipts) to appeal Cornell financial aids. We live at an expensive area, and the expenses show that her daughter could not attend Cornell with the financial aids. The Cornell financial aids official showed the book to other parents and said that this was exactly the document every appealing family should bring to Cornell for appealing. However, Cornell did not increase a cent of her daughter aids. The girl had to transfer to another school. She attended Cornell during her freshman year due to higher financial aids because her brother was in college. When her brother graduated, the aids dropped so much that her cannot afford. </p>
<p>I agree with Cortana431 that appeal is useless at Cornell unless there are some significant unexpected changes. Cornell is a relative “poor” school among the top schools and has to use some of its money to match better financial aids from the other 10 schools. Cornell also selects some students for better financial aids. For others, it s hard to get better aids by appealing.</p>
<p>If the family’s finance didn’t change then their EFC should remain the same, which means when her graduated the family would be expected to pay a lot more for Cornell. Her FA at Cornell is not going to remain the same. As far as she lives in an expensive area of the country, it is not a consideration when it comes to FA calculation. No different than any other school that only offer need based FA.</p>
<p>There a lot of people who can’t afford private education, especially relatively high income family with no savings, they are in the donut hole.</p>