CMU has several peer institutions, specifically Rice. Rice gives noticeable merit to several people. Say if I get $20k/year at Rice, could I “match” that at CMU? Has anyone tried this? Thank you 
There are different levels of peer - and in this case, it may simply be research to see how they fare vs. others than saying someone is a peer.
Whether or not anyone has done it successfully doesn’t matter.
Your case is a one off.
You could try - but would need to sell the school on why you belong there - not just Rice gave me $20K.
In fact, a merit offer per se is the wrong way to look at it.
Rice costs $87,047 (direct) while CMU is $87,670. In this case they are similar - but you should ask to equalize costs.
Then the question becomes - if they do, are you 100% going?
So reach out - and share - why they need you there, what you add to campus - so they have reason to make you an offer.
It’s highly doubtful you’d win but - you never know unless you try.
Good luck.
For anyone interested, these are the peers listed.
California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech)
Cornell University (Cornell)
Duke University (Duke)
Emory University (Emory)
Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Northwestern University (Northwestern)
University of Pennsylvania (Penn)
Princeton University (Princeton)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Rice University (Rice)
Stanford University (Stanford)
Washington University in St. Louis (Washington
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Universities generally don’t consider merit aid offered by other institutions when reevaluating aid requests. You can ask, but don’t expect a positive response, particularly when asking a university that doesn’t provide merit aid
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None of us works for CMU. You can ask - but don’t count on CMU matching.
Schools do not all have the same level of funds to distrubute. In addition, CMU has tremendous demand for certain majors (ex. CS).
CMU does not provide merit aid.
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Thank you guys for the reply! I just got my aid offer and its 60k before a 5k loan+workstudy. TBH that’s pretty generous and almost meets my SAI, but I’m still going to see if I could cut ~5-10k/year if possible.
Glad the finances look workable. Congrats!
Unless you were admitted to SCS, in which case Rice isn’t really a peer.
But it looks like you got a decent amount of aid, so congratulations!
I thought I’ve read that before on here but their website says this:
Eligibility for scholarships and grants is determined through a review of both financial need and merit.
To be honest that’s probably around what Rice will cost as well but hopefully you do get in with a significant amount of aid. Do you know anyone who has already done price matching?
CMU no longer provides institutional merit scholarships to undergrads.
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OK - i’ve read that (maybe from you). I hope they update their website so that others don’t think it’s possible.
If the student did get a merit offer from Rice then, there’d be zero chance of a match - as opposed to the .3% chance there might have been before.
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Did you get the aid offer today? My son hasn’t received his yet. Did you get an email or did you just click the financial aid portal status link in your application portal? Is the aid amount close to their Net price calculator? Thank you
I got it today. Make sure your son has submitted everything they need! I had to click on the portal status, I didn’t get any email. I don’t remember our NPC, but CMU chose the aid amount so I’d only have to pay the EFC/SAI mentioned on the FAFSA.
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