Your parents can choose to pay for a family members expenses (the state welfare system will also likely help) or pay for college. As long as they live within their means, its all good.
^^ do we know if the family member is a citizen/GC holder? It kind of sounded like she’s being sent here from the home country.
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Recall that OP’s father is an immigrant. That means he didn’t grow up with the brainwashing that it’s perfectly normal to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a college education when a perfectly good one can be had for a mere tens of thousands.
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I thought this exact same thing. His education was probably very low cost or maybe even free. The idea of spending $300k for undergrad knowing that med school will be another $300-400k must be insane to him.
The father is right. Spending $600,000 on undergrad plus medical school IS a lot of money. If this student wants to go to medical school, she should go where her undergrad debt will be as close to $0 as possible.
I don’t think they realized how costly Cornell would be…or that no aid would be forthcoming to them.
The parents have said…no to paying the full cost to attend Cornell.
So…is UT affordable?
Did she apply anywhere else that is affordable?
It’s possible the issue isn’t really financial, at all, that Dad’s blaming $$, but is simply against Cornell, for many of the reasons here. OP may be surprised when she suggests a huuuge loan.
Also…the OP needs to think about this…
Dad is a physician. He likely has heard where some of his fellow excellent docs went to undergrad. He’s probably heard UT, TAMU, TxChristian, Baylor, UTDallas, Rice, and a variety of schools from the other 49 states. UT Southwestern and Baylor attract many fine docs because they have excellent residencies. Houston is home to many fabulous hospitals on Main St.
It’s a huge state, and while a number of their med school graduates don’t venture far away, certainly those that want to, do.
Here are some of the results of UT-Southwestern’s most recent Match Day…
Beth Israel Deaconess, Johns Hopkins, Mayo, UCSF, UCLA, USC, Emory, UMich, BostonU, Northwestern, and others. I’m sure that if I went thru the many other specialties, I would have found even more top residencies all over the US.
Google UT Southwestern Match Day and you can find the entire list.
As to the original question…
Look at how Cornell gets to the numbers they get to. If there are no errors, then your shot at an appeal is minimal.
The ONLY person I personal know who was successful in squeezing a little bit more out of Cornell had meticulous documents and fought them on an error regarding something like rental income or some such stuff. In the end, they said the battle wasn’t even worth it for how little they got. But (and my son at an Ivy did this too), their kid took an RA job his second year. That amounted to free room and almost full board for the next 3 years. That saved a lot. That is a risky move though (to go in counting on this to happen later), as those are plum jobs and as a premed you might not have the time to do it.
What other options do you have? Can you still apply to your state non flagship or directional universities? Are you a NM finalist? While fighting the good fight with Cornell, be sure you are safely setting up another choice.
Also, don’t forget that if you’re moving to Ithaca, NY from Texas you are going to have to make a substantial investment in winter apparel. Plus transportation costs. It’s not easy or cheap to travel from Texas to upstate NY.