<p>You got lucky, mythmom – my kids’ offers from colleges supposedly meeting full need were miles apart. (Roughly $9-$12K apart, to be more exact). Just the comparison between the Barnard and U. of Chicago award for my d. was a stark difference - probably magnified greatly over 4 years. Obviously those are comparable schools and I should reasonably have expected near identical offer… if I was naive enough to believe that “most offers of … meets 100% need would be close.”</p>
<p>Since your d. did not get accepted ED in any case, the “strategy” is irrelevant – in the end you had appropriate information on which to make a decision. Your d. applied ED but was admitted RD – so she could just as easily applied RD and had the same results. </p>
<p>After 4 years at Barnard, I know full well that the admissions department has nothing to do with financial aid. “Everything in the power to make it work” is admissions hype – the financial aid office works based on the numbers, and I’ve had enough experience appealing awards with them to know that to get a change in an award, you need to document a reason for a change in the numbers. I mean, I have literally been on the phone with them with a long sob story about financial issues that were very significant to me – to be told there was nothing they could do - and then mentioned in passing a relatively trivial expense that did fall under a category they could consider, and have them leap on that and tell me immediately that my d’s grant would be increased once I documented that particular expense. </p>
<p>The OP wrote that she wants a full ride, and she doesn’t want to think about paying for college. As I posted, there is no such thing as a “full ride” at Barnard. Barnard’s financial aid policies require loans and student earnings, and require a gradually increasing level of student “self-help” from year to year. Under current policy, they do not meet full need for senior year, but expect seniors to find off-campus work rather than work-study.</p>
<p>You wrote:
And in the end your d. wasn’t accepted ED, but was accepted in the RD round. Did your d. apply to any other private schools RD? Or did she just stick with Barnard and SUNY/CUNY? Because I think that for a student who wants Barnard… “going for broke” is also a pretty risky strategy. Its not as if there are only those 2 choices-- there are a whole lot of schools that are more like Barnard than they are like SUNY which might possibly award more generous aid, especially when the possibility of merit aid is thrown in.</p>