I was just trying to differentiate financial and merit aid.
albertsax, was that Columbia University? Did you file a letter of special circumstances? Our experience has been that financial aid is relatively inflexible but that appeals based on special circumstances can increase it. If they are willing to match another school is that based on need or is it a merit aid award intended to convince you to attend? I wasn’t aware of Ivies doing any merit so it must be a direct match to another school, which is interesting.
So FSU awarded merit aid based on scores. If the others met EFC, was it due to financial need or merit?
Since albert sax had an experience with matching financial need, perhaps you an appeal to the financial aid office for need-based aid AND to the department for merit aid. Tell someone in the department that your kid would love to attend Frost but other schools have given him enough aid ( financial? merit? mixed?) and cost is a factor in choosing.
There are threads and posts galore on this topic.
In one case, the chair of a dept, told our kid that they could find more money to convince the kid to come. We did not ask. But based on that, you could ask the chair or whomever your son has had contact with, maybe teacher.
But others know way more about this than I do. I was only trying to help you make the distinction clearer about the different types of aid and it looks like I was wrong about financial aid matches!