<p>Accepted with a $26,700 Leadership Award!!! I’ve been reading this thread and I’m surprised that others with better stats did not get more money… I had a 2180 SAT, <700 SAT IIs, several Cs throughout my high school career, and barely any ECs… I haven’t even visited the school. </p>
<p>The only thing that might have put me apart was my essay… I had a RPI admissions counselor hand write me a postcard urging me to change my major to Computer Science since I applied as Undecided but my essay talked a lot about computers. I sent her an email about it and subsequently changed my major, but it still does not really seem like a huge deal.</p>
<p>@dextersdad, our friend negotiated an increase in merit aid. They received no need-based grant aid as they were full pay. They were initially offered something like $12K and went up to $16K. RPI was his first choice and they committed to enrolling if they were offered more aid.</p>
<p>Son got accepted and we’re proud and happy for him! 2220 SAT; 670 Math and 760 Bio SAT II’s; 3.85 unweighted GPA, As many AP’s as offered by a high ranked HS, rigorous course load. Decent EC’s and showed interest. A bit underwhelmed by the FA package offered. He ranks as a higher than average need student. 11,600 Leadership Award, 13,400 Rensselaer Grant. Pell Grant, 8,500 Loan package. Leaves 27.000 family cost which may be hard to rationalize. Still waiting for more schools so we’ll see where this goes. Just a bit bummed about the Leadership Award. The 24/25K awards I’ve seen on this thread would put this school solidly into the top choice mix.</p>
<p>My son’s girlfriend was waitlisted At first I thought it maybe wasn’t the greatest idea they go to the same school, but I am actually kind of sad for her, I think it would have worked out okay.</p>
<p>Any tips for negotiating for better aid? My FAFSA EFC was $0 but RPI left a $11,000 gap in my package. I got a ~$25,000 leadership award and a ~$10,000 RPI Grant.</p>
<p>@NoCook I received a $35,000/year merit scholarship (Leadership Award)</p>
<p>I was going to decline since I changed my mind after I applied to colleges and I now want to be an English major, but so far RPI is the only school I can afford…</p>
<p>Loved RPI but we didn’t have much luck with FA negotiation and we presented them with packages from both WPI and a top NESCAC school that were at least $8000 less. Unfortunate…but S ended up a school that he loves so all good in the end. </p>
<p>Son accepted with $15,000 merit aid (he was a medalist) and 10,000 grant. Still $5,000 more per year than Northeastern. It is a little bit better than WPI. the tuitions at WPI and RPI are quite a bit more than Northeastern. We are still waiting for RD for four more schools. </p>
<p>@NoCook, My son received a 35K per year merit award. His letter said that he is also eligible for a Stafford loan, but this would be in addition to his merit award. </p>
<p>For those asking about negotiating merit or need packages with RPI, my only experience was 2 years ago when my daughter was deciding between RPI and WPI. RPI made it pretty clear at the time that they were happy to talk to folks who had better merit from peer institutions. Of course, you need to go by their definition of peer institution…</p>
<p>If you compare the sats for Northeastern and RPI, you will find they are fairly similar. Northeastern has really shot up in the rankings.</p>
<p>WPI is also test optional, so I am suspicious of their reported statistics.
All three schools are strong. Right now we’ve ruled out WPI, because they offered my daughter half as much as RPI.</p>
<p>I also realized that RPI offered 5K more than Northeastern, but their tuition is 5K higher.</p>
<p>RPI doesn’t have a GPA requirement to keep your merit scholarship, and it can continue to your MS.</p>
<p>Northeastern really has shot up in the rankings. I got deffered early action there but just got into RPI. Who knows if I’ll get into Northeastern regular decision. </p>
<p>@twinnytoni - I’m really not sure which institutions RPI considers their peers. At the time, RPI offered my daughter more than WPI so she did the reverse negotiation (WPI adjusted her scholarship to make the COA difference come to within a couple hundred dollars). This time, my son may be doing the opposite as WPI offered him more than RPI. He needs to do a little soul searching first and make some decisions before he is ready to go down that road. </p>
<p>There’s an interesting application on the Chronicle of Higher Education web site where you can search to see who a college selects as its peer institutions. As of the article date (2012) RPI selected BU, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve, Cornell, Lehigh, MIT, Northeastern, Rice, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and WPI. Interestingly, only 4 of those returned the love by choosing RPI as a peer: Carnegie Mellon, Lehigh, Rice, and WPI. </p>
At first I thought it maybe wasn’t the greatest idea they go to the same school, but I am actually kind of sad for her, I think it would have worked out okay.</p>