@blueskies2day I can only speak for my son and his friends, but kids also had very positive experiences at McCarthy this year. Maybe the bloggers tend to be less satisfied and so are motivated to blog about it, but my son has made best friends with his suite mates and others on the same floor and (less so) other floors at McCarthy. I’m not trying to say that it is important to get into McCarthy (and I agree that kids will be happy in any res hall they get into), but I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about McCarthy either. My son enthusiastically endorses it.
I received $50,000 from Carnegie Mellon and $0 from USC. Does anyone know if USC is willing to match or at least partially match offers from other schools? USC is my top choice but CMU is making this decision very difficult.
@vimold Similar scenario here and was told no matching.
There is really no such thing as a common formula or reliable predictors when it comes to merit or financial aid offerings across the spectrum of most colleges and universities. Last year, my daughter saw the spectrum being offered from a low of $0 all the way up to a full tuition scholarship in terms of merit money… and she also saw the spectrum being offered from a low of $0 to levels of quite generous in terms of financial aid based on need.
To future applicants, the search criteria within collegeboard.org will let you narrow down your choices among the college and universities that do claim to meet ___% of demonstrated financial need (among many other potential factors). So you can set it at 100% for example. And we did find that those stating that they meet 100% of demonstrated need to be the most generous… i.e. Emory, Princeton, USC and Rice in our case. New College of FL was also very generous. UMiami and UTexas were the least generous. UTexas in fact offered $0. My daughter was OOS though… so maybe their generosity is limited to Texans.
While I don’t think that USC matches - and if that is 50k a year it will be hard to beat anywhere - for sure you can always ask any school if they can help you out with additional aid. Worst case scenario is they say “no” and you go someplace else. No school will ever pull an offer because you told them you needed more $$ and had more elsewhere. They will either say “we understand, but we’re sorry we can’t offer any more” or they will come up with something. As long as you do it respectfully and up front, it’s pretty standard stuff.
Got a big financial aid package from USC. Still a good amount of money I would paying out of pocket each year though, especially with the COA going to rise 2K a year each year. Hmmmm this is kind of a hard decision.
Keep finding hidden costs. Now it is the health insurance. ugh.
@vimold Of course you can ask, but the chance of going from 0 to 50k is incredibly small assuming they already have the relevant data. Carnegie Mellon is a fantastic school and that is a lot of money, congrats on great choices.
I’ve heard good things about McCarthy. It’s my son’s first choice dorm. Great location, roomy and in the village. @blueskies2day @CaveMom. It is also relatively close to Thornton where he will be spending a lot of time.
@astute12 and @CaveMom, McCarthy and the Village is awesome and would be our first choice if S matriculates. Can definitely see how there would be some social benefits to other dorms though. Good thing that there are apples and oranges to choose from at USC!
Had several PMs with questions about housing so just replying here as I think some posts got buried…I think the above is really important to consider when helping your student choose a dorm and how it relates to their personality. Parent’s want their kids to be comfortable but what the student wants and needs can be very different. Ya have to explore it with them. To me the worst thing is to feel lonely when you are at college and I know a lot of kids that have dealt with that problem, it’s brutal. Everyone is different, but have an open conversation about the pros and cons of each set up. They all have positives and negatives. For some an apartment has appeal, for mine it would have been a nightmare. My 4th at USC thinks there is nothing better than being in the freshman quad in traditional dorm, surrounded by other freshman 24/7, then moving to Village as a sophomore with all the friends made as a freshman. She didn’t want to live in Village as a freshman as her goal was clear - meet as many people as possible going in. One of mine had a great experience in a suite at Parkside, but reflecting back thinks the freshman quad is the only way to go, similar thoughts to post above. Certainly a great dorm, but harder to meet people, so you need to be willing to be involved in things or put yourself out there more. Another of mine had an 8 person suite with way too much girl drama, it was comfortable but drama made it not so comfortable. So if yours prefers a suite or apartment, they can be fantastic too, but encourage them to find other ways to meet people. Everyone has their own experiences, they all have trade-offs and each kid is different. No one can say this is the best and only best choice. But just talk with your student, they are not as picky as parents can be, and they know what they want. This is a really good time for them to own a decision. And remember, they are going to USC for goodness sake - it is all golden. 
@CaliDad2020, @WWWard, @vimold, @camcam2022, I agree that USC is not likely going to match other offers, but it seems odd that they would not be curious to know if there is a significant difference between their calculations of EFC, and one or more other universities looking at the same FAFSA/CSS profile. The instructions for an appeal, if one chooses to do send one, specifically state that other offers from other universities will not be considered in an appeal. That being said, as @CaliDad2020 mentioned, they are not going to pull an offer if a student asks for more aid.
@Booajo, regarding costs and “hidden costs” discussion, see pages 338-346 of this thread, specifically comments #5058, #5067, #5094, #5095, #5137, #5138, #5141, #5144, #5146, #5147, #5148, #5149, #5150, #5158, #5160, #5168 and #5181.
@vimold Was that $50K all need-based aid or merit or a combination of the two? If need-based, then yes, USC and CMU should be much closer (they should be similar in terms of covering demonstrated need at least), and you may want to inquire to see if USC even had the full picture, all required financial docs, etc.
@vimold As said, everyone’s experience is different. USC gave my son the lowest need based of any school - zero. Highest was Tulane, Villanova, UVA (business /finance major). Even UCLA - at more than half the total cost for In-state - gave quite a bit. That being said, call Financial Aid office. They are very nice and offer pretty helpful advise.
Besides merit v. aid, not all schools use CSS, and that can account for a significant difference.
@onlyamom1, USC didn’t even offer loans? I think loans are considered fin aid although it does not feel like “aid” to many families! Villanova sure has some great school spirit. Will be rooting for them tonight!
I will weigh in on the Dorm thing. My D did Parkside as it is close to the engineering classes and she had heard from older SC kids that parkside was a good balance between study and social. She found that to be true for her. She had an 8 room suite, found her roommate on FB. Roommate is still roommate (soph year) and likely will be friend-for-life. Other 2 suitemates are current roommates in Village as well. And since she had some high GPA goals, she found that there were a lot of like-minded kids around and she was not too distracted.
One advantage D had is she’s an LA area kid so a decent # of kids from her HS went to SC, including her best male-friend from HS. He had an 8 pack in Parkside too, so she got to meet plenty of people but also found that the vibe was way more study focused than Pardee, North or some of the others.
It really depends on your kid. There are a lot of SC students on FB etc. who are happy to give opinions. I’d encourage your student to talk to as many people as possible before deciding FWIW.
@Nomorelurker Yes. And we know some folks who have gotten more money when they talked to SC about other options. And we also know some where SC has said “sorry, we offered all we can.” No idea what the school’s metrics are, but it can’t ever hurt to ask, esp. if you’re going to go someplace else if they don’t pony up.
@nomorelurker … As info - don’t want to keep harping on this but wanted to answer question – there was a $1K loan…and other schools mentioned offering decent aid were CSS profile schools (except of course UCLA). we have sent letter of appeal asking for review for any mistakes, etc. but not really feeling hopeful based on others with similar $15K EFCs and no aid… think we will need to cancel our planned trip for Explore USC day in a few weeks. Save the $ for tuition at another school.
Does anyone know if you can stay in dorm all 4 years at USC?