<p>Part of your ED contract stipulates that once accepted, you will withdraw your applications to other schools unless you wish to break your ED agreement (not attend CMU). Since you should be doing this, you should not be getting any acceptances – or financial aid offers. </p>
<p>Long story short: yes, you’re out of luck.</p>
<p>I agree with Kate, except I’ll say it doesn’t hurt to call them and mention your EA offer from the peer school. But not in a “bargaining” way … in a way that says (if you can say it truthfully) this other school makes my education affordable, but I cannot afford to attend CMU without more aid that approaches the amount I’m getting from X.</p>
<p>That likely won’t work. EA is negated the moment you get accepted ED, because ED is binding. There is no threat that you won’t attend CMU in favor of this other school. </p>
<p>Colleges have been known to blacklist students in the past, which is a big reason of why breaking your ED contract is a Very Bad Idea. If you say, “Hey CMU, Stanford gave me this great EA offer and I can’t attend ED because you didn’t give me enough money,” CMU could very easily say “Oh no you don’t” and call up Stanford and tell them you just broke your ED contract. It could be a common myth, but people often claim that a school will drop a student applicant for something like that. After all, they have many thousands of students to fill your place.</p>
<p>Additionally, saying ‘I can’t attend unless you match something like this offer’ is bargaining, fritzy. That’s exactly what people do to bargain for more aid. :p</p>
<p>Hmm, reading my post again, I see your perspective and you’re right. If LolaSnickers sincerely can’t afford CMU unless they offer more aid, and only if that’s true, then it’s perfectly reasonable to say that. But it would be bargaining to accompany that statement with something like “and see, RPI admitted me EA and gave me x dollars.” </p>
<p>But as an aside, here is an interesting article advocating Early Decision:</p>
<p>[The</a> Case for Early Decision - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-case-for-early-decision/]The”>The Case for Early Decision - The New York Times)</p>