Duke and Financial Aid

goingfor99th

Duke admitted me through Priority Track yesterday!

Does anyone else here have a Priority Track invite? It's such a great program. It takes a bit of the stress off those admitted, and allows them the opportunity to negotiate financial aid early. I wish more schools did this.

With that said, does anyone here have any experience negotiating financial aid with Duke (or any other school)? What do I do? lol

Any help you guys could provide would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Mitchell-1

I believe they say in their admittance material that they will send out information about interviews and such for scholarships toward the end of December. So probably best to sit tight until then.

goingfor99th

@"Mitchell-1" said:
I believe they say in their admittance material that they will send out information about interviews and such for scholarships toward the end of December. So probably best to sit tight until then.

They do say that. I'd imagine how one should approach financial aid depends mostly on personal circumstance?

I'm interested to hear successful strategies people have employed in negotiating financial aid. Is this something I need to worry about or are schools fairly generous towards low-income students?

Paul Caint

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is huge. Seriously good job

I'm also curious to see how this aid-negotiation process works.

Is Duke priority binding? If so, I would imagine it makes it harder to negotiate merit-based aid, since you can't hold over an admittance to other schools (Hey look I got into Cornell too and they're offering me X amount of money!) to get them to pay you more.

But I would imagine they would be generous with need-based aid so long as you demonstrate need. So perhaps the pre-existing need + merit you get will suffice?

goingfor99th

@"Paul Caint" said:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is huge. Seriously good job

I'm also curious to see how this aid-negotiation process works.

Is Duke priority binding? If so, I would imagine it makes it harder to negotiate merit-based aid, since you can't hold over an admittance to other schools (Hey look I got into Cornell too and they're offering me X amount of money!) to get them to pay you more.

But I would imagine they would be generous with need-based aid so long as you demonstrate need. So perhaps the pre-existing need + merit you get will suffice?

Thanks so much! It's great to have a community to talk about this with because most people in my life don't understand how much this means to me.

Priority Track is non-binding! I think some insanely small proportion of PT invitees end up attending Duke, too. This part of why I love Duke so much. They're truly good for doing this.

It could very well suffice. I spoke with someone at Duke and they said it's okay to go back and forth with schools as long as you're reasonable and polite.

I guess what I'm wondering is if anyone here knows how to most effectively do the reasonable and polite thing? lolol

Alex

@"Mitchell-1" said:
I believe they say in their admittance material that they will send out information about interviews and such for scholarships toward the end of December. So probably best to sit tight until then.

Yeah this is what I've read too on Duke.

Alex

@goingfor99th said:

@"Paul Caint" said:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is huge. Seriously good job

I'm also curious to see how this aid-negotiation process works.

Is Duke priority binding? If so, I would imagine it makes it harder to negotiate merit-based aid, since you can't hold over an admittance to other schools (Hey look I got into Cornell too and they're offering me X amount of money!) to get them to pay you more.

But I would imagine they would be generous with need-based aid so long as you demonstrate need. So perhaps the pre-existing need + merit you get will suffice?

Thanks so much! It's great to have a community to talk about this with because most people in my life don't understand how much this means to me.

Priority Track is non-binding! I think some insanely small proportion of PT invitees end up attending Duke, too. This part of why I love Duke so much. They're truly good for doing this.

It could very well suffice. I spoke with someone at Duke and they said it's okay to go back and forth with schools as long as you're reasonable and polite.

I guess what I'm wondering is if anyone here knows how to most effectively do the reasonable and polite thing? lolol

Here's a helpful guide on negotiating scholarships: http://lawschooladvice.com/guides/negotiating-scholarships/

goingfor99th

@"Alex Divine" said:

Here's a helpful guide on negotiating scholarships: http://lawschooladvice.com/guides/negotiating-scholarships/

Thanks, Alex. I figured I could count on you.

Alex

@goingfor99th said:

@"Alex Divine" said:

Here's a helpful guide on negotiating scholarships: http://lawschooladvice.com/guides/negotiating-scholarships/

Thanks, Alex. I figured I could count on you.

Congrats and good luck, my friend!