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I received 75k from NYU, and I adore the school, but it's extremely expensive. I received 180k from Northwestern, 60k from Berkeley, 120k from Cornell, and I'm still waiting to hear back from Duke, but I feel as though I did really well in the financial aid interview.
I heard back from NYU about my acceptance in mid-December.
Can I use these schools to negotiate with NYU? They are my clear first choice and I would love to go there, but I'm not sure if I can afford it. Any advice or help would be appreciated.

Absolutely. I wouldn't use the $60k Berkeley offer, which is worse than NYU's offer (unsurprising, as Berkeley is legendarily stingy on merit aid). But you can certainly cite Northwestern's $180k offer and Cornell's $120k offer. Absolutely try to negotiate - can't hurt you. Worst case scenario, go to Northwestern - NYU is not worth an extra $105k over NW (and in fact the discrepancy only widens once you factor in NYC's higher COL relative to Chicago).

Hell, just go to Northwestern and call it a day

Wubbles wrote:Hell, just go to Northwestern and call it a day

Yeah, NYU isn’t even strictly better if they match (which they won’t) because of the CoL gap. Worth a shot though since that would be pretty close.

The Lsat Airbender wrote:

Wubbles wrote:Hell, just go to Northwestern and call it a day

Yeah, NYU isn’t even strictly better if they match (which they won’t) because of the CoL gap. Worth a shot though since that would be pretty close.

IMO, NYU is worth more money than NW. I just don't think it's worth anywhere near $105k+ over NW.

QContinuum wrote:

The Lsat Airbender wrote:

Wubbles wrote:Hell, just go to Northwestern and call it a day

Yeah, NYU isn’t even strictly better if they match (which they won’t) because of the CoL gap. Worth a shot though since that would be pretty close.

IMO, NYU is worth more money than NW. I just don't think it's worth anywhere near $105k+ over NW.

Oh, for sure, but even with an equal scholarship NYU is like $20-30k more expensive. I'd probably take NYU at that marginal cost but it's already getting close.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's going to be hard for any of these schools to make an offer that's competitive with Northwestern's. OP should definitely give it a go, and I'm rooting for them, but Northwestern is probably going to end up the best choice here (congrats, by the way, on such great choices!)

Congratulations, azachrich! I know that I would choose Northwestern in a New York minute. Wondering which school you decided to attend.

A clarification: Duke is the only school which specifically has a financial aid interview? (I’m assuming that all interviews are implicitly about why we should admit you and also, then, consider you for merit-based aid.) But Duke, and not the other schools you got into, overtly asked you questions of a financial nature?

Dipsychus wrote:Congratulations, azachrich! I know that I would choose Northwestern in a New York minute. Wondering which school you decided to attend.

A clarification: Duke is the only school which specifically has a financial aid interview? (I’m assuming that all interviews are implicitly about why we should admit you and also, then, consider you for merit-based aid.) But Duke, and not the other schools you got into, overtly asked you questions of a financial nature?

Duke does not interview applicants until after they are admitted, and then at that point the financial aid office interviews admitted students to determine scholarship awards

Wubbles wrote:

Dipsychus wrote:Congratulations, azachrich! I know that I would choose Northwestern in a New York minute. Wondering which school you decided to attend.

A clarification: Duke is the only school which specifically has a financial aid interview? (I’m assuming that all interviews are implicitly about why we should admit you and also, then, consider you for merit-based aid.) But Duke, and not the other schools you got into, overtly asked you questions of a financial nature?

Duke does not interview applicants until after they are admitted, and then at that point the financial aid office interviews admitted students to determine scholarship awards

And very few other schools even do interviews as part of the admissions process. When I applied, I think it was only Northwestern, UVA, and Harvard that had interviews (in the T13).

cavalier1138 wrote:

Wubbles wrote:

Dipsychus wrote:Congratulations, azachrich! I know that I would choose Northwestern in a New York minute. Wondering which school you decided to attend.

A clarification: Duke is the only school which specifically has a financial aid interview? (I’m assuming that all interviews are implicitly about why we should admit you and also, then, consider you for merit-based aid.) But Duke, and not the other schools you got into, overtly asked you questions of a financial nature?

Duke does not interview applicants until after they are admitted, and then at that point the financial aid office interviews admitted students to determine scholarship awards

And very few other schools even do interviews as part of the admissions process. When I applied, I think it was only Northwestern, UVA, and Harvard that had interviews (in the T13).

Columbia interviews many (but not all) candidates. It's possible to be admitted to Columbia sans interview; it's also possible (though unlikely, from what I've heard) to be rejected after the interview.