Financial Aid for Cornell Class of 2025
Cornell University seems to be late in offering up financial aid packages this year. The day in which admits from the Regular Decision round had to commit to attending Cornell has come and gone, but some admits to the Cornell Class of 2025 had to arrive at their decision not knowing their precise financial aid offer. Of course, students can always plug their numbers into the Net Price Calculator on Cornell’s admissions website, but we understand it’s not the same as actually receiving a financial aid offer directly from the school. It seems logical that Cornell would offer up this information to admits before they had to render their decisions, but if we know anything we know that the 2020-2021 admissions cycle has been anything but typical.
As Jyothsna Bolleddula and Sam Curtis report for The Cornell Daily Sun in a piece entitled “Admitted Students Await Financial Aid Offers Weeks After Commitment Deadlines,” “In an email to the Sun, Jonathan Burdick, vice provost for enrollment, explained that delays in aid this year came from a higher volume of students and changing financial circumstances due to the pandemic. According to Burdick, students who began their application process later were given the opportunity for an extension. But for students who were not given the extension, the responsibility fell on them to keep in contact with the financial aid office…And even when the aid offers did come weeks after their acceptance, some students were asked to take on loans that they felt were excessive for their financial situation.”
Come on, Cornell. Get it together. We get that you had a surge in applications to the Class of 2025. But so too did every other highly selective university. Students admitted to Cornell’s Class of 2025 should not have had to commit to attend — or commit elsewhere — without knowing precisely how much aid you’d be offering them. Cornell’s admissions office didn’t offer them the full picture, which they deserved. Let’s hope Cornell gets it together for next year and that this never happens again.
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2 Comments
Ivy Coach- thank you for highlighting this story. My daughter attends Cornell. This FA office is filled with angry old white ladies who bite you if you appeal your package- count on paying more than the calculator says and NEVER getting a break on appeal- even if a parent has a costly and life-threatening illness, like my husband. They gave is ZERO breaks. Almost downright nasty- and they are the stingiest of all Ivy members. They were bad before Burdick (who seems to be a caring man) about doing their job, but with Covid it’s like a Third World country- I know since I am from a Third World country. To me- I’ve dealt with them a lot- they are plain, 1. Lazy 2. Angry. They need to seriously clean house- Cornell FA is the poster lady for Bad behavior. And I mean BAD. Someone needs to get tough on the FA staff and, Unfortunately, I don’t think Burdick is tough enough to do it.
Their excuse is (according to Burdick) people keep appealing their packages due to COVID impacting people’s finances after they filed their original application. My question is this: Only at Cornell are people appealing packages? NO. And there would be fewer appeals if the packages were not LOUSEY (the real reason). The real reason is lazy workers and understaffed office with measles awards. Thats the trifecta for failure. I do not think Burdick will last either. Nice guy but terribly inefficient.