At Carnegie Mellon, freshers can play the financial aid version of Let’s Make a Deal. The university considers improving a financial aid package if a rival institution offers more. In fact, it explains the negotiation process in its admissions material.

Here’s unhappy news for applicants elsewhere: most financial aid officers frown on the word “negotiate” and insist, that they don’t haggle over tuition or raise their bid.

Colleges put together a package of government grants and loans and their own money to fill the gap between costs and what they have determined you are able to pay. As college-bound students will discover when their award letters arrive, the amount and kind of aid vary from college to college. The most wiggle room is in any merit aid that comes from a college’s own coffers.

Most financial aid officials will reconsider your package, in what’s called a professional judgement review, if you have new financial information or expect unusual circumstances to suck up family funds — say, a parent’s sudden job loss. According to a 2001 survey of members by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, almost half of appeals resulted in increases in awards. But while 33 per cent of institutions said they adjusted aid frequently or always because of new information submitted by the family, only 7 per cent said they did so because the family felt it was not able to pay and only 2 per cent because of aid offers from elsewhere.

So someone out there is negotiating. Administrators and consultants say that less selective private colleges are more liberal about making adjustments, particularly those with lots of non-need-based aid to distribute.

Such decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. Students who succeed in securing more aid generally have some leverage: a special talent or high scores as well as a competing offer from a rival school.

It may be worth a shot. Because the college cannot rescind admissions or aid offers, the worst thing anyone can say is no.

TIMING YOUR APPEAL: Before challenging a financial aid package, wait to hear back from every college that accepted you. “It’s important not to just rush and send in the acceptance letter right away and then try to appeal the package,” says Kalman A. Chany, author of Paying for College Without Going Broke.

GETTING A HEARING: If you have received a better aid package elsewhere, then try sending a short letter or an e-mail to the aid office, and following up with a phone call.

Present your case by making three main points, Steven Roy Goodman, private admissions consultant in Washington, says. First, how excited you are about attending the college. Next, how paying for college is a financial stretch, and third, how you have a more attractive package elsewhere. Then ask if the college would reconsider. Provide documentation of financial hardship and have available the offer letters from other competing colleges. After that, it’s up to the financial aid office to make its decision, which is final.

PLAYING HARDBALL: Families that try to bully their way to more aid are likely to walk away disappointed. “The common mistake is to think colleges are like a car dealership where bluff can ensure a better package,” says Mark Kantrowitz, author of FastWeb College Gold. Playing on sympathies won’t go far, either.

NEGOTIATING FOR OTHER THINGS: If the aid office won’t improve its package, there may be ways to make it more attractive. Yvonne Hubbard, director of student financial services at the University of Virginia, says her university lost some students last year to colleges that assured perks — a research opportunity, a guaranteed slot in the business school. University of Virginia is now assessing whether to do the same.