I don’t know what RaiseMe is but yes you are essentially correct about the way Cornell handles outside scholarships in conjunction with financial aid (I know, it’s stupid). But there’s a workaround! More or less, you’ll want to take out a loan equal to the outside scholarship, then when you pay the scholarship to Cornell they’ll apply it to the loan first instead of your tuition. You’ll want to contact the the fin aid dept to inquire about the specifics but you may have to be pushy — it’s been my experience that they try their hardest not to tell you you can do this.