New to the College Admissions Arena? Learn These Key Terms

[CCEdit_Torrey]

Dave Berry shares the lingo you’ll need to know as you enter the college admissions process: https://www.collegeconfidential.com/articles/admissions-lingo-for-newbies/

[TheGreyKing]

This is a good and helpful summary, but I was startled by this statement, which may have been a typing error in the original source (?):

In many cases, applicants may apply EA to more than one college. However, if the applicant has applied Early Decision, s/he usually may not apply to other colleges EA, although there may be exceptions to this rule.

This is not accurate for any college offering early decision that I have studied. All of the colleges I have read about that offer early decision allow you to apply early action to as many colleges as you like. But you may apply to only one early DECISION college. If you get accepted to the early decision college, you need to attend it unless the financial aid package is unacceptable. Upon your acceptance to the early decision college, you withdraw all pending applications and tell any colleges that already accepted you early action, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

In fact, I strongly recommend that anyone applying early decision to a highly selective college also apply early action to some other colleges, including a safety college. Then, if you are deferred or rejected early decision, you will not be in agony waiting until March, because you will know that you have been accepted to a four year college!

[ucbalumnus]

In the linked article…

@Dave_Berry

In many cases, applicants may apply EA to more than one college. However, if the applicant has applied Early Decision, s/he usually may not apply to other colleges EA, although there may be exceptions to this rule.

Usually, if an applicant applies under ED, the ED college will prohibit the applicant from applying early elsewhere, although there may be exceptions to this rule.

Although this seems to be a common belief on these forums, it does not appear to be correct for any ED school.

It may be due to an erroneous assumption that most EA schools have some form of restrictive EA where the applicant agrees not to apply ED anywhere (and possibly other restrictions regarding other EA applications). But most schools with EA do not have such restrictions, and, for those that do, the restrictions come from those EA schools, not the ED school.

@Dave_Berry

The EFC is calculated (for public schools) according to a federal-government methodology (via the FAFSA) and/or (for private colleges) by an institutional (college-specific) methodology (via the CSS Profile and, possibly, the college’s own financial aid form).

It should not be assumed that public schools use FAFSA methodology to calculate EFC (note that some do use CSS Profile as well as FAFSA). Also, a private school could use FAFSA methodology if it chooses. The best way to estimate your EFC for a given school is to run that school’s net price calculator.

@Dave_Berry

The EFC amount is the difference between the college’s total annual student budget (tuition, room and board and any ancillary costs) and any school-provided financial aid (grants, loans, scholarships, work study, etc.).

Not all schools will offer financial aid or scholarships covering the difference between their list prices and whatever EFC the school chooses to calculate. This can be particularly true for out-of-state state schools. Again, the best way to estimate net price after financial aid at a given school is to run that school’s net price calculator.