<p>Forgive me Sybbie, but what is the downside to select a clear first choice, learn about admission before the end of the year, and accept or reject the financial package in January? </p>
<p>A rejected ED offer leaves all the RD options open, minus the ED school … Unless games are played.</p>
<p>The advantages of ED and SCEA are outweighing the downside by a large margin.</p>
<p>^^ but you are saying Yes or No without knowing all the other fin aid offers…</p>
<p>There is no down side if there is a clear first choice and parents are willing to make the $$ work. However smileygerl, stated that ED was the obvious choice for a low income URM (at least in her house). I disagree with the statement to it being the obvious choice. </p>
<p>In addition at many high schools the clock stops on an ED applicant until they show that they have been released from the ED contract (so in some cases this means no new stuff is sent out to colleges during the RD round until the high school gets the release).</p>
<p>Kelowna - your kid is lucky to have a smart mom. </p>
<p>Apart from the very important financial issues, the typical 17 year is not going to have a strong sense of his or her academic interests by Sept. of their senior year. With binding ED, a student may get stuck at a college that doesn’t have an engineering school, after they decide that is their direction. Or, they may get stuck at a school without a good business program, etc. Or, the student may decide they would rather attend a larger or a smaller school than their ED choice. </p>
<p>My son ended up in an entirely different type of major when he made his college decision in April than he had intended at the start of his senior year. </p>
<p>We should not underestimate the amount of growing, exploration and self-development that occurs during a student’s senior year of high school.</p>
<p>College visits in the Junior year are fine for narrowing down colleges for applications, but they are not sufficient to narrow down choices to a single college. In-depth visits for accepted students during the spring of the senior year (and continuing research) are the right ways to make that decision.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I think an extreme emphasis on binding early decision tells you something about the attitude and priorities of certain colleges. The colleges that care the most about their students (and not their stats or full pay percentage) are the ones that offer non-binding early action.</p>
<p>I will never understand why more of the selective colleges don’t use rolling admissions. If they clearly know that they want a student, then they should accept him or her as soon as they know. If they clearly know that a student won’t be admitted, then tell them as soon as possible so they can submit other applications and won’t have false hopes. For the bulk of the students who are in the middle, send them letters telling them that they have to do extremely well in the mid-year grades if they want to be admitted. </p>
<p>Also, why play around with likely to admit letters? If the student is worthy of a likely letter, just go ahead and admit them. The likely letters just upset the students who don’t get them.</p>
<p>"What do they call it? Need based aid? Are intimating that the schools develop flexible rules for athletes, musicians, or actors?</p>
<p>Is that different from schools offering their best merit aid packages to students who qualify for need-based aid? As they do in, humm, a small northeastern progressive city."</p>
<p>It’s only different because they perpetuate an untruth. Harvard revamped its system so as to guarantee that no family would pay more than 10% of their income (if under $180k) in order to give what is very close to free rides to recruited athletes. And it worked. See what has happened to the basketball team of late? So a family with a $75k income with a recruited athlete will pay $7.5k a year (of a $60k bill). Call it what you will - it looks like an athletic scholarship to me. </p>
<p>By the way - I have absolutely NO problem with offering athletic scholarships. I do have a problem with it masquerading as “need-based” aid, at a supposedly (ahem, cough, cough, cough) “need-blind” institution.</p>
<p>Kelowna wrote
^^ but you are saying Yes or No without knowing all the other fin aid offers…</p>
<p>And my reply is … SO WHAT! Why would a low or zero EFC student need to compare packages. If it works, it does. If not, reject and move on to the rest of the applications and … gamble. It is not that complicated, unless one believes the ED school would have been more generous in the RD round. More generous to a student who needs close to a full need-based aid? Really?</p>
<p>Easy to say, Xiggi, not so easy to do. The offer is $6K a year, for example, and for a low or zero EFC family that is a lot. But Ivy for $6K a year…would you, could you do better? The process is over, the puppy dog eyes of your kid is on you, so you go for it. Then you find out kids with stats not as good as your kids got full rides at other school that might have been a lot better of a deal and one to consider. Kid gets an outside scholraship and it gets scarfed up by the financial aid offsets. Then you see other parents negotiatiing with schools and see differentials of as much as $10K between similar schools. So, yes, the family with great difficulty can scrape up the $6K because they feel this is manna from heaven and the best deal ever, then they find out otherwise. Talk to Katwkittens, Sybbie and others about what differences the offers from like schools were and how they will negotiate. That required student contribution may not be so required. </p>
<p>So, yes, it may be “worth it” to the family paying out the money, and they can make it work, but the diffrence $5K even $1K can make in a family that is already with back to the wall can be essential. </p>
<p>I remember my brother when visiting a few years ago was telling my cousin to just put down a second deposit for something to secure something while things were up in the air It was a mere couple hundred dollars, non refundable, however. I had to explain to him that this was a woman who mapped out how to use each gallon of gas, saw movies only on Tuesdays when she could free passes for them, and offered to do clean up at church dinners and events to bring home the leftovers to stretch her food bill. </p>
<p>That’s “SO WHAT”.</p>
<p>Mini, I have zero problem with the masquerading. Please tell me who the loser is? </p>
<p>It is all a matter of personal interpretation. All schools use crutches to reach their goals. I never found the practices of buying strong students from New England non-coed schools to southern public academic factories any more appealing or endearing. </p>
<p>Crying wolf about the financial aid at the Ivy League seems disingenuous. They are rich and they DO give a lot of money. If their generosity allows a few players to pick an academic powerhouse over a school that is only a NBA waiting room, so be it. Wanna talk about the graduation rates at UConn? </p>
<p>Athletic scholarships are a fraud at many schools. The reclassification at the leading schools seems to be its mildest form, if there is one at all.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>xiggi: I don’t disagree in general. ED to a generous, selective school can be a wise choice for unhooked applicants.</p>
<p>But the poster had first gen, URM; high stat URMs are in demand by colleges. The small admissions benefit of ED is just not necessary for such applicants, IMO. </p>
<p>And the dough won’t change, unless it gets better by negotiating competing offers. Play off a generous no-loan school against a generous loan school, for example.</p>
<p>Capt, I think that you may be missing the point I was trying to make. For the record, I am very familiar with the posts and information shared by Sybbie or Katwkittens. I fully understand that schools might offer packages that differ from one another. And, I am also very familiar how many families have fared before and … after accepting the financial packages at schools. My points are not merely plucked from the thin air. </p>
<p>For starters, all packages are projected for multiple years, but are really nothing but a ONE year deal. Even guaranteed scholarships can contain restrictions. In so many words, that full ride might not be there the following year, and that generous package at school XYZ might simply be quite different than the projection. In the same vein, a student might be better off at a school that was NOT so generous in year 1, but a lot more flexible in subsequent years. </p>
<p>And, again, to condense my posts above, I am talking about students who CAN expect some of the most generous need-based packages. And I am talking about selecting a school that represents a CLEAR first choice, and about accepting an offer that is or might appear doable. And I am talking about an opportunity cost, namely the possible loss of a school that offers a unworkable low aid in the ED round. You seem to talk about the pitfalls of accepting a bad package at the ED school. And those pitfalls exist … everywhere! </p>
<p>As far as the efforts to be made by families, there are plenty of components that could play a role. Yes, there are earnings expectations, and yes they do vary. But, there are also various options that are available to a student, including borrowing the amounts that are expected through students’ contributions. This is a matter of weighing the benefit of an education at a school … that had sufficient recognition to be chosen as THE ED school. </p>
<p>At the end, it all comes to one’s appreciation of the true cost of education. And most importantly the true benefits of higher education. And when such benefit can be weighed against borrowing a VERY modest sum and having better chances to pay the loans off through increased earnings, the right choices become compelling.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The two full ride scholarships that my senior received are offered by private foundations, not by the school. That is percisely the reason I was not so keen on negotiation with other schools as I thought even if they match it, it will only be for a year…</p>
<p>
What is a very modest sum? Someone gave example o 6K/year. I can make 6K pretty easily, but to save it is a whole other story…</p>
<p>Bluebayou, high stats URM are indeed in high demand at selective schools. But, looking at the record exposed to Carnevale, et al, the demand has not materialized for lower SES students in general. You that pesky low figure of students from the bottom SES at the selective schools. </p>
<p>Then we have to make a number of assumptions and balance them with some evidence. Should one assume that schools prefer to see students in the RD round, or should we safely assume that schools find programs such as Questbridge quite … irresistible. And this despite a high cost of participation. Should one assume that the finaid budgets will be as high in the RD as in the ED rounds? </p>
<p>Put it all together, and I think that I can put forward strong arguments to support the theory that for a low SES student with competitive grades, applying early (and wisely) is one of the best and safest bets.</p>
<p>Kelowna, we can use the $6,000 dollars per year, if you want, and intimate that the total debt would amount to $24,000 upon graduation.</p>
<p>Is such amount too high a price to pay for attending a school that was the … first choice? And, should we assume that the other schools would truly be 24,000 more expensive over the same four years? Are full rides really the same as a ZERO cost education? </p>
<p>The analysis should not focus on the financial abilities of the family and the student. It should focus on the future (increased) stream of income after graduation. In the end, how many families would consider a $24,000 educational bill too high, and one impossible to erase with a degree of a selective school?</p>
<p>So after reading the first few posts and scanning the numbers in the NYT chart, I wonder about the the truth behind these numbers. I am new to this game, so forgive me, but I am struggling to see (and I really want to see it…) the difference in applying ED versus RD.</p>
<p>I’ve gone through a few CC threads of acceptances at the top schools and noticed that many of those accepted ED/EA are URM’s, legacies, athletes or are from a low population state. If you take those kids out of the equation, are the numbers still so much higher than RD. Does anyone know this answer?</p>
<p>I am struggling with advising S1 on whether or not to apply early to his number one choice. Yes, he has the numbers, the EC’s etc. He is eligible for the lottery per se. But he is not URM, we are from a state with a tremendous number of applicants, he’s not a legacy and goes to a competitive school where many kids will apply EA/ED to the two schools that are at the top of his list. While we are not 0 EFC, he will check off financial aid, so does that further lower the ED chances?</p>
<p>So, if you have no hooks whatsoever, does it make sense to go RD? I know this is probably a tough question, but after looking at the NYT chart and then looking at the threads on CC I need someone with a little more knowledge than I have to help me think through this.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your input.</p>
<p>
If someone is really set on one school and they would not go anywhere else no matter the cost difference, then apply ED. BUT the difference in aid awarded can be huge. In our case is close to 20K between the least and the most expensive school , both claiming to meet the full need…</p>
<p>Before applying to the ED schools, I ran the numbers using the FAFSA formula. I basically knew what I was expected to pay. My calculations were within $1500. ED increased the chances of my children being accepted. I was not going to forgo the opportunity for my children to attend great universities which meet 100% need. </p>
<p>Xiggi
My ED applications were based on my children graduating with no more than $25,000 of debt. It may end up being less than $20,000.</p>
<p>There is no doubt in my mind applying ED was the best choice.</p>
<p>I often wondered about the term “full ride”. Does “full ride” include room and board?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Don’t need to sinkin’ high falutin’ study to know that fact of life, particularly for those of us that grew up on the other side of the tracks. (By definition, the EC’s required from unhooked candidates require at least middle-class wealth.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is not an insignificant amount to a poor family. (And you would have to be poor to understand it.) But in reality, it’s more than that. Those pricey, NE colleges don’t cover much travel; they don’t cover winter clothes, etc. $24k buys a lot of personal items not covered by need-based aid.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, I don’t disagree when you add “safest.” It’s just that the downside for high-stat URMs not using ED is minimal, and thus worth the small risk, IMO. Yes, ED is ‘safer’, (and probably a lock) for such students but I would argue not by much, and definitely not as boost-worthy as it is for an unhooked candidate. But just my fact-free opinion.</p>
<p>Full ride is just what it sounds like 
It includes all the expenses of attending a school: tuition, room, board, books, fees, study abroad. Some scholarships give you more…</p>
<p>I just wanted to link information of early vs regular admission rates for the ivies. This link appears to be more comprehensive.</p>
<p>[Ivy</a> League Admission Statistics for Class of 2017 - Hernandez College Consulting & Ivy League Admission Help](<a href=“http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admission-statistics-2017/]Ivy”>http://www.hernandezcollegeconsulting.com/ivy-league-admission-statistics-2017/)</p>