<p>Why do people apply early decision not knowing how much they will receive in financial aid?
If your financial aid package is very low and you realize you can't finance your education can you then opt out or what?</p>
<p>Kids apply ED because they want to get accepted so desperately that the focus is only on that point. ED usually gives a student a better chance at acceptance. What happens thereafter is the focus on how to pay for the acceptance. </p>
<p>You can opt out of ED if you cannot pay for the college and cannot reach and agreement with the school about what you can afford. Not a good idea to go through this as you will be discussing this with them right before the holidays, and if the college puts your name on the ED accept list, you can be flushed off of other colleges’ considerations. It’s a big pain in the neck to renege and make sure you are disqualified from other schools.</p>
<p>I still dont really get how the schools go through this ED process
If we apply ED and to need-based schools, they’d better meet our demonstrated needs or they’d better reject us right away if they cannot meet our needs so that we can apply to other schools.
Why would they want to play around with us by accepting our ED but not meeting our demonstrated needs? That would kill all our chances.</p>
<p>Don’t get need based FA (which all colleges offer) mixed up with colleges that provide FA for 100% of need. Relatively few colleges (when you consider that there are 3000+ in the US) give 100% of need, most of them leave a “gap” between what they calculate as your need and what they give in their FA package. And remember, even for those colleges that do give 100% of need: 1) THEY calculate your need and 2) FA is made up of loans, work study job and grants. While a very few colleges don’t give loans to all or some students, most will include loans in your FA package, and it could be a substantial part of it.</p>
<p>Schools are not “playing around” with ED, they state very clearly the rules, and you must decide whether or not you are willing and able to live with them. If you want the advantage of finding out early via ED, then you must be willing to accept whatever FA package you receive or negotiate as cpt explained. You don’t get something for nothing.</p>
<p>OP, it depends on the college’s FA policies and family’s circumstances. If applying ED does in fact tilt the odds of acceptance even a little, then a kid with high need who’s applying to a meets-full-need school (especially if it’s a school that either does not include loans or else caps loans at a low level), might be advantaged by doing so. That was our situation and it all worked out just fine. I think this reasoning applies, though, only to a narrow range of applicants.</p>
<p>'rent, does the school ask up-front whether you are going to be applying for FA when you apply ED?</p>
<p>Schools do ask the FA question on their apps - ED, or otherwise. Some schools are need blind for admissions but many are need aware. As an aside, it’s not a good idea to answer “no” to this question in hopes of raising acceptance chances if you’re actually going to need to apply for FA. Some schools will not further consider you for institutional aid unless there are extenuating circumstances.</p>
<p>Also, I have read several reports that suggest that the increased acceptance rates for ED are due to the higher level of well qualified applicants and those without financial need applying under it. In other words, more kids who met/exceeded requirements and would have been accepted RD as well. I suppose the true statistical benefit of ED varies by school.</p>
<p>I have seen kids and adults play games by applying ED without financial aid and then ask for it. Risky business, but folks do it.</p>
<p>More often the situation is that folks don’t know how financial aid and the system works. They have it in their heads that if their kid is a great student and a fine catch and getsi not Prestige U, of course he will get the money somewhere to pay for it. They think that the EFC, both FAFSA and institutional (most are not even aware there are both of these numbers) will meet need as THEY, the parents define it. They know they are not careless with money and there is no way they can come up with $55K a year; no reasonable being would ask them to do so on an income of $150K a year, two kids, house, cars, etc. Right? Well, those of us who have dealt with the situation know how that works, but every year there are kid and families who are outraged, and in shock that the school expects them to pay the COA.</p>
<p>
because there is no way of knowing how much you will receive before you apply and
colleges don’t tell you NOT to apply if you are going to need financial aid.</p>
<p>so the best way of all is not to apply ED when you are really hoping for a large amt of Finaid right? hmm so I guess I should apply to need-blind schools then… sigh… (cos i’m hoping for something like 40k and above…)
btw, I wanna ask when the FA result usually comes out? does it go along with the admission result? or like you get your ED acceptance on 15/12 but must wait till Jan or Feb for your aid?</p>
<p>Yes, Hbrad8002. One thing you ALWAYS lose with ED is the ability to compare. Until you have the other offers in hand, you don’t know what you are worth on the college market. You could decide to let your ED school go because they will not give anymore money, only to find out that it was one of your better choices. You also cannot show competing offers for negotiation purposes. You apply ED if you decide you are going to go for it regardless of what the finances are. Unless you want to go through the rigamorale that results when your renege. It is not pleasant.</p>
<p>ED acceptances usually come with a financial aid estimate based on what you completed along with your app. Until your 2008 information is complete, the definite amounts cannot be given. It ultimately does depend on the school as to the time of the awards. For some merit money, you may have to wait till the end of the process, and some folks say that ED kids are not as likely to get much of that as they are already committed and need no merit enticement.</p>
<p>Skyhook, there is a question on the Common App about whether you plan to apply for financial aid, but it isn’t really put there by any individual school. It’s a general question which different colleges will use for different purposes. I don’t imagine any school would disregard an application with the “yes” box checked, because there are thousands of kids who apply for aid because any little bit helps, but their families can and will end up paying a good portion of the sticker price. It’s not like checking it says “I live in a cardboard box and need full tuition.”</p>
<p>I can only tell you what my son’s college says about how they use the “will you be applying for financial aid?” question on the Common App. It’s a “need-blind” school (whatever that might mean these days) that meets full need without loans. They say it merely alerts them that admissions information needs to be shared with the FA office so that they can work up an aid award for the applicant. It is not a topic when deliberating over admitting a student. Do they <em>see</em> it? Sure, but they see lots of other things about you too that can tip them off regarding your likely resources.</p>
<p>I agree with cptofthehouse about not thinking it might give you an edge in admissions if you aren’t upfront about needing aid. For one thing, if you get in but can’t afford it, what good did that do you? And secondly, just because a student applies for aid doesn’t necessarily mean they need a LOT of aid, so why would a school disregard their application over just that?</p>
<p>My son needed a ton of aid, really a <em>ton</em>. There was no point in pretending the situation was something other than it was.</p>
<p>Hbrad8002, in answer to your first question, generally speaking that is true; you shouldn’t apply ED if you require a lot of FA to attend. In my opinion there is one narrow exception to that rule: If you have limited family income, few or no assets (other than the house you live in), and if the school is very open about its financial aid policies and you can understand how they would be applied to your situation, and the school meets-100%-of-need without packaging student or parent loans in the aid award – AND you know for sure it’s the one school you’d like to attend over any other – then I think it can be an advantage to apply ED. I mean, <em>if</em> ED might help at all in tipping your application into the acceptance pile, and you need that much aid, then applying early might actually help you get the aid you need just by slightly increasing your chances of being accepted at all.</p>
<p>All that said, only a handful of the hardest-to-get-into schools offer the kind of FA aid I described, several of them don’t even have an ED option anyway, and you really need to do your homework regarding their financial aid policies.</p>
<p>And, by the way, this is all totally irrelevant in cases where merit aid is part of the picture. It applies just to need-based-aid-only colleges.</p>
<p>Cptofthehouse is 100% right that you give up the opportunity to compare aid awards. That’s a big factor. However, just to put this in the clearest possible terms, if you are at or under around 50K/yr AGI in terms of family income, and you are determined to go to, say, Pomona or Dartmouth or some other school with an ED option that meets full need without loans, then what you’re saying is that this is the one school you’d most like to attend no matter what other options you could have… and the FA policies are such that in all likelihood you will be able to afford it… then you could look at applying ED like this: that it gives you a better shot at getting accepted and consequently receiving that generous financial aid. If the contribution expected from the family is a bit higher than you can swing, well, since there are no loans packaged in the award to start with, if necessary the student could take out some smallish amount in loans to help cover the gap.</p>
<p>Or at least that’s how we looked at it. Whether my son got the very best FA from his ED school that he could have gotten from anywhere else, we’ll never know. But the point was he wanted to go to <em>that</em> school, and knowing we’d be able to afford it because of their generous aid policies was really only the question. We were never looking at it from a “shopping schools, shopping aid awards” perspective.</p>
<p>Anyway, my point is not to argue that kids with need should apply ED. In almost all cases they should not. However, truisms are not true in all cases, and people need to really learn about this stuff for themselves, think it out for themselves, and understand how it works with their particular circumstances… and defnitely as a team with both the student and the parent involved.</p>
<p>i applied ED and needed lots of FA. i got in and got more money than i expected. it was a need-blind, meets 100% need school. unless you have BOTH of those, i wouldn’t do it…</p>
<p>I’ve never heard advice not to apply ED if you need lots of FA. This is new to me. What information do you (collectively) have about applying EA? Would you give the same advice for an EA school as opposed to ED?</p>
<p>Also, if you are accepted EA, can you wait to accept or decline until after the 4/1 decisions come out?</p>
<p>EA is totally different because the decisions are not binding. If you get accepted somewhere else in RD that you prefer, or you get a better aid award elsewhere, you’re free to choose.</p>
<p>EA however does not generally increase an applicant’s chances of acceptance, and in fact in some cases EA makes it a little tougher than RD.</p>
<p>ED can --depending on school-- be of some small help in getting the decision to tip your way because you are committing to attend if accepted.</p>
<p>Cotee, only thing I’d add is that I’d personally want to see no-loans or else a low loan cap, in addition to a policy of meeting full need. Also, some people need to be careful about their assets. It’s fairly easy to see where your income positions you, but assets can totally throw things off. (If you don’t have any, no worry. ;)) Also anyone with a non-custodial parent in the picture, their income and assets will also be considered.</p>
<p>My daughter applied ED with significant need and it worked out because the school met 100% of need without loans and had its own FA calculator on its website so we knew a ballpark package ahead of time. We also have fairly straightforward finances. It can be a wise strategy.</p>
<p>I really wish I knew how much of an edge it would give to say “No FA” on an ED application. I know someone who would want to take any advantage. However, if it wouldn’t really make any difference, then that is a different matter.</p>