<p>I was recently looking into different application schemes for selective colleges and researched Early Action and Early Decision. Most of it seemed very straightforward, but it somehow seems too good to be true.</p>
<p>I mean, you get a pretty big advantage when you have a higher chance of being admitted and also know where you are going before everyone else. Not to mention the fact that no senior grades will affect you at all if you do ED/EA (i.e. straight Bs are OK).</p>
<p>BUT someone recently told me that when you apply EA/ED, you will recieve no financial aid or very little aid when compared to the packages you may receive if applying on the regular application schedule.</p>
<p>I was specifically looking into U of Chicago and Cornell. </p>
<p>Does the above hold any truth? What has been your experience with EA/ED?</p>
<p>Thank you for asking this important question!</p>
<p>I’m not an expert, but it’s logical that EA and ED will be different. ED requires an early commitment on the student’s part, which means that the college can get away with not offering you one penny in financial aid, since you promised to attend regardless. But with EA, the student still has until the regular deadline to accept or decline admission, and therefore the financial aid package still carries some weight. This would logically motivate a college to offer an EA applicant just as much financial aid as if they had applied RD. Not so with ED.</p>
<p>It’s not that they won’t give you ANY aid…like a school that meets 100% of need will still meet that even if it’s ED</p>
<p>But, if you are in a bracket where you might not have much need, your FinAid package can be worse than if you wait for RD…and you can’t haggle either</p>
<p>Everything I know about Chicago tells me that is not true there. Remember, EA at Chicago is binding on the University, but not on the student. So when a student is admitted EA, the University is still in a position of having to compete to get that student to enroll. Chicago (deservedly) has a less-than-great reputation for financial aid, largely due to assumptions it makes regarding family savings, which are much less favorable than those used by the Ivies. But I have never seen anything to indicate that the formulas are applied any differently to students admitted EA vs. RD. And I think that EA admittees are offered the limited merit scholarships available at Chicago at least as often as RD admittees, if not at a higher rate. (It’s hard to tell, and I have never seen numbers, but I know of plenty of EA admittees who were offered the scholarships.)</p>
<p>At Cornell, as at all of the Ivies (and Chicago, too, except for its merit scholarships), financial aid is purely formula-driven, and the formulas are no different for ED admittees than for RD admittees. The only difference is that sometimes colleges will meet the competition if a peer university offers substantially more financial aid, and because a student accepted ED must withdraw all other applications, there won’t be any better offers from peer institutions for Cornell to meet. (I don’t know that Cornell in fact ever does that, but others Ivies do, and I assume Cornell will as well. The number of institutions Cornell would consider “peers” for this purpose is probably pretty limited, though.)</p>
<p>Here is the way I understand it. Each school has its own financial aid policy. For some schools it is very transparent so an applicant knows how much they can expect. For instance, some schools meet the demonstrated financial need for all of the students who are accepted. This extends to students accepted early and those accepted by regular decision. Some families can tell what their demonstrated need is. So if having their demonstrated financial need met will be enough for them to be able to attend their dream school then they can go ahead and apply early decision.</p>
<p>Our position was a little different. First, we couldn’t tell with any degree of certainty what our demonstrated financial need would be. To the degree we could pinpoint it, it wouldn’t be enough for our daughter to attend her first choice school. So we couldn’t go early decision because we simply had to shop around for financial aid packages.</p>
<p>That said, if you do go early decision and are accepted but the financial aid offer isn’t enough for you to be able to go to the school then they will release you from the contract. It is the only reason I have ever heard of where someone was released from and early decision contract.</p>
<p>“Here is the way I understand it. Each school has its own financial aid policy. For some schools it is very transparent so an applicant knows how much they can expect. For instance, some schools meet the demonstrated financial need for all of the students who are accepted.”</p>
<p>As they define it. The differences we experienced between four “100% of need” schools, with a simple financial aid application, no outside businesses, little investment income, nothing complicated, amounted to $47k over four years. (In other words, more than a full year’s costs.)</p>
<p>mini, would you mind sharing (or have you posted elsewhere) which schools those were? I would love to get a concrete idea of how various schools define “need” before getting deep into the process myself.</p>
<p>For schools that meet 100% of need and don’t offer any merit aid, your ED financial aid package will probably be no different from your RD aid package. They have their policies and formulae – they crank your numbers through their system and define your “need” as they see it. Then they meet that need with grants, loans (unless it’s a school that does not package loans), and work-study.</p>
<p>“mini, would you mind sharing (or have you posted elsewhere) which schools those were? I would love to get a concrete idea of how various schools define “need” before getting deep into the process myself.”</p>
<p>No, because it was five years ago, and I also know that folks applying to exactly the same schools had different experiences. (and THAT is the point.)</p>
<p>There is not really a motivation for top tier schools to lowball ED applicants’ financial aid packages with a “gotcha” approach. The ED admissions are the applicants that the school really really wants. They want a high yield from this pool as well. The top schools that have a “meets need” policy should not have a difference. Where there could be a difference is in schools that gap financial aid, do not meet need, have merit money, and are not in the top tier, etc. This should be examined carefully in any decision to apply to any school - i.e. do they gap, is aid mostly loans, is need not met, will merit money be available???</p>
<p>It’s not that there will be less aid given if you apply ED, it’s that you won’t have the ability to compare aid packages from different schools.</p>
<p>"The top schools that have a “meets need” policy should not have a difference.:</p>
<p>There is, virtually always. Sometimes the differences are quite massive. Try, for example, a family of four with $175k income at Harvard v. the same at Columbia or Princeton or Swarthmore.</p>
<p>EA is not a negative impact on financial awards. DD had a couple of EA schools and received excellent merit awards from both. She still had bargaining power since EA does not require student’s commitment until May 1. So do not confuse EA and ED. ED is binding on the student and lack of negotiation power and inability to compare can restrict merit awards. </p>
<p>For financial need, however, with ED when financial awards are not sufficient, do they let you know in time to apply to other schools? There have been so many threads with folks shocked at their financial aide package and having done ED not knowing what to do next. It would concern me to apply ED if finances were an issue.</p>
<p>My understanding is that if you are accepted Early Decision you will receive your preliminary Financial Aid award with your acceptance. If it is not enough for you to attend the school they will release you from the contract, this is the only reason I have ever heard of someone being released from an early decision contract. At that point you have time to apply to other schools.</p>
<p>I think you should be concerned about applying early decision if finances are an issue. My thanks to mini for emphasizing this with her story.</p>
<p>Peer school, Carnegie Mellon, specifically discourages ED if financial aid is an important factor. From our experience of 7 years ago, ED would have been a very costly decision.</p>
<p>What I think is a very telling disclaimer… the EFC. If it is determined by the college’s accounting staff, you could very well have a huge gap in what you think you can afford and what they tell you you should afford.</p>
<p>On the other hand, those schools that are truly need blind don’t care if you apply for aid or not and I believe that most will work with you if accepted ED and if you’re unhappy with the financial aid decisions, you can walk. It is binding except for that. However, you can’t just say at the end, “I can’t afford you” if you didn’t ever apply for Financial aid.</p>
<p>Second point: Early decision is much different than Early Action. Early action, as has been stated is binding on the school (barring your flunking calculus or some other infraction where your admission could be rescinded) but for you it just gives you peace of mind.</p>
<p>The truth is, if you are filing for financial aid, it is imperative that you file your paperwork (even if not final) as soon as possible (read: New Years Day). Plus, for those schools that do offer merit aid, it is wise to apply in general earlier rather than later so you might see if you are eligible for any special merit aid or programs. </p>
<p>Most importantly, as has been said elsewhere, demonstrated interest sometimes counts for something. But public and private schools have very different constraints on how they dole out the money, especially if it’s federal money at a state school. Never assume anything and always talk directly to the financial aid officers. They are not there to screw you. Seriously.</p>
<p>Look for schools which are need-blind, and meet full need without loans. If they have a school-specific financial aid calculator and a FA office willing to answer specific questions about how they evaluate need, it can work out. This is not something to be done lightly but it can be the best path for kids with need.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon actually, I believe, covers 100% of financial need through their ED program (but not RD).</p>
<p>Heres a copy of my financial aid award through ED with Carnegie Mellon- and I had low stats. (This is the estimate paper, but the actual award was less than 1k difference if i can remember).</p>
<p>^^ This is exactly why it is key to be extremely organized and at least have some pretty good estimates to work with early on. However, I don’t get the Feb 09 date on the letter and the disclaimer “should you apply.” Obviously, this is the end of a long process to which you submitted docs long before Jan 1 deadline and then just had to get in final numbers (which is probably why it was adjusted by less than 1K)</p>
<p>I think there is some confusion about whether “there’s a difference” in this thread. For schools that only offer need-based aid and that meet 100% of need without loans, there probably will not be a difference in the aid initially awarded whether the student applies RD or ED, providing the student gets all their aid application and all required documents in by the school’s deadline.</p>
<p>There will very likely be a difference, however, between the aid offers (ED and RD) of different colleges, even the ones that meet 100% of need, since they may calculate need quite differently from one another.</p>
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