<p>Applying Early Decision. If accepted, all other applications have to be withdrawn. Why? I am just curious if they would have been accepted.</p>
<p>If the ED is binding, you are essentially signing a contract with the college stating that, if admitted and given enough financial aid, you will attend. From the college’s point of view, anyone who is accepted should not need to have any other applications. Hence the many warnings and explanations each college gives while defining their EA/ED policies.</p>
<p>When you apply ED and are accepted, you have a binding agreement to attend that school. Not withdrawing your other applications is incredibly selfish. First, you are wasting the admissions staff’s time at the other colleges - they are evaluating your application not realizing that there is no chance you will be attending. Secondly, you are taking a possible spot from another student if you are accepted. The correct thing to do is to withdraw all other applications after receiving an ED acceptance. Many high schools monitor this. At our high school, we require students to copy us on their e-mail withdrawals so that we know they have complied. Do the classy thing and withdraw the other apps.</p>
<p>If you wanted to find out who else would have accepted you, you should not have applied ED. It’s a fun high-stakes game, too bad you can’t play. </p>
<p>BTW, if you want to transfer for whatever reason, and you DIDn’t cancel that EA/RD application, schools will know, I’m sure.</p>
<p>Just to be sure, colleges you apply to with ED won’t expect you to withdraw your other applications until after you have worked out a suitable financial aid packet with them, right?</p>
<p>Correct, Rune688. However, do keep in mind that a college which you’re accepted to ED is even less likely than normal to bargain with you about the financial aid offered. And you don’t get to just say “I think I could get more financial aid elsewhere”; if you don’t demonstrate that you cannot reasonably afford it, you’re stuck with what the college wants to give you.</p>
<p>*Just to be sure, colleges you apply to with ED won’t expect you to withdraw your other applications until after you have worked out a suitable financial aid packet with them, right? *</p>
<p>My kids only applied EA, so I’m not sure how this all works.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine that you can drag your heels over a period of months “negotiating” a better FA package with an ED acceptance in a way that it looks like you’re really just waiting to see what other schools you were accepted to and to see their FA packages.</p>
<p>Along with what others have said, the benefit to ED is to apply to the number one school of your choice and know early that they want you too. </p>
<p>The deal is that it’s a binding contract and once they accept you, you need to let other schools know you won’t be attending. </p>
<p>It’s not fair to the other schools’ adcoms to spend the time on your application; it’s not fair to a kid who may not make it in to one of the other schools because you took a space in the “accept” pile. </p>
<p>It’s just not done and I would really worry that my ED school would find out that I didn’t rescind my applications.</p>
<p>After my son was admitted ED to a top tier LAC he recieved a letter reminding him to recind his application to other schools. It said that the Dean would be “meeting with other admissions departments”. I was fascinated by this image. I loved the idea of all of these admissions people sitting around a conference table saying “I got Joe Schmo”, “I got Ellen Early”. I later asked someone from his admission office and was told that they circulate, by e-mail, lists of the students who were chosen ED. Not as fun, but undoubtedly more practical. So other colleges are notified that a student is admitted ED somewhere. Don’t apply ED unless you intend to go to that school if admitted.</p>
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<p>I would imagine there is not a ton of back and forth with ED.</p>
<p>"Just to be sure, colleges you apply to with ED won’t expect you to withdraw your other applications until after you have worked out a suitable financial aid packet with them, right? "</p>
<p>Keep in mind that “suitable” for the relatively few colleges that guarantee to meet 100% of your demonstrated financial need is what the college thinks you need, not what you think you need. If, for instance, the package meets your need by including loans and work study, and you don’t want either, the college probably isn’t going to change its package.</p>
<p>It also isn’t going to allow you to wait until April when you can compare packages you’ve gotten from other colleges. Many colleges also will automatically reject someone whom they learn has an ED acceptance. The colleges offering ED send their lists of students accepted ED to colleges that their applicants tend to apply to. </p>
<p>That’s why if finances are a consideration, don’t apply ED.</p>
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<p>I’m guessing the poster has made the mental leap regarding binding contract already. The WHY is that admissions works within the confines of a defined budget and an infrastructure designed to nourish only so many students. If YOU are accepted at another school regular decision, the school needs to reject another student or put them on their waiting list (if they have one). The result is that you are taking a spot that is ultimately going to another student. Problem is that while you’re jerking them around just to find out whether you would be accepted or not, another kid that might really want to go there may be crying in her room. Thus the school may be turning down a more worthy student only to be accepting a student lower on its ranking system later. </p>
<p>Another major factor is the financial side of aid. If you are not a full pay, you are taking precious limited funds from the school’s budget. What I mean is that they are ‘blind’ to whether you are coming or not and must assume those financial aid dollars are consumed. The result may be that the school was forced to accept a full pay in the interim when they would much rather have taken another kid who needs financial aid to attend school.</p>
<p>Being curious about where you might have been admitted is natural but (if allowed) comes at a high price to your college-bound peers.</p>
<p>If you’re “curious” to see how many schools you’d get accepted to, then don’t apply ED. Period.</p>
<p>BTW…I think the whole ED process is going to fall apart within a few years, if families begin thinking that they can decline if they don’t like the FA package. And, that’s what seems to be going on now.</p>
<p>I think the OP has a good point. If you’ve already paid the $75 for an RD app, then you’re not “wasting that school’s time.” You’ve paid for that time. It’s not like they are going to refund your fee if you withdraw. And why would your ED school care whether or not you wait to see if you’re accepted? What does it matter to them if decline an acceptance or simply withdraw an application? As long as you don’t go to that RD school, their ED process has been respected.</p>
<p>“I think the OP has a good point. If you’ve already paid the $75 for an RD app, then you’re not “wasting that school’s time.” You’ve paid for that time. It’s not like they are going to refund your fee if you withdraw. And why would your ED school care whether or not you wait to see if you’re accepted?”</p>
<p>Because some students who do this change their mind and decide to go to the RD accept school.</p>
<p>RD schools (remember that all ED schools also offer RD admissions) don’t want to waste their time and possibly merit aid money by offering admission/aid to students who aren’t going to attend.</p>
<p>Anyone who doesn’t agree with what ED applications require has the option of applying RD instead of signing a document that says that they have to do things that they think are unfair. No one is forced to apply ED.</p>
<p>In most or many cases in which ED-accepted people just want to see whether they’ll get admitted to their RD schools, the RD schools are more competitive schools. Otherwise, I doubt that the ED people would be that curious about whether they would be accepted.</p>
<p>“BTW…I think the whole ED process is going to fall apart within a few years, if families begin thinking that they can decline if they don’t like the FA package. And, that’s what seems to be going on now.”</p>
<p>Colleges could simply defer ED applicants who apply for financial aid.</p>
<p>*Colleges could simply defer ED applicants who apply for financial aid. *</p>
<p>If that becomes the “new way,” then there wouldn’t be a point to applying ED if you need FA. All FA applicants would automatically become RD (and “need blind” would also cease to exist). ED would (again) be an advantage for the rich.</p>
<p>Given the economy, however, it may be that ED will be only for people who don’t need financial aid.</p>
<p>^^^
That’s what the original criticism of ED was…that it was a huge advantage for the rich. That’s why certain elites went to EA.</p>
<p>I think that soon ED will go away. Perhaps those schools that currently have ED will go to Single-Choice Early Action. That seems to make the most sense.</p>
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<p>Families could always decline ED for financial reasons, that’s nothing new. That this is a big or growing issue? I don’t know. But remember that this is CC and this forum is not the normal distribution curve of students/parents and their concerns. Far from it. </p>
<p>ED applicants are legacy students, student athletes, and other kids dying to be admitted and getting the word as early as possible. ED allows a school to set a core of their student body thus giving them a better handle on the strategy for the remainder of the class in both good times and bad. In good times, more kids will be shifted to RD making for a more selective class or the opposite in bad times. Remove ED and that strategy is out the window. </p>
<p>No school is going to give up ED and the all-important reporting stats that virtually all kids accepted will be admitted UNLESS some better idea comes down the pike. I wouldn’t hold my breath.</p>
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<p>Certainly FA budgets can be lower in bad economies. All the more reason for needy/talented kids to apply early. Applying late just improves the chance that those limited dollars went to some other needy/talented kid. It’s that basic.</p>