Our daughter got a couple of emails asking her to switch to EDII to enhance her chances for admittance. Lehigh is her #1, but I don’t feel comfortable committing unless we get a substantial combo of merit and scholarships as we do not want her to be straddled with heavy debt after graduating.
What happens if they offer and we don’t accept because I don’t feel we can pay even if the University feels that debt is acceptable?
Have you run Lehigh’s NPC to see if it would be affordable? Net Price Calculator
You could also ask the FA dept to do an FA pre-read, saying that’s a critical piece of information needed to make the switch decision. (I don’t know if they will do that, but you can ask).
Should your D make the switch and get accepted, she can withdraw from the ED commitment if Lehigh’s offer is not what the NPC said (or a potential pre-read). But…there is certainly a psychological cost to your D going thru that. Good luck.
If her stats are high enough to get merit then she should be able to get an acceptance without ED2. My daughter was accepted RD in 2021 but wasn’t offered a dime in FA or merit.
Was it a personal email to only your daughter, or a blast email?
You can walk away.
That is exactly what I am concerned about, without aid, we have to move on
It is addressed to her, but it feels like its boilerplate,
Umm…it’s not quite that easy to walk away from an ED offer. My understanding, from guidance counselors and general college advice articles, tours, and books, is that withdrawing from ED is not taken lightly by colleges. Some people have reported that their accepting institution calls your school’s guidance counselor and your school’s future acceptance rate will decline. It is generally best avoided as you are reneging on a commitment and the experience is not an easy or pleasant one. Best to get the financials sorted ahead of time by asking a point-blank question of financial aid: If accepted ED, what would our FA and/or merit package look like?
Have you run the NPC? When the Lehigh NPC returned an EFC of $80k, I laughed out loud, thinking surely there was a mistake somewhere. There was no mistake. I was told we had “too much in retirement savings” to qualify for aid.
Lehigh is an expensive school full of very affluent NY/NJ/CT kids from the top 5% income level, with a healthy dose of rural Pennsylvania first-gen kids who get generous financial aid, as well as URMs who get nice no-loans packages.
As for merit, there are a few Trustee Scholarships for either full or half tuition for the very top applicants. Current tuition is just shy of $60k but with a 3.5% increase expected for next year (not yet publicized on their site), your daughter would need to be at the very tippy top of the application pool and/or have something very unique about her that Lehigh strongly desires to round out the class. Even with the Trustee scholarship, you will still be looking at a total cost of close to $80k all-in for this year alone. Every year tuition increases 3.5%. The residential costs are underestimated on their site, because after freshman and sophomore year, most upperclassmen will either live off-campus or in sorority housing. Sorority or fraternity housing can cost $14k per year or more (see the listing on the Lehigh site). Renting off campus is not cheap as many homes have been purchased by investors. Please look carefully at the fees assessed over and above tuition and room and board, and factor in transportation, books and incidental costs. Right now their site estimates a four year degree costing just shy of $300k.
If you are an upper middle class family from a high cost of living area, don’t expect much if anything. Typical merit awards are small (think $5000 - $7500 per year) and tuition and expenses rise yearly. “Extra” activities are expensive as well.
You’re best bet is to look carefully at the NPC and call them to walk through what could be expected if you apply ED. Do not wait until after acceptance. Make sure you have some offers from what they consider their peer schools as they will not consider competing with offers from schools with similar academics and rankings if not a direct peer. By this I mean, you can’t claim an offer from a Western or Southern small uni or LAC is a peer offer.
Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions.
What does your child want to study? It sounds like it is time to make sure you have some reasonable safety options.
And if your daughter wins a Trustee scholarship, congratulations and go for it! What does she want to study?
Please cite your source for this.
@Mwfan1921 I am making some edits to my reply so you may wish to bear with me for another 15 minutes or so. Sorry!
I would ask myself why is Lehigh doing this? Is it to help your daughter? Or to help themselves? Clearly it is the latter. If she switches to ED and gets in, she will feel committed to attend, and Lehigh can be more certain of its yield.
I wouldn’t switch myself because you are surrendering your financial flexibility. From your post, you need financial aid n order to be able to attend the college. But by applying ED, you have to take whatever offer they give you. If you apply ED, you incentivize Lehigh to low-ball you on financial aid, or not give you any at all, which is exactly the outcome you cannot afford.
I know it will increase anxiety, but my advice would be to stay RD and keep waiting. If she has the credentials to get in, she probably will, and you are likely to get a more generous financial aid offer.
Given the number of Reddit posts on this topic, this email was likely sent to every applicant.
And unless it was different than the others, it was an offer, not a request.
Schools will prefer an applicant who commits to attend over one who has many choices. Not in terms of chances of admission, they just want you to commit.
If you didn’t feel that ED was the proper choice during the application process, I don’t see why an email would change it.
asking her to switch to EDII to enhance her chances for admittance
Can you provide the exact language that told you it would change her chance of being admitted?
They probably will not give you a merit based scholarship. But lehigh meets need and you will be paying your EFC (whatever it is according to FAFSA/lehigh calculators).
I’m not the original poster, but this is from an email I received from Lehigh in late December right before my child applied.
You have two options: Early Decision II and Regular Decision. By applying for Early Decision II, you’ll enjoy the benefits of a smaller applicant pool, higher admission rate and faster decision response.
The email also states:
We’re predicting a record number of applications in our regular decision pool this year , which inevitably means that our application process is going to be more selective.
Thanks for posting this. It’s important to note that in the ED rounds there are often higher acceptance rates than in RD, even for unhooked applicants.
Hopefully OP will let us know the NPC results, if they tried to get a financial aid, and their decision.
Actually the school is being transparent and helpful by reminding applicants of the quid pro quo nature of the process.
If the student offers a commitment to attend they receive in exchange an enhanced likelihood of acceptance. Conversely if the student wants greater flexibility the school is reminding applicants that this option comes with a cost of lower acceptance rates.
Yes ED benefits the school by enhancing yields and providing certainty to the school but many students prefer and benefit from the ED option as both a means of being “one and done” and getting the “tie breaker” of demonstrated interest vs a comparable or even better credentialed RD candidate.
The rules are the rules and the school is doing nothing more than making sure everyone is aware of them.
I just let the admissions counselor know this is my daughters #1 choice, but I cannot let her commit until I know the financials. She thanked me for the note and said they understand some families have to take that into account. She also said they would add into her file the confirmation of interest.
Daughter also got an email yesterday saying they had 20% more applications this year. Looks like competition is going to be fierce to get in and receive any financial relief.
Did you ask if they do financial aid pre-reads? And…going forward, only your D should be speaking with admissions. It’s ok for a parent to talk with financial aid re: a pre-read.
Lehigh isn’t all that great with merit aid. Does their NPC (which doesn’t include merit aid) look affordable?
She has been the point of contact except for this conversation; financial decisions are mine. We can’t pay what the NPC shows
Got it. Makes sense to not apply ED2 then. Good luck.