<p>"when so many people echo the same message over and over, you just presume it to be true."</p>
<p>The world is flat! The world is flat!!!!!</p>
<p>Yeah, why is kk arguing his position so hard? why do you care enough to spend so much time arguing an unethical position? do you not have anything better to do?</p>
<p>"Yeah, why is kk arguing his position so hard? why do you care enough to spend so much time arguing an unethical position?"</p>
<p>"unethical".... Whatever; you are free to believe what you like. If you feel like it is your obligation to do and believe whatever a college admissions office tells you, then so be it. Honestly, the surprising lack of logical reasoning demonstrated by many on this forum is troubling at best.</p>
<p>"do you not have anything better to do?"</p>
<p>I'd ask you the same question.</p>
<p>
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ED should not be "to boost your chances"
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<p>what are you talking about, that's exactly what ED is for, and it's exactly what many colleges offering ED plans are banking on.</p>
<p>for example, Johns Hopkins University, a top school, elite enough to seem like a good choice to almost any applicant, except in the face of an admission to a place like HYP. Johns Hopkins holds an ED session in the hopes that a student who has a decent chance at getting into HYP might want to instead help ensure they end up at a school at least as good as Johns Hopkins, therefore apply ED. This way, Johns Hopkins will never have to face a cross-admit battle, and they end up with a HYP-caliber candidate.</p>
<p>Schools like Johns Hopkins entice top students with better chances of admission in order to avoid having to face a cross-admit battle with massively preferred schools.</p>
<p>They encourage decisions like that, it makes their student body stronger.</p>
<p>Obviously I did have something better to do considering I didn't participate in the discussion until now.... Wow, and you go to Northwestern...?</p>
<p>Link in post #78 is unusable, it is just a global search of all postings by a specific user.</p>
<p>
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It is naive to think that EFC represents what all families can in reality afford to pay.
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<p>Let's assume, to the benefit of the colleges, that the realism of the EFC is not an issue. If a college in April provides the true financial aid number and it is even a dollar worse than the estimated number (or range of numbers) at the time of acceptance, would the student be within his legal rights to opt out of the contract? (Assume also that there was no specific language in the contract foreseeing such a discrepancy.)</p>
<p>^The problem isn't that it's a dollar lower. Your package will equal tuition, but the part that you're not expected to pay can be filled with loans and only loans and still be considered financial aid, meaning that you still have oodles of debt.</p>
<p>That said, if you get a better offer (this is when both acceptances are RD) you can take the better offer to school one and odds are they will change it. Harvard is notorious for this, but other schools, for instance Columbia, flat out refuse to reconsider your finaid package simply because someone else gave you more.</p>
<p>The problem being raised with the "even a dollar lower" scenario is that the student has only the estimate to rely upon in determining whether the aid is (ultimately to be) adequate. He might well proceed with the contract having concluded that the estimated amount is the very limit of what he is willing to pay (whether due to specific financial inability, or any other reason).</p>
<p>What if come April, some students who were accepted ED and were planning to go to their ED colleges got letters from those colleges saying that due to an unexpectedly stellar RD group or due to some prospective students' enormously generous donor parents, the college was withdrawing their ED admissions, and was accepting those other students?</p>
<p>That seems as fair to me as backing out of ED because you got an unexpectedly better offer.</p>
<p>I'm guessing that some schools keep track of their EDs better than others. I think this is one of those questions that shouldn't be asked. Follow the rules and don't question them or what would happen if you disobey or is there a way to disabey a rule without getting caught. Just don't do it. If you're gonna spply ED to a college, really make sure that you like the collegge and really want to go there.</p>
<p>If your willing to risk your life on the countries top universities being incompetent and not caring that you backstabbed them, go for it! It's one of those mysteries of life that some live to tell and others just get screwed over and left crying.</p>
<p>I personally think the only people who would do this, or like going ED to 3 schools, would be 1.) A Deciever who is going to get forced to go to community college as he deserves, or 2.) a moron</p>
<p>ALL Early Action!!!!!!!! (for me anyway)</p>
<p>Chevda. You are correct (lawyers in this household, too). Also, no GC worth his/her salt would allow an underhanded move such as this. Around here, as well, the GC would absolutely send a note off to the colleges potentially affected by such behavior.</p>
<p>I'd say if someone wants to do it, let em do it. When the kid finds out he has to go off to community college instead of mabye Emory or Columbia or whatever, then go cry about it!!!</p>
<p>I think everyone reading this thread should take a look at the calm and reasoned responses of Chedva.</p>
<p>In my considered opinion, early decision is an immoral practice. It needs to stop. That being said, I also think there should be federal legislation PROHIBITING colleges from soliciting or accepting ANY financial information about applicants, including the FAFSA reports, until AFTER the admissions season is final. They can all move their admissions seasons up to Dec. 1 and closing on January 31. That gives people enough time to submit FAFSA to whomever has accepted them if they CHOOSE, or to decline the offer of acceptance if they dont.</p>
<p>Anyone who has been through the admissions games that go on understand that Admissions Offices are wily foxes. Yes, its a hard job toiling through 20,000 applications for 1,600 or even 3,000 seats. But the games are silly and harmful.</p>
<p>Furthermore, parents, teachers, students are much too neurotic about getting into "top 25 colleges", as if that really makes a big difference in the world. It doesnt. If your kid went to a lesser known school, they might even do better, and regardless...their job performance is what counts.</p>
<p>Its neurotic.</p>
<p>As for students who play games, apply ED and refuse to withdraw their regular decision applications after being accepted ED, that is immoral, and frankly no decent school should accept them. It shows a callous disregard for the rights and interests of other students, a callous disregard for being truthful and is evidence of deception. </p>
<p>Sadly, the world is full of scofflaws, wisecrackers and cheaters. There are people who look poor on paper but whose grandparents are LOADED and will be paying the tuition expenses after financial aid....but whose wealth is NOT disclosed on FAFSA so the student gets all kinds of aid and scholarships they really dont deserve. Its repugnant and illegal.</p>
<p>Its the moral duty of a high school counselor to inform a student and their parents they will NOT submit final grades to any school if the student has broken the ED agreement. </p>
<p>But like I said, ED should be abolished in my opinion.</p>
<p>prestige is important for some fields. Very very very few New England area (im not saying none but I havent ever seen one in recent 50 yr history) senators are not Yale/Harvard graduates. The day I see one get elected not from HYP I will see prestige as being 2nd.</p>
<p>This discussion has taken many twists and turns. The OP inquired about whether schools share info about students backing out of ED without providing any context to the inquiry. That led to a discussion about whether schools do or don't share info, what the consequences would be, the morality or ethic, in general, involved in "backing out" and the comment that ED is a "contract". That led to a discussion about whether ED is really a legally binding contract and whether there are circumstances in which a student is justified in "backing out" of ED and whether either party would have liability exposure (for the student who "backs out" or the ED school or h.s. guidance counselor who then take affirmative action that prevents the student from attending another school that has offered an acceptance). That led to a discussion of what type of circumstances, if any, would justify backing out of ED. Which led to a discussion of whether ED is a good or "bad" system, which has now led back full circle to comments that in general backing out of ED is wrong.</p>
<p>Having digested all of this, here's my take:
1.Backing out of ED because a student was "playing the system" or has simply received a better offer is wrong. If you apply ED, you should have a serious commitment and be prepared to act in good faith on an acceptance even if something more enticing comes along later. It's simply not ethical and breaks the "social contract" that the ED system represents.
2. A "social contract" is not a legal contract however. After spending about an hour researching legal precedents (using Westlaw for all you lawyers out there), I couldn't find a single case where breach of an ED agreement was at issue. One has to assume that there have been incidents of this occurring however I was not surprised. I don't think there is adequate consideration under the common law of contracts for a legal contract to exist, there are no damages an ED school would suffer and there would be no basis for the ED school to obtain equitable relief (no irreparable harm, balance of equities test etc for all the lawyers). (There is a load of precedent, however, in actions brought by students, that admissions offered by schools and acceptances of admissions by students in general do not form an enforceable contract.)<br>
3. Not withstanding that the decision to apply ED is a serious one that should be approached with fidelity, there are nonetheless many circumstances which equitably justify a student backing out of ED: a financial aid package that falls significantly below that which was reasonably expected which creates a real financial hardship, the head of the department who was the reason for applying ED suddenly resigning leaving the department in a state of great flux, discovering after applying that there is a significant defect in the program applied for that was never disclosed even though all appropriate due diligence was exercised beforehand or even death, divorce or loss of employment of parents that result in material changes in financial status. The list could be a varied as the vagaries of life. And if you think about it, if the student has acted in good faith, why should the student suffer the ruination of other college opportunities, a consequence that far outweighs the impact on the ED school that now feels slighted (and that's all it feels, they have no damages or other harm. The vacancy can easily be filled by another qualified student.)
4. Finally, I've yet to hear one cogent argument as to what real benefit ED presents to students which is not available through non binding EA. ED, in reality, benefits schools, not students. The only thing ED accomplishes as compared to EA is to limit the options of students and denude them of any leverage that could enable them to negotiate the best deal possible with schools. I am frankly puzzled by the almost overzealous "true believer" defense of a system that is so inherently inequitable.</p>
<p>I haven't had time to read every single response on here, but of the few I read, it seems that people are overestimating both colleges and high schools. Some people keep mentioning lists of ED students, and I'm sure that the Ivy League has such a list and that there are other subsets of schools that share such lists, but by no means can I believe that the majority of ED schools share such lists. These schools have enough to worry about when going through the admissions process than to prepare separate lists and send them to other colleges. I know that there might be some streamlined process for this (such as one website that the colleges could go to) but even so, no college is going to go through that much time and energy when going through applications. It's one thing for a group of eight schools (which have many applicants applying to multiple schools) to make a master list and share it, but this is not going to happen for larger groups.</p>
<p>Secondly, someone mentioned something about high school guidance offices checking up on students' applications. I'm sure that some of the top private schools in the country may be up on this, and there must be other good schools that have counselors tracking their students' ED prospects, but this is not the case at most public schools. I went to a rather large public school where I have friends who have had their applications lost by the guidance office. I wouldn't even let them see my applications - I simply gave them the counselor recommendation forms and envelopes and asked them to send them in. Again, there are so many things that guidance counselors have to do that many of them don't have time to check up on students' applications (when that's something students can do for themselves).</p>
<p>Realize that I am in no way endorsing the idea that people apply to multiple ED schools. I'm just saying that people are underestimating bureaucracy.</p>
<p>Obviously no person would sit, or actually sits and looks over the list of ED students individually - you know how long that would take???</p>
<p>THey just have a computer compare the lists, and then compare ED admit lists based on prob Social Security etc. - It takes about 2 minutes and mabye a day of leaving the comp alone after admissions, and then the comp prob just reports it all! So its VERY Likely they do do this, since w/ comps its not that much of a prob.</p>