<p>I have a real CC account about thought it best not to dig this in case it should get out there.</p>
<p>I applied to nice LAC in the midwest, I got in ED and was generally satisfied. When my new award letter came a few weeks ago. Lets say that I would be paying about 90K after 4 years. My EFC is >1K. Problem? Yes.</p>
<p>Another school (midwest, LAC) has accepted me and given a generous award.</p>
<p>Unless this is resolved, there is no possible way I can attend my ED school.</p>
<p>Do you think I'll be let off the hook? Did I break the rules? Will I be punished? Should I tell the more generous school my situation?</p>
<p>I didn't mean to be lying. I had <em>full</em> intention on following my ED school. Until I realized that it wasn't feasible. I want to right my wrongs.</p>
<p>I am confused in that you said that you were "generally satisfied" until you got your "new award" letter.</p>
<p>If the ED school meets your documented financial need -- even if it meets it by your taking out huge loans-- you do not have cause to withdraw from ED. If they did not meet your documented need, then you would have justifiable reason to withdraw from ED, but that still often can be difficult to do.</p>
<p>You also should have withdrawn all other applications after getting your ED admission. Your not doing that is enough reason for the ED school and any other schools to withdraw their acceptance from you.</p>
<p>was the original finaid award based on estimated 2007 earnings, and the "new" award based on complete tax documentation and fafsa & updated Profile? Was the original estimate incorrect? Did the college really just unilaterally change your award from grant/loan to mostly loan based on similar financial information?</p>
<p>What a shock!! Another cc'er who didn't honor the ED agreement....this is getting to be a pattern....Anyone want to start a thread keeping count?</p>
<p>My best friend had to do that. He was accepted to an Ivy League institution ED but they gave his family no aid and the financial burden would have been way too much, especially with the current economic situation in our area. Similarly, he was accepted to another insititution that gave him a generous financial package. It was difficult to break the ED agreement, but it was the right decision for the family. He's happy as a lark now. If you know the financial burden will be impossible for your family, write to the dean of admissions asking to be withdrawn. Don't mention any other schools. Even if breaking ED is looked down upon, your family and their well-being is more important.</p>
<p>I was happy to attend my ED school. I was ready to put up with higher loans. I was thinking around 10K-15K per year.</p>
<p>They only paid 20K out of a bill around 46K. That leaves me to scramble for 26K in private loans each year.</p>
<p>With an EFC >$1000, I was not offered a Pell Grant, nor Perkins Loans, or really any loans for that matter.</p>
<p>I sent in my 2007 things, FAFSA, CSS. I believe I did everything right.</p>
<p>I don't want to break my honor. Believe me. I was ready to spend 40K (thats not even what my parents make in a year) on this.</p>
<p>Am I even partly justified?</p>
<p>Edit: Using collegeboard. The average indebtness after graduation is around 20K. I did not sign the ED contract blindly. I chose a school that tends to meet need, need I thought I had.</p>
<p>Have you talked to your ED school about your financial concerns?</p>
<p>It seems to me that having to take out $26 k in private loans although your EFC is under $1,000 is unreasonable, and it also means the college didn't meet your financial need. Assuming that you got that info around the time you got your ED acceptance, that should have been enough for the college to have allowed you to back out of ED. </p>
<p>When did you learn about your financial aid package? IF you learned it around the time of your ED acceptance, you should have used that as a reason to back out of ED, which would have been acceptable. If, however, you continued to apply or didn't withdraw your other apps after getting your ED acceptance, that was not allowed under the ED rules that you signed.</p>
<p>If financial aid is a concern, one shouldn't apply ED. I know that this info may be too late for you, but I am stating it for the benefit of others who may not yet have applied to college.</p>
<p>I do think that even now, you have reason to withdraw from your ED, but you should say that's because you don't want to take out more than $100 k in private loans to pay for your education even though the average amount of loans that students take out across the country is only $17 k to pay for their entire college education. You shouldn't say, "I don't want to come because I got a better offer," because under the ED rules, you shouldn't be in a position to have gotten a better offer.</p>
<p>Did they give you a tentative award earlier when you got your ED acceptance? If it was financially unmanageable that would have been the time to ask to be released. To wait until you get competing offers in RD just makes your ED application look completely opportunistic. Not saying <em>you</em> were doing that, because I don't know... but the timing looks very cynical.</p>
<p>No one can force you to go to school somewhere, though. Why don't you call the admissions office and explain to them and see what they say. Let us know the outcome, because people continue to raise this question and mostly what they hear back is opinion and hearsay and not much in the way of real experience. I'd be curious... just for the heck of it.</p>
<p>(My son applied ED, was thankfully accepted, and is eagerly counting the days before he actually gets to start school there. And, oh boy, does time seem to be passing slowly for him right now!)</p>
<p>They did give me a package similar to the one I have now. I didn't think it was worrisome because my FAFSA and taxes weren't in. I sent in the check, assuming that the revised one would be more reasonable. Then, after submitting, a few weeks later I received the one I currently am holding.</p>
<p>I am in contact the FA office but I'm trying to prepare myself if need be. I'm one of those kids that tries to prepare for the storm.</p>
<p>I am not saying that I got a better offer at the other school that I should drop out. That was never the case. Rather, I'm trying to reason why that school B gave such a better deal than my ED school. They are comparable schools.</p>
<p>I really do love my ED school. It is near perfect for me. A few more grand for it wouldn't have choked me up. 20K more does.</p>
<p>It's not <em>always</em> true that you shouldn't apply ED if financial aid is a concern. It depends on a family's finances and the transparency of the need-based financial aid policies at the particular college.</p>
<p>OP, We are all assuming your LAC was an Early Decision school, not Early Action. There's a big difference -- and you should have known it before you applied.</p>
<p>Are you saying your EFC is in the $1,000 range? If so, that would automatically qualify you for Pell. You need to get on the phone with your ED school, pronto, and figure out what happened. Did you get a financial aid award when you were accepted ED? And you accepted the ED offer in writing? Is there a typo in your PROFILE or CSS forms? </p>
<p>You were happy and intended to follow through with your ED school...until a few weeks ago. But in the meantime, despite being happy and intending to honor your ED commitment, you kept (at least) one RD app out there. This is not honorable behavior.</p>
<p>We don't have enough information here to know whether the school has acted dishonorably in changing your FA package, or if there is a simple clerical error that can be corrected. In any event, the mere fact you have an offer out there from another school (REGARDLESS of the LAC's FA offer, if you indeed signed a binding ED agreement last fall) is grounds for <em>both</em> schools to rescind their offers. </p>
<p>Grr...Where are the parents of these kids who find it acceptable to play ED offers against other schools? Do the parents think it's OK to play these games, too? Aren't these kids learning values?</p>
<p>Didn't they base the tentative award on something? Like 2006 income or something? You really shouldn't have assumed anything about how it would be better when revised. I doubt if they'll actually believe you when you tell them that this is why you didn't speak up earlier. It looks like you were just trying to keep your options open...... but they can't put you in shackles and force you to attend.</p>
<p><em>cough</em> There is a reason why I'm using a pseudo name. I don't want my college to find me on this board. I'm trying to hide the time. No, not a few weeks. Thursday. </p>
<p>Timing did coincide didn't it? Ah, that's life. I got my revised letter last Thursday. So this isn't something I've let simmer until I hear back from the other school. I got accepted early to school B on Monday.</p>
<p>Well, it sounds like you know what you want to do. Just do it, I guess. I'd be interested to know how it works out for you. My guess is it will be okay in the long run, but I would be curious to know how the process plays out.</p>
<p>The problems, however, were that when you applied ED, you signed a document saying that if accepted, you'd withdraw all other applications and wouldn't apply elsewhere.</p>
<p>It also seems that you needed a lot of aid, but applied to an ED school that didn't guarantee to meet 100% of your financial need. I virtually all cases, it's not a good idea to apply ED if financial aid is a concern. This includes applying ED to schools that guarantee to meet 100% of your demonstrated financial need. If $ is a concern, even if such schools meet 100% of your demonstrated need with no loans (something that few colleges do), you still may be able to do better by applying to a school where you may qualify for substantlal merit aid covering full costs plus giving you a laptop, paid study abroad experiences, etc.</p>
<p>Of course, this info is late for you, but I did put it in for the nonseniors who are reading this thread.</p>
<p>Yes, you may be able to back out due to financial reasons, but I am surprised that you were so willing to take out an enormous loan when you first got the package. </p>
<p>Curious, too, about your GC. Did s/he not talk to you about the financial ramifications of applying ED? </p>
<p>And weren't your parents concerned about the loans that you'd have to take out?</p>
<p>And can you even qualify to take out such large loans? Even with your parents as co-signers, you still may have difficulty obtaining such loans.</p>
<p>You may have a harder time now that you would have had if you had simply discussed the proposed package at the time (in January). At that point, they most likely would have released you from your acceptance without difficulty. Since your tentative package is similar to your current one, the most logical question for them to ask is, "What changed between January and now?" And the only logical answer is "She got in somewhere else that she'd rather go."</p>
<p>Even if that's not in fact true, it doesn't make you look good or make your situation any easier.</p>
<p>One last thing: Colleges will allow you to break ED for financial reasons only if they aren't able to meet your aid as calculated by the college, not as calculated by your family. Colleges will not let you back out of ED because you got a better merit aid offer from elsewhere.</p>
<p>Most colleges want students of integrity, so don't want students who back out of ED because they get better merit offers from elsewhere. The exception is state universities, which tend not to care whether students backed out of ED to accept them. </p>
<p>The fact that you're posting around the acceptance dates of the top colleges in the country makes me wonder if you'd used ED as only a back-up so you'd have a decent place to go to if you didn't get into better colleges. If that's what you've been trying to do, you are likely to get caught, and what you did is likely to hurt other students at your school who in the future want to go to the college that you're planning on backing out of ED.</p>