<p>
[quote]
Yes, you've made that agreement. But deciding not to go to college, or to enlist in the military, are legitimate reasons to break that agreement.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Why is that? I am told that signing up for ED is a COMMITMENT. You give your WORD. You are affecting OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES. And presumably, breaking ED does SERIOUS DAMAGE TO THE MORAL FABRIC OF OUR GREAT NATION.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that ED is an agreement. The phrasing "plan to enroll" not "must enroll under federal laws and regulations" is key. It's an agreement. Just as I agree to fulfill my working hours this Friday, if I am sick, that agreement can be broken. </p>
<p>There are always circumstances, and the goal of the college is to give the illusion of it being some end-all be-all contract. </p>
<p>Did you make a mistake? Yes. Was it something you should've dealt with far sooner than this? Yes.</p>
<p>But will any harm come amount from breaking ED, explaining to the AdComs why, and attending the school who gave you the more generous offer? Of course not.</p>
<p>The goal of the country should be to educate as many citizens as possible. It's really pathetic to see people fighting to keep you out of where you want to go, because of an honest mistake. Just ignore them and do what you have to do.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I am told that signing up for ED is a COMMITMENT. You give your WORD.
[/quote]
The agreement has been interpreted to mean that if you go to college, you agree to go to the ED school. Besides, there is little that the college can do by way of penalty if you decide not to go to college or to enlist.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But will any harm come amount from breaking ED, explaining to the AdComs why, and attending the school who gave you the more generous offer? Of course not.
[/quote]
You don't know that. You don't know that both schools will not rescind their acceptances. You don't know that School B won't take away the offer. These are the penalties that schools can inflict for breaking the agreement.</p>
<p>The best thing that the OP should do is negotiate out the recission with the ED school. They may have no problem releasing her. In that case, there is then no penalty and the OP is free to go to School B.</p>
<p>Okay. I don't know that, anymore than you "know" anything you just said. But I challenge you to find a study showing the prevalence of this practice... particularly outside of the Ivies. There's a reason all of it is speculation, and that's because action is so rarely, if ever taken.</p>
<p>ED colleges clearly state the pros and cons of applying ED, and they also are clear about the consequences of backing out. </p>
<p>From St. Olaf's website:
"Early Decision is not a good route for families who want to compare aid awards from several different schools. While we are confident that every aid award we offer will enable students to enroll, Early Decision candidates agree to withdraw their applications from other schools and therefore will not have the opportunity to compare St. Olaf awards against those from other schools."</p>
<p>In actuality, very few people back out of ED. If lots of people were backing out, there would be no reason for ED to exist.</p>
<p>Gee, this all sounds so familiar....</p>
<p>Another example of how a college explains ED and the consequences of applying and of attempting to back out of it. This from Monrovian College's website. More evidence that it's very unlikely that a student naively applied ED not realizing the potential financial consequences or consequences of backing out.</p>
<p>"Q. WHAT EXACTLY IS EARLY DECISION?</p>
<p>A. Early Decision is an admission plan reserved for students who have identified a clear-cut first choice early in their college search. Students who apply under the ED plan are informed of the college’s decision much earlier in the process than those who apply under Regular admission and in return, these students make a commitment to attend if accepted.</p>
<p>Q. WHY WOULD SOMEONE APPLY EARLY DECISION?</p>
<p>A. Early Decision matches students with their first choice college, and allows for an early commitment and college choice. Students who apply under the Regular Decision plan won’t hear about the college’s decision until early spring. With Moravian’s ED plan a student may hear as early as mid-December about their acceptance, easing the anxiety of waiting to hear in the spring. Because Moravian only encourages students who have made Moravian their first choice, to apply ED, the Early Decision agreement is one of the best ways to match a student with the right college for the individual.</p>
<p>Q. WHY HAS EARLY DECISION BECOME SO CONTROVERSIAL?</p>
<p>A. In a word, ratings. Unfortunately, an increasing number of colleges are encouraging students to apply under their Early Decision plans so that they are able to keep their acceptance rates down. This use of the ED plan is controversial because Early Decision is designed to benefit students, and now it seems to many that colleges are using it as way to improve their ratings in guidebooks. As a result, colleges are filling their classes with Early Decision applicants, leaving less room for those who apply under the Regular Decision plan. At Moravian, we still adhere to the original spirit of ED with just under one-third of each class filled by Early Decision.</p>
<p>Q. IS IT EASIER TO GET IN UNDER THE ED PLAN?</p>
<p>A. The admissions standards for Early Decision candidates and Regular Decision candidates are the same. However, the acceptance rate for students applying ED has been higher than that of the Regular Decision applicants. One of the factors considered during the admissions process is the student’s level of interest. Committing to Moravian College as an ED applicant demonstrates the highest level of interest. Also, part of the process in selective admissions is comparing your candidacy with other applicants. Fewer students apply Early Decision than Regular Decision resulting in a smaller applicant pool and less competition.</p>
<p>Q. CAN I APPLY FOR ED AT MORE THAN ONE COLLEGE?</p>
<p>A. No. Early Decision is reserved for only those who have identified Moravian as their first choice. You may apply as a Regular Decision candidate to additional colleges, but you can only apply under the Early Decision plan to one college. If your application is approved under the Early Decision plan, you are expected to withdraw all other applications.</p>
<p>Q. HOW WOULD YOU KNOW IF I APPLY EARLY DECISION AT MORE THAN ONE?</p>
<p>A. Colleges share lists of students who have been accepted under the Early Decision plan. If we find a student has been accepted under the ED plan at another college, we will rescind our offer. And, the other colleges will typically follow suit. We take very seriously the spirit of the ED plan, and students need to do that as well....</p>
<p>Q. HOW CAN I COMMIT TO ATTEND IF DON’T KNOW IF I CAN AFFORD MORAVIAN?</p>
<p>A. If you are considering the Early Decision option, we will do our best to provide you with an early estimate of your financial aid package. That way, you can determine if your family can meet the costs of attending Moravian before making the commitment required of all Early Decision candidates.</p>
<p>Q. DON’T I LOSE THE OPPORTUNITY TO NEGOTIATE A BETTER PACKAGE WITH OTHER COLLEGES?</p>
<p>A. Because Moravian is your first choice, there should be no reason to negotiate with other colleges. Certainly, Moravian College is unlikely to be the least expensive college option for you and your family. If you are waiting for the best offer of financial aid, do not apply Early Decision. But, if you have found that Moravian is the right college for you, submit an early estimate and make the commitment."</p>
<p>Yes, it does sound familiar...</p>
<p>OP, you may be interested in this thread</p>
<p>From the New York Times, Nov. 2007:
"Early decision commitments operate on the honor system, but there are safeguards to discourage students from going back on their word. High schools often sign off on applications, and they don’t want to lose face. “They know their actions can impact future classes,” says Ms. Hall, who contacts the school if an early student fails to enroll at N.Y.U.</p>
<p>Many colleges rescind acceptances if they discover bad faith. “If we find that you lied to us and applied to our regular action process holding an admission from an early binding place,” says Marlyn McGrath Lewis, admissions director at Harvard, “we would either not admit you or we would withdraw our offer.”</p>
<p>Some colleges, like Franklin & Marshall, exchange early-admit lists. Ms. Lewis says she throws away the lists sent to her. Who tips her off then? “We usually find out from alumni, classmates, lots of different ways. We have a couple every year and we withdraw their admission, not because we are enforcing some rule at another college, but because we can’t trust the student.”</p>
<p>In the End</p>
<p>Most students who are admitted early — at least 97 percent at the most selective colleges — actually enroll."
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/strategy.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/strategy.html</a></p>
<p>I want to agree with Weskid. This is a teenaged student with a useless GC and immigrant parents unfamiliar with the US college admissions system. She applied ED-II, and as soon as she saw she was going to have to take out maybe a hundred thousand dollars of loans with her ED-II acceptance, she should have telephoned the school. She didn't, believing that her FA offer might improve once the ED-II school saw all the financial documentation, but failed to withdraw other applications. Given that the OP probably can't even obtain loans large enough to allow her to attend the ED-II college, and would be precluded from attending college at all if her EDII college remained her only option, it is, in fact, fortunate that she didn't withdraw other applications. </p>
<p>Clearly, there are parents and students using ED to game colleges, which is appalling both in terms of the integrity of the applicants and the fact that gaming ED hurts other students. But it doesn't sound as if the OP is one of these calculating, dishonest kids; she blew it when she didn't phone her school when she got the initial FA offer, but not to the extent that she should be unable to attend college at all since the EA-II school is unaffordable and all other colleges reject her because of the EA-II violation. </p>
<p>She needs to get ahold of the ED school asap to try to work out more appropriate FA, and if this doesn't work, she needs to attend a different school that she can afford. </p>
<p>Hopefully, other schools will not rescind her acceptances based on her failure to withdraw her applications following her ED-II acceptance given that her initial ED-II acceptance was not financially feasible.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The agreement has been interpreted to mean that if you go to college, you agree to go to the ED school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's all nonsense, ED is designed to play on the fears and insecurities of children to benefit colleges. It punishes the poor and naive.</p>
<p>All ED means is that you promise to go to College A, and not one of the other private schools that collude with College A to enforce this unfair system. That's the extent of it. </p>
<p>If you're rich and sophisticated, enjoy the ED system. It was designed, in the first place, for the needs of the rich and sophisticated. But colleges now pretend to encourage the non-rich to attend. By maintaining the ED system, and giving preference to ED applicants, they are continuing to privilege the rich. Which, of course, is their intent all along.</p>
<p>Anyway, good luck to OP I hope she can get a college education her family can afford.</p>
<p>"This is a teenaged student with a useless GC and immigrant parents unfamiliar with the US college admissions system. "</p>
<p>Any teen-ager who is smart enough to find CC and to apply to a selective college that uses ED (most colleges don't use ED) is smart enough to understand the rules.</p>
<p>Just because parents are immigrants doesn't mean they are stupid. The immigrant parents I know particularly are good about figuring out things involving money, including loans. </p>
<p>There's also no indication that her GC is incompetent. </p>
<p>I think that what's going on is that the OP has been trying to game the system, a system that is very easy to understand.</p>
<p>BTW, under no circumstances would my kids have applied ED unless they were applying to an in-state public because they knew that was something we could afford. Virtually every family I know (and most of the families I know are college educated and at least middle class, and many also include college prof parents) had the same application restrictions for their kids.</p>
<p>kenf in response to post 41...Uhhh going into the military or not going to college are...ehhhemmm NOT going to another college. They do not break an ED agreement which is that you will withdraw other apps to other colleges and attend your ED school.</p>
<p>Anyone who is posting on CC has access to the same info and should know, by virtue of the fact that they are not in middle school anymore, what "binding" means. Assuming that the OP didn't fully understand this is condescending.</p>
<p>
[quote]
kenf in response to post 41...Uhhh going into the military or not going to college are...ehhhemmm NOT going to another college. They do not break an ED agreement which is that you will withdraw other apps to other colleges and attend your ED school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>People are saying that you promise to enroll. So you are breaking your promise by not going to the ED school. That the ED agreement is a promise to actually enroll, not just not to attend another school. </p>
<p>How about going to community college?</p>
<p>
[quote]
BTW, under no circumstances would my kids have applied ED unless they were applying to an in-state public because they knew that was something we could afford.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>As far as I know, in-state publics do not have ED. Also in-state publics do not rescind admission based on acceptance to somewhere else ED. They are not part of that game.</p>
<p>Cal Poly has ED</p>
<p>Leaving aside any question of ethics and the "here we go again" aspect of things, I think that the OP should IMMEDIATELY call her ED school and explain that she cannot afford to attend given the current FA package, and that she had naively assumed that the offer would go up once they had all her information. I think that any college FA officer will agree that it is unreasonable to expect a student to take out $100K in loans for undergraduate school, and that it is equally unreasonable to expect parents with an income of less than $40K to take out significant loans. Either they will increase your aid (best case scenario), or they will release you.</p>
<p>Several NY State universities offer ED including: Albany, New Paltz and Stony Brook.</p>
<p>It is true that at least most public institutions don't rescind decisions due to a student's getting an ED decision elsewhere.</p>
<p>That's interesting about the public universities. I wonder how they enforce those agreements. It's really unconscionable.</p>
<p>I've never heard of a college suing a student in order to enforce an ED commitment. I have heard of colleges, though, rescinding offers of students who had accepted ED offers from elsewhere. Also, S's former GC told parents that after a student went behind her back and rescinded an ED offer in order to accept a regular decision from a better college (Student had never told the GC that she had gotten accepted ED), the rescinded college called the GC and blamed the GC, and then for several years didn't accept very qualified students from that school who really wanted to go to that college.</p>
<p>Remember that the GC is the one who has to send one's final transcript, proof of graduation, and also may be the person who's a reference on outside scholarships and has a major say in who gets end of year school awards, so it's a very good idea not to tick off or embarrass the GC.</p>
<p>I don't see anything unconscionable about rescinding applications of students who back out of ED after not following the rules. No one forced the students to apply ED. The rules also are very clearly stated, and the students and often their parents have to sign off on them. Also, the students who apply ED tend to be among the smartest in the country. They aren't too stupid to understand the rules.</p>