Question: My dream college is MIT and I plan to apply through non-binding Early Action. But even with high SATs and grades, I’m an Asian male from the Northeast, and I know it’s still a long shot. So I am thinking I will also apply Early Decision to UPenn. I think my chances are a lot better there if I’m willing to make an ED commitment. But here’s my question — if I’m super lucky and get into BOTH schools, I know that I MUST enroll at UPenn. But what if I apply for financial aid at UPenn? My family will definitely not qualify for aid, so UPenn will turn me down for financial aid, even if I’m admitted. So if I get into ONLY UPenn, I will go there. But if I am also accepted at MIT, I could tell UPenn that I can’t attend for “financial reasons” since they didn’t offer me any aid. Can I do that?
I feel strongly that this would be the wrong thing to do.
–IMO one should only apply ED if 1) the school is the applicant’s absolute top choice and 2) if the applicant has no need to compare financial offers between colleges.
–ED should be used to gain early acceptance to a top choice college that appears affordable. It is wrong to use ED as an admissions ploy to have a higher chance of acceptance to a school that isn’t a top choice.
–To turn down an ED school for financial reasons if the net price calculator shows you will be getting no aid and if your family is willing and able to pay full freight is morally wrong.
–Read the ED agreement carefully – are you, your parents, and your HS guidance counselor all willing to sign a binding agreement and then outright lie about financial need if you get into both schools? The plan reeks of low ethical standards.
–On the off chance MIT and Penn find out what you did assuming two acceptances (turned down Penn ED to accept a full pay acceptance at MIT) there is a chance both offers could be rescinded.
–Selfishly, it appears as if a number of well qualified candidates to MIT are deferred to the RD round so there is a chance you will have to accept or reject Penn before getting an answer from MIT. Do you want to put yourself in this position? https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/stats/
–Your turning down of Penn for financial reasons that don’t exist could damage your high school’s future relationship with the school and negatively impact future applicants (although I’m guessing you don’t care about that).
–Anecdotally, my S’s top choice school was EA so he did not consider applying anywhere ED (he was deferred EA and later accepted). My D applied ED but spend a great deal of effort before she applied confirming in her mind that her ED school was her top choice and when accepted she attended.
So can you?..I guess the answer is yes if your parents and guidance counselor agree to the plan and are willing to be complicit in your outright lie to get out of Penn ED.
No, you cannot do that. As Happy1 listed out all the reasons, what you are asking is wrong on many levels - ethically, morally and legally. Your parents, school are signing a legal contract to attend the ED school if accepted. If you already know your family income will not qualify for FA at Penn, then you cannot use financial reason for getting out of the contract.
I understand where you are coming from, you want to reach for your dream school and also have a backup and Penn allows EA to private colleges unlike other ED schools. MIT and Penn are very very different schools. My advice is, instead of trying to optimize your chances, you should think long and hard which school appeals to you and why, and then make that decision, Are you ready to apply EA to MIT and not get in and go to your safety school ? or will you be thrilled, if you get admitted to Penn ED.
BTW, every year, many students make this decision to forgo a chance to SCEA to HYPS and apply ED to Penn, Duke, Columbia etc. You should apply ED only if you know you will be thrilled to go that school.
@NCKris Penn allows EA to other colleges because of the binding nature of the ED agreement (which the OP is looking to circumvent). If an applicant is accepted to Penn they are obligated to attend (assuming affordability). Typically the colleges that limit other EA applications have SCEA (single choice early action) which is non-binding.
I mean, choosing to do this goes against the entire point of Early Decision. Your chances are higher in ED partly because you are willing to make a commitment. If you don’t make the commitment, you’re taking away the benefit that the college gets from offering ED, and they wouldn’t offer ED if they didn’t think they were getting some benefit from it.
If students want to apply to college and be able to compare financial aid offers…that’s what regular decision is for.
Besides, while we use the colloquial parlance “financial reasons” here on CC, the schools’ agreements often have different language that limits what you can do. For example, UPenn says “the only instance in which you could request to be released from our Early Decision binding agreement is if your financial need can’t be met,” which would be pretty difficult to prove since UPenn meets 100% of financial need AND since your family is full pay. There’d have to be some extraordinary financial circumstances to make this make sense.
Also, if MIT is your dream college, why would you supplant that dream by committing to attend UPenn?
This is why I am personally against ED and why I dislike how ED-crazy - even ED-centric - the application process has gotten for a small certain subset of students applying at elite colleges. Most of the benefit goes to the college, and the student gets very little benefit from it. (I mean, yes, a boosted chance of admission, but that’s artificially created by the college by offering ED in the first place and by other techniques that they use to increase the number of people applying in the RD round.)
Clearly his parents would be aware of this which speaks volumes about the parents.
Young man, your parents have failed you. They forgot to teach you about ethics and morals. This will catch up with you. Maybe not in college but definitely in life. Take a long hard look in the mirror and try to decide the person YOU want to be. It’s not too late.
"This is why I am personally against ED and why I dislike how ED-crazy - even ED-centric - the application process has gotten for a small certain subset of students applying at elite colleges. Most of the benefit goes to the college, and the student gets very little benefit from it. "
^^^this.
MIT and Penn have similar financial aid policies so there is no way one would be better than the other. I’m guessing they would want to see the offer (maybe not). Anyway, don’t do it.
Exactly. These are both meets needs schools. There are not likely to be financial surprises in offers from either school. The ED process definitely serves the schools better than the students. Also not a fan at all. We definitely won’t be playing that game at our house.
Some parents are much less engrained in this process than others so I wouldn’t necessarily be blaming the parents. And he did have the sense to ask. Young people make mistakes. Hopefully he won’t try this.
It’s absurd to call somebody’s actions immoral when the OP is simply waiting until she or he has all the data to make a decision. I’m pretty sure you can’t enter into a legal contract without knowing the terms of the deal so no, it’s not legally binding. No one can predict whether an offer of aid will be made. Not the NPC, not their friends and not anyone on these forums. The OP says the family will definitely not qualify but there is no way to know that. Everyone defines “need” differently. I may not view it the same way the school does. If you are spending $275,000, I think the right thing to do is wait and see if you get an offer. It’s not illegal or wrong to do that. Penn’s tuition is $2000 more than MIT’s so it costs more. It’s perfectly ethical to decide you’d rather spend $2000 a year less. And by the way, the OP’s question is “Can I do that?” The answer is “Of course, you can.”
Do any of the colleges require parents to run the NPC as part of the ED process? If they had a print out of expected costs and the financial aid package was similar, it would seem like the COA wouldn’t be a surprise. I think it’s understandable if the family decides they really aren’t comfortable paying that kind of money, but backing out for a college that’s $2k less/year isn’t really about the money.
The U Penn website says total cost is $75,303 a year. MIT’s says $70,240. To me $20,000 difference over four years is real money. I would say the real ethical question is “Is it moral of schools to force students into making that kind of financial commitment without knowing all the options simply because colleges are concerned about their yields?” I’m not proposing an answer, simply encouraging people to look at the question another way.
@ReelLife , it is not absurd to call that person immoral. That’s EXACTLY what he/she is considering doing. Not only is OP trying to game the system, he is trying to make others complicit in his gaming of the system. @juillet and @happy1 are spot on. Remember that others have to affirm that they understand everything they are signing. This is a me first attitude.
There is away for the stduent to know if he will qualify. He can run the NPC. He probably already has and he knows he will not qualify for FA. The student knows the terms of the deal. So what if it’s an extra $20k a year? The student knows the price. The parents know the price. They can pay it, or not. No one is forcing this student to apply to any particular college, ED or otherwise. No one will force the student to pay, but yes, it’s completely and totally immoral. You trying to justify it by saying the student shouldn’t make a decision unitl he has all the “facts” says a lot about your morality too. You are not encouraging people to look at the question in another way. You’re encouraging them to look at things in a way which makes them feel justified in behaving unethically.
I completely agree with @lindagaf. This is totally unethical and goes against the whole point of binding ED. It’s one thing if a student truly needs aid and their predicted package (after running the NPC) doesn’t come through, it’s totally another to know your family doesn’t qualify and then use it as an excuse to get out of your binding ED contract because you got into a “better” school. That’s total gaming the system and is flat out wrong.
The dean admits that this can be done, but pretty much everyone believes it to be a dishonorable use of the ED process. The applicant hopes to take away an ED spot that someone else dearly wanted and use it as a backup plan. Whatever happened to doing the right thing and having some honor?
This is not really even “gaming the system.” It’s just “Can I make an obviously, provably false statement to get out of something I might not want to do?” (which would be keeping the ED commitment).
Let’s say the student has a $100,000 EFC. Do they then say “I can’t afford $75,000 a year. I could only afford Penn if you gave me $10,000 in aid, and you didn’t.” That’s clearly not true. And if the student is asked why they thought they might get aid, what do they say? “I never checked my EFC”? “I didn’t realize that $100,000 was more than $75,000”? “I assumed Penn had merit scholarships (even though they clearly state they don’t)”? I mean, come on now.
Let me be clear: I look at ED as I promise I intend to honor without exception. It’s a choice our family would not enter into lightly and one we’d only make under very particular circumstances. However, I also won’t judge people who end up backing out of a non-legally binding agreement because they find a financial solution that better meets their family’s needs. There are people outside of these boards that have no idea what an EFC is, who never run an NPC and who have no idea that merit aid even exists. They fill out the forms and hope for the best. The OP sounds more savvy and calculating than that and maybe people are right to denegrate the strategy as “immoral” but I’m uncomfortable with that description. Firstly, I don’t know that a 17 year-old has any idea of his family’s finances. I certainly wouldn’t trust our teenagers to characterize what we can and can not afford. So I think, probably not among the well-informed posters here, but among some families there is the potential for sticker shock when they see numbers in black and white and it’s better they sharpen their pencils and re-assess before they commit. I guess I got caught up in the original question of “can I do this?” As he never asked “should I do this?” But finances aside, I would also whole-heartedly agree ED should be used only for a school that is your unambiguous first choice.
If a family needs to compare financial solutions to the extent that $2,000 (as you referenced in your first post) is going to make or break the decision, then they should wait to apply regular decision.
And if a family is new to the entire college process and needs time and space to learn all of the financial wizardry and re-assess their finances…then they should wait and apply regular decision.