<p>Hi, i have a question(s) about EARLY DECISION.</p>
<p>okay</p>
<p>i know that if one applies early decision, its binding.</p>
<p>but what happens if you turn down the acceptance bc you dont think you can afford it.</p>
<p>but later on, when you get all the regular decisions you see that all your other acceptances cost the same amount!</p>
<p>after you turn down early acceptance, can you apply again or send it back to be considered for regular acceptance?</p>
<p>If every school you applied to turns out to be truly too expensive for you and your family to afford, you either take a year off, work, save money, and try again the next year or you go to community college.</p>
<p>It is good to have one "financial safety" on the list of colleges you are applying to: a school you could afford to go to even if you received little or no financial aid.</p>
<p>If money is an issue for you, than you don't apply ED.</p>
<p>Every college states that in their FAQ.</p>
<p>Only apply ED if you know you know for sure that you can handle it financially.</p>
<p>It clearly says apply ED expecting that your family could pay for everything, because often the FA in ED/EA is quite low, so you should expect to get less FA than your EFC.</p>
<p>To echo the sentiment. Don't go ED unless you want and are able to attend no matter what. Just telling them you can't isn't reason enough to turn down an ED acceptance. My understanding is they will make you prove it. It isn't called BINDING by mistake.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but what happens if you turn down the acceptance bc you dont think you can afford it.
[/quote]
What happens if you try to turn it down because "you don't think" is that colleges share the names of those they've accepted ED with other top schools. Those schools will not accept you. Furthermore the college will put strong pressure on your HS counselor to have you fulfill your committment, such as notifying your other schools you are reneging on ED, having the school refuse to send out transcripts to other schools, etc.</p>
<p>Just thinking you can't afford it isn't enough. You have to ask to be released from an ED committment; that's why its called "committment". Acceptable financial grounds are that the school didn't meet your EFC, which is unlikely; all they have to do is offer you loans up to that amount.</p>
<p>Bottom line, run one of the online EFC calculators and make sure your family can afford it BEFORE applying ED.</p>
<p>The ED contract does clearly state that you can be released from it if you can't afford the school, so the above posts stating that ED is out of the question unless you can pay without aid are false.</p>
<p>To answer your question though (which is a good question, btw), I think it's really important to be clear about the difference between "can't afford" and "don't want to pay that much." MidwestMom2Kids is exactly right, if you can't afford it and you get similar offers from other schools you won't be able to afford them either, and you'll need take a year off and work or make some other fundamental changes in order to go to college at all.</p>
<p>There's something inherently cynical about saying I can't afford College X based on the financial aid they offered my in ED, but since I didn't get anything better in RD then I'd like to take College X's offer after all.... but wait, you "can't afford" College X, so how is it now you CAN suddenly afford it?</p>
<p>If you really can't afford it, then you just can't and it doesn't matter if you see the offer in ED or RD. If you're just shopping for better deals, ED is absolutely not the way you do that. If you know for certain you'll attend College X if it's at all possible financially, and then you really, actually, truly can't afford it, then of course they're not going to force you to go only to have to remove you for not paying the bills. They'll let you out of the agreement (others will argue about how that process works, but truthfully it will be different at different schools, some simpler than others), but of course they won't consider your application again because you've already told them you can't afford it.</p>
<p>I know "afford" is relative, but it's something you and your parents have to have very definitely outlined in your mind before an ED app. I knew when my son applied ED that we could not, for example, take out any loans or borrow against our house because we can't even pay the bills we currently have. If his aid wasn't sufficient so that we'd have to borrow money we couldn't pay back, then he would have had to decline the offer, and that wouldn't be any different at any school he applied to at any time. If he got to RD and there still was nowhere he could go without our borrowing, then he would have had to get a job and save money, going part-time to the local public college or community college. It wasn't a relative question, it was just yes or no.</p>