Cornell is saying that you can be released from ED.

Applying to College
1

<p>"While early decision acceptances to Cornell are binding, students may be eligible to be released from the early decision agreement if the financial aid award does not make a Cornell education affordable for applicants and families. We encourage applicants and families to work closely with the Office of Financial Aid and Student Employment to make a Cornell education affordable."</p>

<p>So what does this mean? What do they consider a situation that "does not make a Cornell education affordable"? Does this only happen in special and rare circumstances?</p>

2

<p>Translation: you better pay what we say you can pay, and don't whine about doing work study, because we're already giving you tons of grant money.</p>

3

<p>All colleges that have ED say what Cornell says. Truth is, however, that the bottom line is that the college, not your family, determines what you are able to pay. The college, not your family, determines the financial aid award.</p>

<p>If the college says you deserve $2,000 in loans a year to offset the cost of a $40,000 a year college education and your parents feel that they can only afford to pay $15,000 a year, tough luck. Your parents may complain, but the college isn't likely to make up a $23,000 difference. </p>

<p>Your parents may not wish to cut out vacations, compromise younger siblings college plans, forgo early retirement, never eat out, hang on to 10-year-old cars in order to meet with the college feels are their financial aid obligations. </p>

<p>Meanwhile, if you hadn't applied ED, you might have gotten offers from other colleges that would have included full tuition, full room and board plus a $2,000 a year stipend -- all covered under a merit scholarship package for star academic recruits.</p>

<p>Bottom line: If finances are a consideration, then do NOT apply ED. It will not allow you to compare financial aid offers. Backing out, even for financial reasons, is difficult. If you do manage to back out, your GC will probably be ticked at you (because the college will blame the GC for not making sure that you understood the implications of applying ED and the limitations of expecting colleges to give you the aid your parents feel you deserve), which will affect the help you get with applying elsewhere, and classmates also will be angry because the university may take out its ire by not accepting other students from your school.</p>

4

<p>I think that merits a call to the financial aid office. We heard this type of thing from $40K+ school and even when we asked what exactly it meant, we could not get a definite answer. I think I was told something like "We expect you to attend but we can't force you to attend. If you work with the FA office, it should work out". We assumed, as im-blue said, that what we could afford and how much debt would be incurred would be determined by the school, and so we passed on ED.</p>