<p>thanks for the info on if you are waiting for financial aide offer you don’t have to withdraw. However, it seems OP did receive financial aide offer. So, if it does take Penn a couple of days to deal with OP’s appeal of that offer, than yes, she can hold off on withdrawing. But, if they say you (OP) haven’t justified we aren’t meeting your efc/financial needs (meaning, no changes have occured in family finances, other than hearing Penn state offered full-ride) than she does need to withdraw the MIT.</p>
<p>I realize we are each inferring differently, based on wording of the withdrawing process, and what it means to justify financial aide isn’t adequate.</p>
<p>Anyone who is a viable applicant for a place like MIT or Penn also would be able to get a full ride from one of the lower ranking colleges that buys outstanding students by offering full rides. There is nothing surprising, therefore, about the situation that the OP is in.</p>
<p>Consequently, as many of us have been saying for years – if finances are a consideration, don’t apply ED. The colleges offering ED don’t consider full ride merit aid offers to be acceptable reasons to back out of ED. Those colleges will release students from ED for financial reasons if the college wasn’t able to provide financial aid that met the student’s documented financial need. Note: financial “need,” not financial “wants.”</p>
<p>Such colleges do not match merit aid offers. Period. They will take a second look if another college offers more need-based aid.</p>
<p>Whining about how unfair ED is to people who aren’t wealthy doesn’t make it OK to submit an ED application after signing that one will play by its rules, and then to renege on one’s commitment.</p>
<p>Many of the people here who are saying that the OP should stand by his commitment are middle class people like me who never would have allowed their kids to apply ED because the finances were important to us and would be part of how our kids would decide what college they could afford to go to. We wouldn’t want to try to play the system while losing our own integrity. The loss of integrity, and the unethical lessons we’d be teaching our kids, would be a bigger price to pay than would be any possible financial advantages.</p>
<p>"Consequently, as many of us have been saying for years – if finances are a consideration, don’t apply ED. The colleges offering ED don’t consider full ride merit aid offers to be acceptable reasons to back out of ED. Those colleges will release students from ED for financial reasons if the college wasn’t able to provide financial aid that met the student’s documented financial need. Note: financial “need,” not financial “wants.”</p>
<p>The student and the family decide if the need is met. Not the school.</p>
<p>I don’t see this as an integrity issue. Some of the posters are putting more stringent rules on the OP than actually exist. You are allowed to look at the financial aid offer and decide if your needs are met. You don’t have to accept the school’s offer.</p>
<p>Fifteen pages in, this thread has diverged a bit from the OP’s scenario. Based on that scenario, she applied to UPenn ED, fully intending to attend. After applying, she received a wonderful FA offer from another school. Barring receipt of that offer, she was (apparently) anxious to attend UPenn. Now she isn’t. What “happened” in between was the state-school FA offer.</p>
<p>So what does ED mean, if not “You’re my #1, and because of that I will attend if you accept me (barring financial impossibility of course)?”</p>
<p>“The OP received an ED acceptance from Penn along with a financial aid package. S/he must immediately withdraw the MIT application.”</p>
<p>It’s easy to see why this isn’t true. Imagine that a student were somehow compelled to attend an ED school that she couldn’t afford; she would then be expelled when, due to unwise family “lifestyle” financial decisions, she couldn’t pay the bill. Imagine the bad publicity for the school; that’s why this doesn’t happen, and why schools allow their offers to be declined.</p>
<p>The schools allow the offers to be declined if the student can’t financially afford to attend the school. They don’t allow the offers to be declined because the student can afford to attend the school, but would prefer a better merit-based deal from another college.</p>
<p>Affording the school is a decision of the parents. Some people think if their retirement money is at stake, a school isn’t affordable. Some people think that taking on debt means you can’t afford the school. Others think some debt is ok. But the amount of debt that is acceptable is different per family and their own circumstances.</p>
<p>You are allowed to see the actual numbers before you make the final decision. And you can say No.</p>
<p>Re post 226: As I said originally, Penn may be willing to release the OP from her committment to attend the State flagship. They’re not going to force a student who simply can’t pay to attend. But they’re not going to release her to attend a peer school (MIT) that offers a better financial aid package. If schools start doing that, the entire ED system falls apart.</p>
<p>I have to say I’'m on the “honor ED, dammit” side of the fence. I knew I needed merit aid when I applied to college, thus I didn’t apply ED anywhere. At many schools, ED gives the applicant an admissions advantage, and usually has to be signed by one’s parent and/or GC (so it’s not just the student). Furthermore, the “naive 17 year-old argument” really doesn’t ring true to me–if someone is smart enough to get into UPenn/Columbia/Northwestern/WUSTL, etc., they should be able to understand and weigh the costs and benefits of ED.</p>
<p>I’m sympathetic to the OP’s need for FA/Merit aid, really, but he/she took a gamble applying ED, and I’m hoping he/she knew that when he/she applied. I could see it if there was a sudden change in family circumstances (job loss, serious illness, death of parent, etc), but that (hopefully) isn’t the case here.</p>
<p>“The schools allow the offers to be declined if the student can’t financially afford to attend the school. They don’t allow the offers to be declined because the student can afford to attend the school, but would prefer a better merit-based deal from another college.”</p>
<p>It is the family’s decision if they can afford it, not the school’s. FAFSA/PROFILE do not capture all circumstances of every family. The school will not know the reason unless the student gives it, and it is not necessary to give one.</p>
<p>“u are allowed to see the actual numbers before you make the final decision. And you can say No.”</p>
<p>Sure, you can say no. The college isn’t going to legally force you to attend.</p>
<p>However, you can say “no” with no penalty (with penalty meaning the loss of the opportunity to attend similarly and more highly ranked schools) only if the school didn’t meet your demonstrated financial need.</p>
<p>“I’m sympathetic to the OP’s need for FA/Merit aid, really, but he/she took a gamble applying ED, and I’m hoping he/she knew that when he/she applied.”</p>
<p>There’s no gamble or risk involved; the Common App org doesn’t want ED to be available only to the well-to-do, so they provide the ability to decline any FA offer.</p>
<p>“However, you can say “no” with no penalty (with penalty meaning the loss of the opportunity to attend similarly and more highly ranked schools) only if the school didn’t meet your demonstrated financial need.”</p>
<p>Where does the commonapp.org say this about “similarly and more highly ranked schools”? If a school chooses to use the common app, they must abide by its rules.</p>