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<p>So if I have a million dollar income, but decide I don’t want to spend a dime, I have a legit reason to say “need is not met”?<br>
Can I go one step further and say the need is met only if the school not only gives me a full ride, but also pays for my airfare back and forth half a dozen times a year?</p>
<p>This whole discussion about MIT’s role in this dilemma is sort of amusing. The chances of EA admit are pretty low, you know.</p>
<p>Does MIT give a preliminary f.a. award with early admit? Some EA schools do give a pretty good idea of what will be formally offered in the spring along with the early acceptance.</p>
<p>PS Hey 3Ks, hello. Haven’t heard from you in a long time.</p>
<p>dstark: Yes, a student can reject the financial aid offer if the family positively can’t manage the COA, even with the aid package. (I think kids who need substantial financial aid should not be applying ED, but that’ s another subject.) But should that student then be permitted to apply RD/EA to an unlimited number of schools? If so, what is the purpose of ED, other than to enhance one’s chance of admission (which it surely does at Penn.) </p>
<p>Basically, you’re saying that a kid who needs financial aid should be allowed to treat an ED acceptance as completely unbinding. That is not the intent of ED.</p>
<p>^^^Yes, we are back to the point I and others made many pages ago. If ED can be treated as if it were EA, then ED will be dead and gone, and pretty soon.</p>
<p>EDIT: and perhaps that is dstark’s plan. Hmm, pretty sneaky, dstark.</p>
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<p>I didn’t know that. It sounds like MIT’s independent determination of financial need will not come before the negotiation with UPENN will conclude. </p>
<p>If that’s the case, at the conclusion of the UPENN negotiation, the OP needs to send a letter to MIT stating:</p>
<ol>
<li>UPENN has accepted me ED and has not offered me sufficient financial aid to make it possible for me to attend. </li>
<li>My family has determined what I can pay. I gave UPENN an opportunity to recalculate my financial aid, but they have declined to make a satisfactory offer. </li>
<li>I am letting you know that I have negotiated in good faith with UPENN and was unable to reach an agreement. </li>
<li>I would like you to make your own independent determination of my financial need, but once you do, I would be happy to provide you with documentation of my UPENN offer and the ensuing negotiation. I cannot in good faith accept an offer from MIT that is comparable with the one that I declined from UPENN, but should your determination of my need be more in line with my family’s determination of my need, then I don’t feel that it would be inappropriate to for me accept your offer. </li>
</ol>
<p>This is unlikely to work, but is honest, and above board with everybody.</p>
<p>“Does MIT give a preliminary f.a. award with early admit? Some EA schools do give a pretty good idea of what will be formally offered in the spring along with the early acceptance.”</p>
<p>I highly doubt that MIT would give an early preliminary financial aid award with EA. They would have no reason to do that. They aren’t stupid. They’d realize that the main people who’d want such information would be people who were using that to figure out whether to accept an ED award from a competing institution. MIT isn’t interested in attracting students who are so unethical as to be considering backing out of ED commitments.</p>
<p>MIT also knows that its competing institutions that offer ED offer to meet 100% of students’ demonstrated financial need so there’s no reasons other than greed or lack of integrity for a student to be considering backing out of such commitments.</p>
<p>“1. UPENN has accepted me ED and has not offered me sufficient financial aid to make it possible for me to attend. …”</p>
<p>MIT is not stupid. It knows that UPenn meets 100% of students’ demonstrated financial need. I highly doubt that MIT would accept the invitation to play the student’s con game. I’m sure that others have tried before to play such a game with MIT and have failed.</p>
<p>Yes, midmo. And if, as a matter of public policy, people think ED should be dead and gone, they have the right to lobby for the abolition of ED. But right now, it is alive, and it is unfair to the majority of students who honor their ED commitments for others to say “I think this policy stinks, so I’m going to apply ED, but if I get in and then change my mind, I’m going to say the policy is unfair and walk away from my commitment.” What a rotten lesson to teach our children.</p>
<p>Those going down the moral and ethical route should consider how moral and ethical it is for a college to have any expectation of a student’s acceptance before knowing the bill (that is, if they are a financial aid candidate). </p>
<p>Seems to me, this whole thing could be solved by a change in the ED system. Candidates have filed their financial info with the schools as part of the process. The school could simply send out an e-mail to all applicants stating that: ‘based on their financial situation the student would get such and such a loan/grant/work study offer making for a total cost of X. That if the offer is acceptable the application process would continue to a conclusion and requiring them and their parents to sign an electronic signature form.’ For those accepting the financial terms, the admit/deferred/reject process will continue. That should handle 99 percent of all problems.</p>
<p>“So if I have a million dollar income, but decide I don’t want to spend a dime, I have a legit reason to say “need is not met”?”</p>
<p>:) Irrelevant; such an income results in 100% EFC and no aid.</p>
<p>Along the lines of others, here is a real ED disaster story that was related to our older S years ago by his 6th grade teacher. This was in the early days of ED implementation. This teacher’s D was a top applicant and applied ED to Swarthmore and was admitted. It was her clear first choice, and financial aid was not an issue. </p>
<p>Sometime after her D had been admitted, she had a complete change of heart and panicked that Swarthmore was no longer the right fit for her and now wanted to apply to Georgetown. This teacher is a really smart woman, a terrific GATE resource in our district, and a wonderful parent advocate who believed they had thoroughly researched her D’s list prior to her ED application. What she did not have experience with is the growth of the applicant during the Senior year due to a particular EC that develops over the Sr year.</p>
<p>This was a painful realization. They consulted with Swarthmore, HS GC’s & etc, and she was told that the only option open to her in the spirit of the agreement was the State Flagship. She was in a high powered school district well connected with UC Berkeley. She attended UC Berkeley for a year, and then re-applied to other schools as a transfer applicant the following year. She graduated from an Ivy with top awards, fellow-ships and the like. The teacher has been an outspoken critic of ED in our district due to the maturation process that develops over the course of the Senior year. </p>
<p>Just FYI. This maturation over the process of the Senior year was experienced by both of my S’s who pursued their interests in depth over many years. In fact for S2, now a happy freshman at Vassar, his top choices completely re-shuffled based on significant Senior year work.</p>
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<p>My son received a preliminary f.a. package from UChicago when he was admitted EA a few years ago. (And it was not good news. And when I called on the phone and asked what the chances were that it would be just as bad in the spring, they told me it would be even worse!) But I guess they’re just stupid.</p>
<p>On the other hand, U Chicago does postpone until the very last minute any notification of merit awards. And that was stupid.</p>
<p>“Basically, you’re saying that a kid who needs financial aid should be allowed to treat an ED acceptance as completely unbinding.”</p>
<p>Actually I think a more accurate assessment would be “family that wants” rather than “kid who needs.” When a divorced dad with $2Million in the bank can avoid paying for UPenn by simply asserting “Our family can’t afford to pay for UPenn …” well then the lunatics are clearly running the institution.</p>
<p>We don’t know what the OP’s family financial situation is. But we can certainly infer that since UPenn was “the one” until the state-college FA package showed up, that the family had the ability to pay for UPenn.</p>
<p>dstark wrote: "The student and the family decide if the need is met. Not the school.
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>Right, but the it is on the student to JUSTIFY that the need hasn’t been met. I take that to mean more than you apparently do. Justification, in my opinion, isn’t that Penn State offered a full-ride. Justification means U Penn didn’t meet need, and I wonder how hard that will be to prove? U Penn clearly states they will do all they can to meet efc need…not merit. Declining ED means the school didn’t offer enough to meet need.</p>
<p>How does OP justify this? How does an applicant show need versus want. Merit versus need is the crux of an applicant’s decision to apply ED, EA or RD. If you know ED only gives need, and your family has other obligations that don’t show up on EFC calculations, then you choose EA and RD when you apply.</p>
<p>wjb, ED is not really binding.</p>
<p>Then what on earth IS the purpose of ED in your mind, dstark?</p>
<p>I’m not going to go through the reasons. You know the reasons. The reasons don’t make it binding.</p>
<p>“On the other hand, U Chicago does postpone until the very last minute any notification of merit awards. And that was stupid.”</p>
<p>Seems smart to me. They have a limited # of merit awards and probably wait to select recipients until they’ve reviewed the entire applicant pool including regular admittees.</p>
<p>“My son received a preliminary f.a. package from UChicago when he was admitted EA a few years ago. (And it was not good news. And when I called on the phone and asked what the chances were that it would be just as bad in the spring, they told me it would be even worse!) But I guess they’re just stupid.”</p>
<p>Does Chicago guarantee to meet 100% of students’ demonstrated need? If they do, I don’t understand how a financial aid offer could differ depending on whether it was made in the fall or the spring.</p>
<p>When it comes to the MIT situation – to me, it would be stupid for MIT to give an estimated financial aid offer to students admitted EA. The only students who’d need such information would be those considering an ED offer. MIT would not want students who’d back out of ED for no no good reason. </p>
<p>With schools offering regular and EA admission, the students have until May 1 to choose their college, so no reason for MIT to provide early financial aid info to EA accepted students.</p>
<p>Wow, I woke up this morning and could not believe this thread is on page 17 already.</p>
<p>I still believe when you get back to the original question that the OP asked it comes down to the OP did ED to Penn and then a better(free ride offer) came along. Of course the OP could get a free ride somewhere. If you are smart enough to get into Penn you can find a free ride. The parents are to blame in this scenario and as I have said in an earlier post, if Penn is allowing the OP to take on 100k in loans, it’s because the OP is not poor and or in need of much aid. Penn has amazing financial aid and the OP is obviously not poor. You don’t get to get our of an ED agreement just because something better comes along the way. What happened to integrity and honoring your word??? Penn has honored their word. What the heck are we teaching our children. To bend and mold everything to our advantage, regardless of what the original intent of the ED agreement was??? The ED is supposed to be your #1 choice period. You are supposed to attend there if you get admitted unless it’s not possible. period. I do think that Penn will be able to fill the seat with another prospect, but there is a lesson here. DO NOT DO ED if it is clearly not your first choice!!!</p>
<p>^ I think wjb has a legitimate question. But let me restate it slightly:</p>
<p>Is there any situation in which any of the conditions in the ED agreement need be met? If not, what is the purpose of having </p>
<p>The Student
The Parents
The GC</p>
<p>sign the agreement?</p>