<p>This is an unusual case. I think yield on ED will still be upwards of 95%. I don’t see them getting rid of it all that quick. Especially UPENN.</p>
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No, OP was only asked to make a commitment contingent upon an acceptable financial aid offer.</p>
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<p>Thus opening up the ED playing field, with all of it’s advantages, to those with financial need. In that spirit, I honestly don’t think UPENN is going to have a problem with this woman backing out in favor of the full ride. They WILL fill their class nonetheless.</p>
<p>I agree with oldfort and marite. </p>
<p>People you need to acknowledge the difference btwn. less desirable and impossible to pay. Of course if it were impossible for the OP to pay she should be able to remove her ED agreement. But, if the OP needs to take out a little more money than she should honor her commitment to the agreement. What are we teaching people???</p>
<p>If you have a beef with ED in general that is another subject, but the OP signed this agreement and it is binding in the sense that if the OP can fulfill their end, they are supposed to. Perhaps I am missing something, but I don’t recall the OP saying they absolutely could not pay anything to go to Penn.</p>
<p>It would be no different than for UPENN to rescind its decision before Jan 1 with a more qualified candidate. I honestly think someone like OP WILL be able to get accepted to another school if UPENN should change its mind.</p>
<p>I don’t think the problem for UPenn is this ONE case. The problem will become real if this starts to happen more often, which it will once the news spreads. </p>
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<p>Again, there is no reason for Penn et. al. to offer those advantages if they do not get the guaranteed enrollment in return. They are offering spots to students in return for a promise to enroll. It is a two-way deal. If the less affluent are allowed to back out, what prevents the full-pay crowd from backing out once they get into another school–maybe Princeton will come calling. Bye bye Penn.</p>
<p>I foresee the end of binding ED. That is OK with me, for sure. But I don’t see how anything called binding ED can exist if word gets out that less affluent students can back out of the deal. It has to be an all or nothing deal.</p>
<p>d’smom…“I’m sorry but it is not possible for me to go to this school now. It will cost my parents $100,000 in loans and they won’t sign the papers.So like I said, it’s not possible.”</p>
<p>Does that work?</p>
<p>By the ways, as a full pay parent, I am not a fan of ED. I would much prefer for all schools to do RD. As an adult, I know the benefit and pitfall of ED, I would only sign it if I could live up to my end of agreement. You can’t just pick and choose what’s good for you.</p>
<p>You can pick and choose what’s good for you. I’m not teaching my kids to pick and choose what’s bad for them. ;)</p>
<p>I am teaching my kids to live up to their commitment, and there is no wink from me.</p>
<p>There wasn’t a commitment. No wink. And I’m not teaching my kids to do things that are detrimental to their welfare. No wink.</p>
<p>I realize that ED is a rich person’s game, and there are many posters on this thread who agree. I’ve been on CC long enough to realize that many of the posters are the same who proudly proclaim on other threads that they wouldn’t want to saddle their children with debt or that they don’t believe a student should have to work during the school year. because it is more important for students to focus on their studies; they are proud that they are paying full fare for their kids to attend college. </p>
<p>Penn is particularly aggressive among the colleges in its use of ED. Each year it fills roughly half its spots with ED students, and the ED admission rate is roughly 30%. At SEAS, where the OP applied, the admit rate for ED may be even higher. </p>
<p>By the time the ED slots are filled, there are roughly 18,000 applicants competing for 1300 remaining spots - of those, roughly 2700 will be offered admission, which translates to a 15% admission rate. So the “chances” of the ED applicant are at least double the RD applicant.</p>
<p>Penn is also generous with financial aid and does not require its students to take loans. Only the most elite and most well-endowed of colleges are able to offer no-loan need based packages – most other colleges, and particularly public colleges, rely heavily on loans to structure financial aid packages. So it is quite possible that a student who needs financial aid will end up paying less, and taking on far less debt, to attend an Ivy like Penn than they will to attend their own in-state public.</p>
<p>If we simply look at the economics, then for a student with a realistic chance of getting into Penn, the most rational choice is to apply ED while simultaneously applying to EA and rolling admission schools. To wait for the RD round is to substantially diminish chances of admission – the ability to compare financial aid awards is illusory if the student isn’t admitted in the spring.</p>
<p>calmom - I am a bit lost with your long post. If Penn is generous with its FA then it will meet OP’s needs, and that’s bad?</p>
<p>Again, if OP’s parent(s) won’t pay then why did the parent(s) sign the contract?</p>
<p>dstark,
"“I’m sorry but it is not possible for me to go to this school now. It will cost my parents $100,000 in loans and they won’t sign the papers.So like I said, it’s not possible.”</p>
<p>Based on that, it does not sound like the OP has much need! Penn would not expect someone to pay 100k if they had serious need. I think this was more about the parents changing their mind once they saw the state school come along with a better deal.</p>
<p>I blame the parents for signing the ED agreement. They are teaching their child a very bad lesson about commitment. I feel sure that Penn will be able to fill the seat with another child(hopefully one that understands what commitment means)</p>
<p>My idea of what is “good” or “bad” is not purely or even mostly financial.
But this thread is bringing out my worst moralistic instincts. So good night, all.</p>
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<p>Actually, one of the advantages of offering ED for Penn is that it is weighted toward full-pay students. There is a huge advantage to them fiscally if they can lock in full-pay students to fill 45%+ of their incoming class. There is no such advantage when they admit a student who needs financial aid – why would Penn want to lock in a student that they will have to subsidize for 4 years? </p>
<p>If and when OP turns them down, there’s a good chance that OP’s “spot” will later be filled by an equally or better qualified, but less needy student. So I doubt that Penn will be shedding any tears when the grant money offered to OP is restored to its coffers. </p>
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For financial aid applicants, the promise is expressly made contingent on a financial aid award. </p>
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If they don’t have a financial aid application pending, then their agreement isn’t subject to the same contingency.</p>
<p>Let’s go back to DStark’s house-buying analogy. If I offer to buy a house for cash, and the seller accepts my offer, then I’m obligated to go through with the deal. But if I offer to buy the house and make my offer contingent upon the bank approving my loan application – and the bank turns me down – then I am no longer obligated. Sellers understand that, and that is why in some cases a seller might opt to accept a lower cash offer over a higher contingent offer.</p>
<p>Yes, that post makes no sense. if UPENN is generous with aid then if the OP truly had financial need, UPENN would cover that need with aid. If UPENN did not provide aid, it must mean that the OP does not need aid even though she feels otherwise. It’s disheartening how many people on here are willing to void an agreement. Society functions based on the trust implicit in such agreements.</p>
<p>calmom,</p>
<p>Your suggested approach is indeed rational for the first few hundred who try it. Then the system crashes.</p>
<p>Actually, ending binding ED altogether is the better of the two possible outcomes of lots of kids playing the system. The other possible outcome was suggested by another poster above–the ED schools start assuming that those who are requesting financial aid, or who attend poorer schools, or give off any other signal that they are not really affluent will not be admitted ED. At that point, the ED system becomes the “pure” means of enrolling a lot of guaranteed full pay students that the system was probably intended to be from the start.</p>
<p>Not sure the less affluent win, in the long run.</p>
<p>EDIT: I’m not trying to defend the binding ED system, in case that is not clear. I don’t mind if it crashes. I don’t think the world is a better place, though, if ED schools decide not to fill up some of their precious early spots with potential withdrawals. By the way, I think it is fair to suggest that many of those less affluent admits in the ED round are minorities or others who are desirable for reasons other than being full-pay.That is why they are accepted ED, even though they are not helping to fill the coffers.</p>
<p>OP’s parents did not sign the contract with a contingency that OP would only go through with the deal if 1) if he/she did not get a full ride from another school, 2) if he/she were not to get accepted to MIT. The contingency was only if UPENN couldn’t meet their financial need based on their EFC.</p>