Declining admission because of Financial aid

Paying for College
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<p>I was accepted to Johns Hopkins and Georgia tech, but my family and I cannot afford the tuition at Hopkins so I'm going to Tech. However, I put down the deposit to reserve my spot at JHU (the deadline was January 15th) hoping that some scholarship opportunities would come through (which they didn't). I was curious as to who I should email/call to withdrawal from the institution. </p>

<p>In addition, I was released from the ED binding contract because I was not accepted into my first choice major.</p>

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<p>Contact the admissions office. Smart choice - go with the affordable option! :)</p>

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<p>You seem to be a mature, responsible and gracious person - not to mention smart. The future is very bright for you. Wishing the best of everything for you!</p>

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<p>Were you looking for merit aid as opposed to need-based? I’m assuming the former but if the latter, do you mind posting your family EFC and what Hopkins determined as your EFC?</p>

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<p>You were accepted to Hopkins ED, reserved you spot there with a deposit in January, and now in April you want your deposit back because you did not get merit money you expected? This doesn’t sound so good to me. Usually, if you are accepted ED, the terms of that acceptance and an estimated financial aid package are presented at that time and you have a limited amount of time to ask for release from the contract due to financial issues, or you accept with an enrollment deposit. You don’t get to stay on the accept list until your other acceptances and options are out in the spring. It sounds to me, that because Georgia Tech being a state school and not recognizing the ED commitment, sent you an acceptance, and now you have changed your mind because it costs less than Hopkins. </p>

<p>If that is the case, it is an abuse of the ED contract, and I don’t think you deserve to get your deposit back, Hopkins should also tell you high school what has transpired and if they have ED rules, you might have some issues there too. I am heavily involved with JHU, and I can tell you that they don’t leave things open like this with ED candidates. Though they do not guarantee to meet full need, they do for ED candidates, though it is need as they define it through PROFILE. They would not have kept your ED acceptance open till now for you to see if you got any of the merit awards. It doesn’t work that way.</p>

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<p>Cpt: GT is a state school. ED students are allowed to wait for state acceptances if they can’t afford the offer.</p>

<ol>
<li> OP states in OP:

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<p>Early Decision applicants who applied to but were not admitted to the BME major are released from the Early Decision contract to enroll at Johns Hopkins and may apply to other colleges but must make a decision about enrollment at Johns Hopkins University and return their Candidate Reply Form to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions by January 15.</p>

<p>If you were not accepted to the BME program but still want to attend Johns Hopkins, you can choose to enroll by submitting the Candidate Reply Form and enrollment deposit. You do not need to select a new major at this time, but you should inform us of your academic interests when completing the Candidate Reply Form. All other majors and programs at Johns Hopkins are available to you and you may change your intended major over the summer if you choose.</p>

<p>If you choose not to enroll, check the appropriate box on your Candidate Reply Form and return it to us. Your application will be withdrawn from Johns Hopkins University.</p>

<p>More simplified … ED students admitted to the University but not to the BME program are required to do one of the following actions by the response date of January 15:</p>

<p>1) Select to enroll at JHU under the ED contract and select any other intended major other than BME.</p>

<p>OR</p>

<p>2) Break the ED contract and withdraw from the applicant pool. One cannot delay their enrollment to consider offers from other institutions and one’s admission will not be held past January 15.</p>

<p>The above is what Hopkins has to say about the BME major. I don’t see any exception saying that you can hold the ED acceptance until you see if you are accepted to a state school. I’ve never heard of that exception in any ED contract.</p>

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<p>This is not a formal legal obligation to attend JHU. Write them a note. Tell them that you regret to inform them that your plans have changed, and that you won’t be attending. Period.</p>

<p>They will keep the deposit. But so what? You will go to college somewhere else, and you will have a good and successful life. If this is the only time in your life that you lose a deposit, you will be able to count yourself lucky.</p>

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<p>The OP never asked about getting their deposit back.</p>

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<p>The decision to join Georgia Tech - an institution of equal repute in engineering is a very prudent decision. I have had the opportunity to assess the quality of the output of both these great institutions and they are pretty much the same!</p>

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<p>If the OP does not want his deposit back, he doesn’t have to do a thing. He has not been doing the proper things along the terms of his ED contract as it is. If he wants to tell JHU that he is not coming, he can email the admissions office, call them or drop them a note. End of the matter. He was given the option to be released from his ED commitment when he was not accepted to the BME program, but it clearly states that if he wants to continue that commitment, he can pay an enrollment deposit by 1/15, which he did. What happened, is that he either did not withdraw his application to Georgia Tech, or they ignored the withdrawal notification and accepted him anyways which happens quite often with a number of schools that do not care about ED commitments… A lot of state schools fall into this category. So come spring, lo and behold, OP gets accepted to GT, and though he has early committed to Hopkins, he now has had time to look at his options and with what Hopkins costs, GT is looking mighty fine especially since he did not get a spot in the major he wanted at Hopkins. So he wants to break the ED contract. And it really is not enforceable if the other school does not care, so unless the kid’s high school has rules about this, he is home free. At this point, he can either notifiy Hopkins anyway he wants to do so. It’s not the right thing he is doing according to ED rules–he should not be making this notification, so it’s kind of a moot point how he should be doing this. Who cares? I don’t think he is getting the deposit back anyways, so it really doesn’t matter how he tells Hopkins that he is reneging on his ED acceptance.</p>

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<p>Cptofthehouse,</p>

<p>I understand your outrage, but I think it matters that he tells Hopkins he is not coming. There are probably waitlisted kids who want to take his place. Should not he let Hopkins know so that they have accurate enrollment count? At this point the notification is not for the benefit of the OP, but for benefit of JHU and waitlisted student. This is the least thing that OP can do at this point.</p>

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<p>Not outrage. Just tired. This is about the third one this year alone, and a huge number last year that I knew about because I had a kid graduating and was in the news stream as to who was doing what. </p>

<p>Yes, he can email Hopkins admissions and tell them that he is not coming. Or phone them, or write a letter. The address, phone number and email address are on the admissions site. But really, you think he would not know that after all that he has already sent to admissions and corresponded with them?</p>

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<p>Yes, he should know that. I just hope we can shame him into doing “the right thing”. Quotes are there because the right thing would have been w
ithdrawing application from Georgia tech.</p>

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<p>He may have withdrawn his app from GT. A lot of state schools just ignore the withdrawal notice. Maybe even non state schools that don’t care about ED commitments too. I am not accusing him or even suspecting him of violating ED agreements that way.</p>

<p>What happened here is very typical with ED. Kid gets into ED school, the financial package is doable, though not what family had hoped, and so the deal is not broken ,WHEN IT LEGITIMATELY COULD HAVE BEEN. When the state school accepts the kid several months later and the reality of what the cost at the ED school has sunk in, The family gets second thoughts and cold feet. So the kid/family wants to back out of ED at this time which is strictly against the ED contract, but not enforceable unless the kid’s high school has penalties that it assesses. Oh, and of course the enrollment deposit, which in many cases, is a pretty significant hunk of change so that there is a financial sting to the break. The kid knows exactly how to contact admissions; he’s been in touch through the process with Hopkins, He just is looking for vindication that what he did was all right. </p>

<p>He probably is not feeling really good about this whole thing because he KNOWS that this is not right and is trying to justify it. That he did not get into the program of choice and because Hopkins does allow withdrawal AT THE TIME from ED if that happens, is his story, along with the “I can’t afford it because I did not get any scholarships that I thought I’d get” is a smoke screen for what he is doing. </p>

<p>So, yeah, I am tired of this version of wiggling out of ED and trying to get everyone to agree that it is the right thing. It probably is. The family/kid had no business accepting the ED offer with aid estimate if they were not all aboard with its terms. They fully knew this when they sent off the signed enrollment contract along with the check in January. They just had a change of heart when they saw how much less GT would cost them. </p>

<p>This is why I don’t think those that want or need fin aid should go ED. There is another thread on this board in which I am saying that it is not so easy as it seems, to let go of an ED offer for financial reasons. You try to make it work. But without the comparison at hand, it’s just too much for most people’s gray cells to process. When they actually get, (usually a state school’s) another acceptance, and they compare the costs, BANG, they finally get it. Hopkins is a whopping $61K a year just estimated ,as they will tell you right up front. Maybe more because I don’t know if next year’s figures are officially out yet. GT, if you are a Georgia resident, is dirt cheap in comparison, plus if you get HOPE, it’s a tremendous deal. No comparison in costs unless Hopkins has truly ponied up, and they don’t always meet need, though they do for ED acceptances. Getting one of their merit awards is truly difficult and even if OP got one, it would replace need based grants, the way it works. </p>

<p>Now that everyone is mulling over acceptances, GT looks really good at its price tag, so OP is reneging on his commitment. Parents are backing him and suddenly they absolutely cannot afford Hopkins. Like I said, I’ve seen this play out every year. You are number 4 this year. But please don’t change your story, and throw in erroneous information when what you are doing is breaking an ED contract, Most of us parents here are savviyer than that. Save the story for your friends and others who don’t know how it works.</p>

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<p>^Bravo, well said!</p>