Does Applying Early Decision (ED) mean no Financial Aid?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I have read, and understand, the advice that students should not apply ED unless they know they can personally manage the tuition and associated costs of the school in question. If the student is accepted, he is obligated not to apply elsewhere.</p>

<p>However, does being accepted ED actually cause the school to be unwilling, or less likely, to offer the financial aid it might have offered if the student had applied Regular Decision (RD)?</p>

<p>I don't understand how this part works. Thanks for any insight on this process.</p>

2

<p>My son applied ED to Cornell and got a 26K grant. Our EFC was only 12K and he had loans and work study too.</p>

<p>I wasn't afraid of ED because Cornell meets 100% of financial need. That is the important part.</p>

<p>We applied ED because my son was in the low average for the EOM program and the acceptance for ED was higher than RD. That is also an important choice for ED.</p>

<p>We may have gotten more financial aid in a lower tier school because he would have raised their stats but his heart was set on Cornell.</p>

3

<p>Thanks for that encouraging reply. I wonder how it works at schools that do NOT purport to meet 100 % of need. Perhaps they have a different view?</p>

4

<p>I happen to think early decision is a bad idea. The fact is, however, that your chances of being admitted probably increase if you apply ED. There is a perception that colleges give less gift aid to ED applicants because they know they don't have to. The ED applicant is already committed and the college does not have to compete with other colleges for that applicant. Supply and demand. When demand is high, price goes up. First and foremost, colleges are a business. They think like a car dealership does when it tries to sell you a car. They want to maximize revenues. </p>

<p>I have never heard of a student getting sued for breaking an ED promise. I am not sure whether colleges share information about who has applied ED. I have heard that the Ivies do share this information.</p>

<p>If a college accepts a student ED, they are obligated to meet the family's financial need. "Financial need" has a rather straightforward calculation. Need can be met through any combination of loans, gift aid, work study.</p>

<p>So, if you apply ED you won't be able to compare aid offers.</p>

<p>It is a terrible game. One guidance counselor said he would feel ethically justified to renege on an ED committment if the aid offer was substantially worse than expected.</p>

<p>I hope this made sense.</p>

5

<p>Applying ED should affect "need-based" aid, although I do wonder if colleges aren't a bit cheaper with ED applicants. However, it has been known to affect merit based aid. Thus, if you are applying to a school that doesn't give merit aid anyway, it shouldn't be a problem.</p>

6

<p>No, applying early decision does not affect the financial aid you will receive from that particular school. They will give you the same package that you would get offered if you applied RD. </p>

<p>What applying early decision does force you to give up, however, is the ability to compare financial aid offers from DIFFERENT schools. This is an important consideration, especially if you need significant financial aid, because financial aid packages can - and do - vary greatly from school to school. </p>

<p>Even if two schools offer the SAME total dollar amount of financial aid, the two packages can be structured very differently. For example, school A and school B may both offer you a financial aid package with a total dollar amount of $20,000. But school A's financial aid offer includes $15,000 in loans and work study and only $5,000 in grants, while School B's offers $15,000 in grants and only $5,000 in loans and work study. School B's offer is obviously a better deal - grants are "free money" you don't have to earn them (work study) or pay them back (loans). They are just a gift. </p>

<p>But if you applied ED to school A, you'd be giving up even knowing about the better offer from school B. Not only that, but you'd be committed to attending school A, even if you didn't like the thought of taking on all those loans, because in school A's eyes they'd have still met your need, just not, perhaps, in a way you'd prefer.</p>

<p>Add in the possibility of comparing merit scholarships (different from grants), and the potential differences between schools could be even greater. </p>

<p>Now, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't apply ED if, like DLM's son, your family is willing to give up the potential opportunity cost of not being able to compare financial aid offers. But it is important to understand both the implications of what doing so may mean in both the short and long term before you make the decision to apply ED. Weigh the financial opportunity cost against the admissions boost you may or may not receive (and that boost is NOT equal at all schools)from applying ED before you make your final decision.</p>

<p>By the way, there have been several threads discussing this topic on the parents board (scroll down the main menu) in the past week. You may want to read them to further educate yourself on the pro's and con's of ED applications.</p>

7

<p>Here is the link to an "Ask the Dean" reply to this question on the "College Confidential" website. The gist is that ED applicants may get more aid in the form of loan and less in the form of grant.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000198.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/000198.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

8

<p>To amplify Carolyn's comments on merit aid: "Add in the possibility of comparing merit scholarships (different from grants), and the potential differences between schools could be even greater."</p>

<p>Merit Aid is non-need based financial aid (FA) which is given by some (but not all) colleges and universities in order to attract and enroll certain applicants with desired characteristics. The "desired characteristics" vary by school and are not always academic in nature (e.g. music, theatre, debate). Typically merit scholarships are offered to select applicants who don't qualify by FAFSA for any (or small) need-based FA, but show superior academic performance as evidenced by some combination of high grade point average in challenging courses and/or strong standardized test scores.</p>

<p>Some colleges claim that applying Early Decision doesn't affect your chances for merit aid, but other more knowledgable and experienced (some say cynical) CC parents will tell you that ED kills your chances for decent merit aid packages. I myself am not experienced or knowledgable enough to make recommendations, but I have to say it seems only logical that colleges might try and preserve their precious "merit aid" funds to attract those candidates who are not already contractually-committed to attend. In other words, your family supposedly has enough financial resources to pay for your schooling (by EFC), and you already signed the ED contract - so why should the college give you any more money?</p>

<p>Finally please note that need-based aid and non-need-based financial aid are not mutually exclusive propositions. If a college really wants you, they will sometimes add additional merit aid on top of the calculated EFC need-based aid for your final FA package.</p>

<p>A lot of good discussion already exists on the CC threads: try searching on "merit aid" or review the CC financial aid section carefully.</p>