<p>I have heard that students admitted early decision at Wesleyan receive less generaous grant packages than those admitted regular decision. Does anyone have evidence of this? The school claims to be need blind. But I have been told that students "locked in" with ED contract sometimes get less generous packages.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Wesleyan says all aid is based on need and that there is no merit aid awarded. It also says it meets full need. So they probably have a standard formula which they apply to all applicants regardless of when they apply.</p>
<p>I think the biggest issue is not that you’d get less good aid at Wesleyan as an ED applicant, but that you will not be able to compare aid awards from other schools where you might have received more aid, less in loans, etc.</p>
<p>You can be released from your ED agreement if the financial aid is not sufficient for you to attend, but you would need to seek that release right away after getting your aid award from Wesleyan if it’s not workable for your family.</p>
<p>If you absolutely need financial aid, do not apply ED. Wesleyan, along with other schools that are need blind and provide 100% of need, have stated outright that they do not play games of this sort. As 'rent states, you cannot compare with other packages when you are accepted ED. I’m sure many ED kids have heard of more generous awards given RD to other folks and felt that they were cheated. Unless you have all of the offers in hand, you cannot tell who is more generous than the others.</p>
<p>You are taking a risk with ED that you end up with a package that you don’t want, can’t afford. You get it right before Christmas when things are closing up for the holidays. You risk being placed on the ED accept list which will flush you off of your other schools. If you petition and are allowed to reneg on ED, you then have to make sure that other schools have not dropped you. You will not be making a good impression anywhere if it is known that you reneged on ED. THen you may end up with similar packages or with W as the best package during the RD season, and you’ll have already dropped that school. A pain in the neck when this does not work out.</p>
<p>I am not as against ED for students with financial need as many who post here (my own kid applied ED with enormous need a few years ago), but I think it’s best to consider only if:</p>
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<p>Anyway, like I said, most people here are VERY opposed to ED when you need aid, but I am not one of them. I just think you need to go into it with your eyes open.</p>
<p>Thanks for the speedy feedback! </p>
<p>Wesleyan is definitely the first choice school. And they claim to give 100% of need, which in our case should be substantial. </p>
<p>I realize that applying ED means we can’t weigh competing offers but, on the other hand, if Wes is giving 100% of need, do we really need to worry about competing offers? Especially as ED appears to increase acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I also know that Wes has a much smaller endowment ($530 million) vs Brown and others. Does this mean more of the package will be tilted towards loans?</p>
<p>Our gross family income will be $130K, no assets or 401K, two siblings applying to college at the same time. </p>
<p>Anyone with experience in similar situation?</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>–ducky</p>
<p>With your family’s income I think you’re on thin ice. You may think your need is substantial, but your income is quite high even though it may not feel like it to you.</p>
<p>The reasons why it’s still a concern with a college that meets full-need are 1) the college will define your family’s “need”, not you, and 2) need met with loans isn’t really need “met” in any real respect, it’s still money you’re going to be paying.</p>
<p>With two in college there may be a little break for you where you’d get some aid from an expensive school that meets full need like Wesleyan, but you might be very surprised to see how little. Definitely run that financial aid estimation calculator so you know what you’re dealing with.</p>
<p>The question of how much of the aid available will be in loans is a HUGE question, my guess would be that with your income it may be high. You can call Wesleyan and see if they’ll give you an early estimate of your aid before you apply. Some schools will do this.</p>
<p>I think ED apps for high-needs students work best with families earning under $60,000 with few or no assets, and even then it’s best to limit those to schools that meet full need with no loans or a promise to cap loans at a specified amount.</p>
<p>In any case, you can apply and see what you get. If it’s unaffordable you can be released from the ED agreement, but you’d better have your ducks in a row to fire off your other applications at the last minute. Teacher rec. letters, transcripts and test scores, and financial aid applications can be sent in advance so that you only have the admissions applications themselves to get done. If your essays are written or mostly written already that can be manageable, although you do end up spending money on getting test scores (and sometimes transcripts, depending on your school’s policies) sent to schools to which you may not end up applying. Work with you guidance counselor on this in advance of the winter holiday, so that things are ready to go if ED doesn’t work out.</p>
<p>I have seen students truly get burned with ED and fin aid. First of all, you cannot complete FAFSA until the first of the following year and you don’t know for certain what your financials are going to be. Dad may forget about a payout from this or other, there might have been a 401 contribution that was not added back into income, many different things that will seriously change the estimate. </p>
<p>You need to ask W if they are loan free or cap loans. A package chock full of loans can be problematic and there are colleges giving them out as aid. Also, with two other siblings in college, your parents are going to be spread very thin. There is no guarantee as to what your siblings are going to get in terms of aid. You need some financial safeties as do your siblings to make sure college is affordable for all of you. I am scared to death of next year when we will have two in college. </p>
<p>Go on ahead and see what W estimates will be your need. That will give you a start. </p>
<p>I guess what I hate the most about ED for those with need is that it doesn’t give you financial safeties. You are pretty much at the mercy of one college. Your final package will not be presented for several months after your ED acceptance; all you have is an estimate that holds only as long as your numbers are as reported, which they will likely not be since you have to estimate as well.</p>
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<p>It depends on WHY you need financial aid. If you are a very low income family applying to a school that meets full need (perhaps eligible for Pell for example), you likely will get a decent financial aid package from a school that meets full need.</p>
<p>HOWEVER if you need financial aid because your family “could” contribute but won’t for some reason or another…do not apply ED.</p>
<p>Also, if you are a middle income earner with income in excess of $100k per year…you also might not net the aid you THINK you will get. Some schools provide very good need based aid for students with incomes in that range, but most do not.</p>
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<p>YES…because Wes and those other schools that “meet full need” do NOT use the same formulas to compute your need and your family contribution. It is THEIR institutional money and they can award it using a variety of formulas. Almost all of these “full need” schools use the CSS Profile (or school form that has the same info) which has much more extensive info that the FAFSA has. For example, school A might expect tap 10% of your home equity as an asset while school B might tap none while school C might tap a higher percentage. Some schools package loans in the financial aid package and some don’t. </p>
<p>There are many variables. There are folks who have posted here with awards that varied by THOUSANDS of dollars by schools that all said they “met full need”.</p>
<p>*I realize that applying ED means we can’t weigh competing offers but, on the other hand, if Wes is giving 100% of need, do we really need to worry about competing offers? Especially as ED appears to increase acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I also know that Wes has a much smaller endowment ($530 million) vs Brown and others. Does this mean more of the package will be tilted towards loans?</p>
<p>Our gross family income will be $130K, no assets or 401K, two siblings applying to college at the same time. *</p>
<p>Remember, the school gets to determine your need…NOT your family. And some privates expect a larger “total” family contribution with multiples in college because they assume that a family should be prepared to pay more when 2 or more are in college rather than just one in college.</p>
<p>For instance…if the family contribution is $40k at a CSS school with one in college, having 3 in college at CSS schools may mean that the total family contribution is now $60k or more. Not all schools do this, but some do (as one mom recently found out when her CSS “efc” for one child was $45k, but was nearly $70k for two with no change in income assets. )</p>
<p>So, if your parents have a limited amount of money that they can pay for YOUR education and you’re not lowish income, I don’t think you should apply ED.</p>
<p>I think ED is mostly for lowish income kids (at full need schools), or families that can pay whatever the school decides they should pay.</p>
<p>Even low income kids can get burned by ED. Too often the full story does not unfold until the real FAFSA is filed, and then you realize that the kid is not the full need you had thought he was. I’ve seen this happen a number of times. Happened this year, but the kid was thankfully not ED. Yes, parents were both unemployed, income was low, low, low. But there were other factors that they did not choose to share at the onset but when actually filing the form with tax form in front of them, they did. Not cool to forget that you got a $50k distribution that year as an early retirement thing and you did not roll it back into the an IRA cuz you needed the money to live. Also not cool, not to mention that the mom was getting unemployment benefits as an employee from a defunct business where she was just on the payroll to get paid. </p>
<p>The parents have to be very heavily involved, because the kids do not often know the true depth and breadth of the family finances, and sometimes the parents leave things out until the last moment. Found out another family owned some houses in a dilapidated area, where they do get just a little bit of rent money, but the properties do have a market value. Also they owned their home in full. Doesn’t affect FAFSA but does come into account with PROFILE> Another family has two siblings from a previous marriage with lots of assets for THEIR college costs that grandparents of those kids set up. Guess what? FAFSA counts that stuff. They can go for the fillings in your teeth!</p>
<p>Thanks Cpt. I spoke yesterday with a parent whose kid got offer from Wes, almost to the dollar of FAFSA estimate, 4K loan, rest grant. </p>
<p>Assuming we do accurate estimate and nothing changes financially, I am getting the feeling Wes will pay “full need” per the form. So, understanding (1) that estimates need to be done correctly and (2) it is a scramble to apply to other colleges if you don’t get accepted or if fin aid offer is insufficient, there is no other downside I can see to ED.</p>
<p>Do I need a reality check? Or am I seeing clearly?</p>
<p>Thanks all for the advice and comments - I really appreciate it!!!</p>
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You need a reality check. Your situation will likely have little in common with another family’s. You also can’t know, from year to year, exactly how Wesleyan is going to handle anything because they may not even know. For example, there’s one top school whose endowment was decimated by the Madoff scandal whose financial aid was subsequently very different than had previously been the case. This is a very precarious economy. You’re in a funky position, being upper-middle-income. A truly poor family will be able to say about a package “we simply can’t pay that” and have that be the end of the matter. It would be much harder for your family to do that and there would be potential consequences. I have always heard good things about Wes, I’m sitting next to an alum right now, but you can’t forget that ED is a binding contract and getting out of that isn’t easy. If you happen to have estimated wrong you could be very, very sorry.</p>
<p>Ducky, my perspective is different because of my experience with my kid and the kids of several friends who applied ED with financial need. It worked out just fine. My concern for you would just be that you have a very high income, whether it seems that way to you or not.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that it is all that hard to get out of an ED agreement if the FA isn’t sufficient, but your best bet is to just ask Wesleyan about that rather than rely on anecdotal comments on the internet.</p>
<p>“ED is a binding contract and getting out of that isn’t easy”</p>
<p>Since Wesleyan requires the Common Application, they should be following its ED FA rules:
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>So to get out of this agreement, if you must, you tell them the FA is not enough, and apply elsewhere at RD time. An appeal (supplying additional info) sometimes helps with getting an increase at some schools.</p>
<p>Consider the alternative, that attendance is somehow compelled, and the student is then expelled when the bill can’t be paid. How often does this happen without a whole lot of adverse publicity? Perhaps that’s why we’ve never heard of such a case.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s that hard to get out of ED, but I do think you need a reality check. Basing this on a parent who claims to have gotten her need according to FAFSA met at a Profile school is not a good idea. </p>
<p>This could be especially tricky with 2 kids applying. Are they both applying to Wes? What if one gets in but the other ends up at a school that does not meet need? It would seem you would not want to commit on behalf of one kid before knowing the full picture.</p>
<p>And even schools that meet need can do so in different ways. They can be more flexible on appeal, for exmple, when they don’t have you locked in. They are competing for the RD kids.</p>