<p>Does applying early affect your chances of getting financial aid or other scholarships?</p>
<p>It can, depending on the school. If you are accepted Early Decision, you pretty much are forced to attend. A lot of times, the school, because you are coming regardless of aid, will not give you a great deal. This is not the case with all schools, but in their eyes you are a guarenteed $40K/year. For Early Action they might be more generous, since you aren't forced to accept their offer.</p>
<p>A number of exclusive colleges like Princeton, Penn, Yale, U VA don't offer loans to low income (<$50,000) families - free money only. Check them out. Also U MO.</p>
<p>I don't think that I'd qualify for those kinds of loans, but putting two kids through college is more than my family can pay for, so I'm kind of in the middle ground. I ask because my dad thinks that my sister didn't get much fin aid from UChicago because she applied EA.</p>
<p>I don't think your sister received less aid because she applied early. Most families end up with less financial aid than they expected and I have heard about Chicago as being not too generous in general.</p>
<p>I don't know how Chicago operates in particular. (My understanding is that in general they are not generous with aid even in the RD round.) However, overall EA should not affect aid, because decisions are not binding on the part of the student. An EA acceptance can bring with it just as much aid, or just as little, as an RD acceptance. Remember, that an EA acceptance means that the college or U in question knows full well that the student may be comparing financial aid offers in spring. That's where the element of merit comes in. A high-performing student who is an EA admit may be generously funded by April, if the EA school is concerned about this student comparing offers from competing peer colleges.</p>
<p>B@rlum and ephipany are correct : If you apply early you'll get the same amount of need-based aid from that PARTICULAR college that you would if you applied during regular decision.</p>
<p>The downside of applying Early Decision (not EA, which I'll get to in a moment), however, is that you give up the chance to compare the aid offer you'll receive from that school with those from other schools. So, you'll never know if you might have received less loans somewhere else, or been offered merit money somewhere else, etc. That is why it is best to apply ED only if you are absolutely positive this is your top choice school, and that you'd want to attend regardless of the FA or merit offers you might get from other schools. One more thing to note: there's a common misconception that you are automatically freed from your ED commitment if you "don't like" the FA offer. Not true. If the school has met your demonstrated financial need - even if they've offered you more loans than you'd like to do so - you're still bound by the commitment. It's only if the school doesn't offer a FA package that fills your demonstrated need (as determined by the school, not your family's willingness to pay) that you are out of the ED commitment. Another downside of ED: some schools may not feel any incentive to offer an ED candidate merit money, so you may be shortchanged that way too (at some schools).</p>
<p>With that said, Early Action is a different story. Even if you apply to a single choice EA school, you still get the chance to compare other FA packages before you have to make a final decision of where to go at the end of April. Your FA package as an EA acceptee will be the same as if you applied RD. In some cases, colleges actually require students to apply EA in order to be considered for the school's best merit scholarships as well. </p>
<p>So, there's NO downside in terms of FA if you apply EA. But, if you apply ED, you may be giving up better offers elsewhere (not getting less FA than you would have RD from that particular school).</p>