<p>So im gonna be a senior next year and planning ahead. I want to ED into my #1 school (NYU) but am kinda worried about the lock and not being able to pay tuition without going into debt the rest of my life. As a student I'm a bit above average with everything academic wise like 3.9 GPA, honors, some clubs, and community service but not enough to get into an Ivy League school. I want to ED because i feel as if it could improve my chances but don't want to be in debt at the same time. What do you guys think i should do? Thanks ahead of time!</p>
<p>NYU does NOT guarantee to meet the full need of all of its accepted students. I would strongly suggest that if finances are a significant consideration, that you NOT apply ED to NYU.</p>
<p>It’s one thing to be very low income with few assets, and apply to a school that meets full need early decision. At least in that scenario, you have a good,chance of the school meeting your need.</p>
<p>However, NYU doesn’t guarantee to meet full need…and they usually do not.</p>
<p>I appreciate the help. Why aren’t they like top schools like Princeton who give accepted students as much aid as needed for the student to attend?</p>
<p>It is not NYUs policy to meet the need of all excepted students…like Princeton does. NYU does not have an endowment large enough to support that level of need based aid.</p>
<p>There are not that many colleges that meet full need for all accepted students. The ones that do this have huge endowments, and are highly competitive for admissions as well.</p>
<p>NYU simply doesn’t have the policy (or money) to meet the full need for all accepted students. Most colleges do not meet full need for all accepted students.</p>
<p>The short answer to that is that they don’t have the money to in reserve and they don’t have to.</p>
<p>In terms of ED…applying as an ED student to NYU does not increase your odds for admittance. Check the common data set for the past few years and you’ll see the numbers.</p>
<p>So unless you are certain NYU is your first choice AND you can afford it, there is no reason to apply ED to “up” your chances.</p>
<p>Thanks a ton!</p>
<p>“So unless you are certain NYU is your first choice AND you can afford it”</p>
<p>The problem is you don’t know if you can afford it before receiving the ED financial aid offer, but there’s no danger in applying ED if you don’t know. If the ED FA offer is insufficient, it is declined, and you apply RD elsewhere. The issue with NYU is potentially wasting the ED application fee if the chances of it working out are low. The net price calculator should help.</p>
<p>NYU is a no-go for ED with need. There are other other schools where it can work out but NYU is notorious for packaging students with a ton of debt. Google some articles about their administration and finances to get a bigger picture.</p>
<p>^ Except for top students NYU really wants; THEY get good money!</p>
<p>I appreciate the help. Why aren’t they like top schools like Princeton who give accepted students as much aid as needed for the student to attend? </p>
<p>Actually that’s a real misnomer. Every top school determines need with a different formula, and their determination might not match up with what you and your family feel comfortable paying. I strongly advice anybody who is concerned about how they will pay for school to avoid ED altogether so they can compare offers from different schools. “Need” is a very flexible term!</p>
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<p>This simply is untrue, because it is hard for a person to know whether or not an award is sufficient if they don’t have anything else to compare it with.</p>
<p>The year my d. got into NYU she was also admitted to an out-of-state public U that she had added to her list as a safety, thinking it might be affordable. However, the out of state U. offered only loans – no grants – whereas NYU offered a small grant – so while NYU was expensive and required loans, the public u. would have cost even more.</p>
<p>Of course my d. had many other choices, so she opted for a private that offered more money. But what if she hadn’t had those choices? What if there was no option for her that was a financial “safety”? How would she have known in December that the $8K grant that NYU offered was significantly worse than what other schools that admitted her would offer? For some students the end result is going to be paying more money and taking more loans than they had hoped, no matter where they end up – but it must feel bitter to end up taking out $50K in undergraduate loans to pay for Podunk College instead of that same $50K for Dream U., because of lack of info at the relevant time.</p>
<p>I agree…the problem with applying ED when finances are a significant consideration is you cannot compare offers.</p>
<p>Say NYU offers a package that the OP deems insufficient and declines the offer. What happens if all of his other offers are actually LESS.</p>
<p>This student sounds like he needs significant financial aid to attend NYU. There is NO admissions edge for applying early decision. </p>
<p>I would suggest this poster cast a broad net, and include NYU as an application. But by applying rd, he will have the chance to weigh multiple choices before he makes ANY decisions.</p>
<p>The schools love ED and push it because it gives them a really nice pool of guaranteed applicants and makes their yield look higher than it actually is. They try to push people towards ED by telling them that they will have a much better chance of acceptance in the ED pool. It’s been 4 years since I was on this end of the process so forgive me if my numbers are way off, but the admissions officers will tell you that something like 60% of the ED applicants are accepted while only 20% of the RD applications get in, or some such proportion. </p>
<p>What they don’t disclose is that: 1. 100% of recruited athletes apply through the ED pool. The bulk of their applications are hand walked through the admissions process by the coaches who want them on their team, and they will be accepted unless their application has terrible flaws, and 2. All the private/boarding schools recommend that their students apply ED at their top choice. These kids usually have a huge financial advantage in that many are full pay AND have indicated they will accept the admissions offer from the school - the schools would be nuts to turn them down, again, unless their application is terribly flawed.</p>
<p>So - the schools make ED sound great - your chances of acceptance seem much better than in the regular decision pool, and they will tell you that (if they meet full need) your financial aid won’t be affected at all. But they leave out the fact that many of the ED applicants are pretty much guaranteed to get in and the deck is actually badly stacked against the “normal” kid who falls for the ED trap. There is no need for ED kids to be offered merit scholarships as they have already guaranteed that they will go to the school if their “need” (as defined by the school) is met. And that kid may be leaving a lot of money on the table by not examining offers from other schools.</p>
<p>Rant over :)</p>
<p>Two of my kids used ED at schools which met full need without loans and it worked out fine. The number of schools which do that is very small though. It requires a thorough understanding of the school’s aid policies and one’s finances.</p>
<p>What about a kid whose stats put her “almost” in reach of the common data set stats (low-middling) chance of admission for a school she just loves. The kid needs to have full need met. The school is a private who admits about 30% more students through ED. The kid would be thrilled to be accepted and have need met, as would the parents. </p>
<p>If she got accepted, but didn’t get full need met, she could walk away, right?</p>
<p>And if she got accepted AND got full need met, then it’s a winning situation, right?</p>
<p>Considering ED, but want to know the down side to the above scenario.</p>
<p>Applicants love ED because they can get the process over sooner and relax, concentrating on senior year.</p>
<p>^^ ED seems appropriate when there’s a clear first choice and you want only to know if you can afford it.</p>
<p>The school gets to define your need. </p>
<p>If the school does NOT guarantee to meet full need, it is mighty risky applying ED. You are supposed to do ED when the school is your top choice AND you can afford to attend if accepted.</p>
<p>As noted above, while it SEEMS that there is an edge at some places for ED applicants, keep in mind that this includes recruited athletes, and legacies at some schools. The “edge” for the regular applicant is not much of an edge.</p>
<p>vonlost, I agree with your assessment. The reason we let our younger D apply ED to NYU–knowing that we would be full pay–was because we wanted to get the college admissions process over with. Although younger D had applied to other schools that gave merit for EA and RD, we decided that we would ultimately let her attend NYU since it was her first choice by far and we all thought it was the best fit for her.</p>
<p>In essence, we had thrown in the towel. We had already been down this path with older D, and in the end we let her turn down merit $ and attend NYU, so we knew that ultimately we would make that same decision again.</p>
<p>So what was the point of prolonging the agony?</p>
<p>However, if you can’t afford to make a choice like this, there is no upside to ED at NYU. When Carmen617 speaks of a big difference for some schools between % admitted ED and RD, this scenario does not apply to NYU. If anything, the statistics show your chances may be slightly lower as an ED applicant. And obviously ED athletic recruits really do not exist at NYU in any great number.</p>
<p>chaptertwo, the downside is that if full need is not met, you have to make a decision to deposit or not. If you don’t put down a deposit within 30 days or so to secure your acceptance, the school will withdraw their offer. That thirty day period means that you need to make a decision by mid to late January–long before RD results. D did hear from 2 early action schools before her deposit was due, but you won’t know RD.</p>
<p>And if you turn down the offer, what if it turns out to be higher than subsequent offers? And if you put down the deposit, you need to withdraw your other applications. So as others have stated, you can’t compare other offers of aid.</p>
<p>“If the school does NOT guarantee to meet full need, it is mighty risky applying ED.”</p>
<p>What is the risk, you might ask. One risk is that you’ve wasted the application fee, since the net price calculator should have warned you that the school is likely unaffordable. If you have access to other money (e.g., via grandparents) such that it IS affordable, you might have gotten a better offer from a lower-choice school, and you’ll never know. Another risk is that you’re tempted to stretch to make it affordable, since it’s your dream school. Another risk is sadness that you must decline the offer, but you don’t know if you’ll actually GET a better offer.</p>