<p>I have been told that if oyu apply for Early Decision, you stand a far less chance of any kind of financial aid.</p>
<p>I am especially interested in how this works with needs blind schools, and how it works if you accept an early decision admission, then find out that the financial aid package isn't what is needed to make attendance work.</p>
<p>Thanks for your guidance.</p>
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<p>I have never seen evidence of the rumor that schools give less financial aid to ED applicants. </p>
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<p>You can get out of the ED agreement if a poor financial aid package precludes your matriculation.</p>
<p>Thanks for your quick advice.</p>
<p>I guess what I am not understanding is the process. If you are ED’d into a college, I thought you had to tell them yes or no before the April date that most schools give our their financial aid awards.</p>
<p>I am hoping that I am wrong in that assumption and that ED admissions also mean ED financial aid decision so that RD applications can still be sent in prior to the RD December 31 deadlines.</p>
<p>Am I making any sense with this inquiry?</p>
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<p>You receive a tentative financial aid package with your ED decision. If the offer is unsatisfactory, you need to notify the school pretty soon thereafter, though.</p>
<p>If a college awards only need-based aid then there should not be a difference between an ED and RD aid award. They will calculate their aid package according to their own formula. The schools that offer only need-based aid and promise to meet full need, are almost all schools that require the CSS Profile in addition to the FAFSA. The Profile asks for more detailed financial information, including the income and assets of non-custodial parents. Home equity (or some percentage of it based on income) may also factor into the aid calculations.</p>
<p>You can get out of an ED agreement if the FA is not sufficient to attend. You will get your preliminary award at or near the time you get your ED acceptance. That will give you time to get out of the ED agreement if you have to and apply to other schools for RD – but it’s a tight timeframe, so best to have your (backup) RD apps ready to go beforehand.</p>
<p>If you need to get out of the ED agreement, do it immediately – in Dec.when you get your preliminary aid award. You are not even supposed to apply to other schools if you have accepted an offer of admission from an ED school.</p>
<p>The ED school will usually expect you to accept their admissions offer within a few weeks at the most. You can’t let it dangle out there for months while you wait on RD apps that you should not even have filed w/o getting released from the ED offer first.</p>
<p>This normally wouldn’t even be possible because the ED school will want your acceptance and deposit WELL before the RD admissions decisions. If you don’t deposit promptly you’ll lose your ED spot.</p>
<p>One thing to understand with ED is that for all its good and bad aspects, the main thing is you will not be able to compare offers made by other schools. If that is something you feel you must be able to do, do not apply ED.</p>
<p>To the OP, re post #3. You are absolutely correct. You would be given a tentative financial aid award, but that could be subject to change – which could be a very significant problem for individuals with fluctuating income situations, such as self-employed parents. </p>
<p>Every single year on CC there are some students who apply and accept ED offers, and then find themselves unable to attend their chosen college and with no other options in the spring because of some unanticipated problem with financial aid. </p>
<p>ED is a system designed to benefit the colleges by locking in applicants early on. “100% need” is based on what the college decides, using its own internal formullae – not on the FAFSA, not on an outside standard. </p>
<p>There are a handful of elite college that are particularly generous with financial aid, and almost by definition will give most families far more in aid than any other college. These are colleges like Harvard and other elite schools that have publicized offers such as full rides where family income is under $60K, or costs limited to 10% of family income even for families earning well above $100K; and promising no-loan packages. Most of these colleges have dispensed with ED – but for those colleges, I don’t see a particular downside to applying ED – as the student is unlikely to get a better offer from other colleges.</p>
<p>But most colleges aren’t that amazingly generous – and the bottom line is that ED puts the applicant in a disadvantageous situation financially, because – as you correctly note – the applicant is required to commit to the college and withdraw apps to other colleges months before receiving a firm offer of financial aid.</p>
<p>This article is from last fall, and is not complete, but is kind of interesting to look at. </p>
<p>[Colleges</a> Where Applying Early Decision Helps - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/2009/09/30/colleges-where-applying-early-decision-helps.html]Colleges”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/2009/09/30/colleges-where-applying-early-decision-helps.html)</p>
<p>Most of these schools do not promise to meet 100% of need, and most package loans, but there are some exceptions – just offhand (I didn’t look at it carefully) I see Pomona college that meets full need without loans. Carleton and Williams meet full need with limited loans. I’m sure there are other schools on the list that would be worth investigating. The main thing to look for if you’re thinking about ED is schools that meet full need with no loans or limited loans. Check this site (and then the colleges’ own webpages for the most up-to-date info) for financial aid pledges:</p>
<p>[Project</a> on Student Debt: Financial Aid Pledges](<a href=“http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php]Project”>http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php)</p>
<p>Between the two sites you could probably narrow down a list of schools that meet full need with no/low loans, and that have an ED option.</p>
<p>Of course, as has already been pointed out, your preliminary award is only as reliable as your preliminary figures on your financial aid apps. Also, that colleges determine need based on their own formula and they may think a family can afford to pay more than the family thinks it can.</p>
<p>But you can get out of ED if the school is unaffordable, just do it promptly.</p>
<p>My kid appled ED with a lot of financial need, but we did our homework first, chose a school carefully, and have very static, predictable and modest income/assets.</p>
<p>Unless the college has published very clear standards on what meeting “full need” means… that isn’t a guarantee of strong financial aid, with or without loans. </p>
<p>For example… do you own a home? What is your home equity? How will that impact your financial aid? </p>
<p>There is no consistent standard from one college to another on that issue – and that issue right there is going to potentially result in widely fluctuating “full demonstrated need” awards. A few colleges have very clear policies on the home equity issue clearly reflected on their financial aid web sites; most do not.</p>
<p>It’s pretty easy for me to generate a whole array of other “what ifs?” depending on individual financial circumstances. Are the parents married? remarried? Are there other children in college? etc. Unless you know how each and every issue or contingency might be handled, it’s hard to be certain of a financial aid award.</p>
<p>That’s a good point, Calmom. It’s why --to me, anyway-- that even an ED app to a 100%-need-met, no/low loan school only makes sense if it’s a college that the student already knows they want to attend it if is financially possible. Not whether it’s the best deal they could get or anything like that. If it’s at all do-able, then they’re going.</p>
<p>If it’s not do-able, you can get out of it.</p>
<p>I’d also add that the short list of schools with excellent need-based-aid that have an ED option are really hard schools to get into.</p>
<p>To the OP…you mention “how does this work with need blind schools?” Need blind really doesn’t affect financial aid. NEED BLIND means that the college reviews your application for ADMISSION without consideration of your financial need. In other words, the college doesn’t look at your financial need for ADMISSIONS purposes.</p>
<p>I think you want to look for schools that MEET FULL NEED…this is different. This means that the school guarantees to meet the full need (Cost of attendance minus family contribution) by their calculations (using the FAFSA and possibly the Profile or school form) for ALL students who apply.</p>
<p>Now…to your question as it pertains to financial aid.</p>
<p>If you really know that you have significant need AND the ED school meets full need and is need blind for admissions, your “risks” of applying ED are not as high…your financial aid aid will not affect your admissions decision and your aid is likely to be the same ED as RD.</p>
<p>HOWEVER, if you don’t feel you can pay the costs of the college easily and are HOPING for a better financial aid package in the ED round AND the school does not guarantee to meet full need, I personally think ED is risky.</p>
<p>SO run your numbers through one of the online calculators using the institutional methodology (because truthfully that is the family contribution that will matter at schools that are generous enough to more substantially fund a student)…and see what you get. If the school has an online financial aid calculator (some do), use THAT one. Remember…this is just a GUESTIMATE.</p>
<p>More importantly, figure out what you CAN contribute each year for college. </p>
<p>Look at all the numbers and then make a decision.</p>
<p>Just wanted to reiterate that when colleges are referring to meeting “full need” they are referring to THEIR definition of need, not the family’s definition of need. It seems that every year we see families who are shocked by how much schools assume they can pay, so as has been recommended above, it would be wise to play around with the on-line calculators to at least get some idea of how schools would define your “need.” Good luck!</p>
<p>One of the problems with applying ED when you need financial aid is that you truly do not know what you will have to pay until the end of the process. Because you will providing estimates before the end of the year to the fin aid office, what they give you is an estimated package. Also, even full need met schools do not all define need the same way, and then how they meet need can vary all over the map. I have seen and read each year a lot of sad stories of kids who were burned this way. The other thing that puts an applicant at severe disadvantage using ED is that you cannot compare packages. Many times, folks get on the phone and say to fin aid offices, “College A offered $X and considered our need to be $Y. Can we go over the numbers you have and see if we aren’t missing something here. Student really wants to go to your school, but the fin aid differential is too great.” </p>
<p>Not saying that it always works, but it does get you a second look and a different perspective on the fin aid app especially if the offer is from a very similar, “rival” college. The fin aid officer may well be curious about why this difference occurred. With ED, you have shut out that option. You have know idea if Williams would give you a different set of numbers and better aid, than say, Middlebury, and I have seen this happen with two like schools too often to say it is just a remote possibility.</p>
<p>If you apply ED, you have to understand that you are committed to make it work or go through the gauntlet of not only trying to convince a fin aid/admissions office during its deluge of applications , busiest season that you are entitled to more money, but also making sure you are not on the ED accept list that colleges often use to eliminate candidates already accepted ED. It is one big pain in the neck. </p>
<p>We have friends whose kids applied ED, got in, got measly financial aid packages, but because they so truly were committed to going to that school and were prepared to pay more than they hoped, went ahead with the commitment. They figure they bought their first choice schools for their kids, eliminated all of the stress and time of filing other applications. But they did wish and wonder what other schools would have given their kids as like colleges accepted the kids’ peers and some numbers started circulating on the grape vine. Is Lehigh truly worth $30K more than Lafayette College? Or $25 K more than Muhlenberg or Gettsyburg, when everyone really like all of these schools? With some merit within aid, sometimes the packages can be pretty good. Who knows if your kid would have gotten one since s/he only applied to the one school.</p>
<p>As to the OP’s original question, the answer is that “YES” it is possible. It is not supposed to happen, but here is the situation: the admissions and fin aid folks are human with all of the emotions and sentiments of humans. When they are looking at your app as an ED applicant, they are doing so more in isolation as they KNOW that you are committing to that college. When they look at the RD packages, they also know that those kids are probably applying to a number of like schools and that the fin aid package may make the difference between their coming to their school or not. So subconsciously, how do you think that humans would handle such situations? A lot of the financial aid awards do come down to judgment and the fin aid and admissions folks are permitted discretion in making these awards. The same with merit money. With the exception of those awards that are locked in by test score/gpa numbers, the purpose of those awards is to attract the students they want and have them commit to the school. You are already committed, a done deal. What possible purpose would it serve to give you a merit award? The fin aid awards are more by formula, but many schools do give merit within aid, and it just isn’t a good business move to be all that generous with an ED applicant because he is pretty much a given.</p>
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<p>That cannot be stressed enough. I see so many people “toss” around the income numbers but remember it is income + assets. The assets and what percentage is factored varies from school to school. Remember also that many of the schools that participate in ED programs require Profile or their own financial paperwork and many if not all of those require income information from both parents even if divorced.</p>
<p>You can also ask the school you are considering if they will provide an early look at your FA situation. We did this last year when my S was considering ED and it worked out very well. Although we did only have preliminary numbers I was pretty confident in them and the FA office at the school was more than happy to work with me on a “best guess” package. It is certainly worth asking if the school will do this for you. Obviously it is not cast in stone but it should give you a good and realistic look at what you would be facing.</p>
<p>One thing I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that ED should be used only at the one dream school above all others, and if financial aid is needed, when the only question is: can I afford it? Trying to use ED to increase chances at a non-dream-school is dangerous because it’s a looooong time from December to September, much longer than April to September, regarding changing one’s mind.</p>