@cptofthehouse Agreed–we work in the same area and we can also see the salaries and cost of living.
Our kids would have to work twice as many hours to graduate with the same debt to income ratio as we did, assuming they could get into the same colleges (admission rates have gone down even at the less-competitive college).
For the Ivy Leagues, it seems like they’ve gotten more generous, yes. But most kids don’t go to the Ivies. That’s where I sense that aid is not even coming close to making up the gap in lower federal funding for education and rising housing costs.
Maybe in some parts of the country it’s manageable, but if our kids work twice as many hours as we did, they will still graduate with a higher debt to income ratio. And I worked a lot, probably an average of 35 hours per week, with some weeks upwards of 70 hours working two jobs during the summer.
What it comes down to is that instead of renting a room, they will have to share rooms their entire time in college and beyond. Instead of going to a flagship, they will go to regional schools. I myself am also making sacrifices, in terms of vacations not had, where I shop (though I have a degree and neither of my parents did), in order to save more for the kids’ college. So we will make up that gap. But I’m not feeling the generous aid.
I’ve been thinking about the merit aid question. It hits close to home. Although we were not able to use ED, it never really bothered me that others could. On the other hand, I really have no idea how we would have made college affordable without merit. I grew up on stories of smart kids getting “scholarships” to college, so the idea that my kids could get some tuition assistance for their achievements made sense to me. I am assuming that the school gets something valuable in return or they wouldn’t do it.
If merit aid went away, the only choice for my kids would have been the in-state public. Our in-state publics did not have the programs they really wanted, but they could have made due. The problem is, that all the thousands of other kids who are currently attending private schools with merit aid would then also be flocking to the in-state publics. They would become more and more selective, edging out the middle stat kids who currently attend there. I’m not sure it would be an ultimate benefit overall.
The real problem is that college is not affordable for nearly everyone. In the past, kids could reasonably work their way through college. They can’t now. They can’t borrow enough to make up the difference. Parents are putting their own futures in danger trying to make this work. Its really unfair to everyone. I think thats the fight we should be having, not trying to cannibalize each other.
Yes. Merit money, scholarships are the big thing that one cannot get with ED. You are unlikely to even have word on private scholarships at the time you get an ED acceptance. So if you don’t qualify for financial aid, if you are counting on merit in order to have private school, OOS public, sleep away schools, etc, ED is not going to be for you. THis is usually middle class and upper middle in terms of financials.
If you are low income, ED allows you an out if financial aid does not make the choice affordable. If you are at a level where cost doesn’t matter, ED also is fine. But, for those needing merit to make a choice doable, ED is not for you.
An additional effect of these trends is to make opportunity for college more dependent on parental money choices and decisions relative to student academic performance.
Basically, the narrative pushed by high school counselors and many others about “what is the most selective college you can get admitted to?” being the focus is not the most important factor in college choice for most high school seniors. The actual most important factor is “what colleges can you and your parents afford?”, since very few families will not be limited in college choices by cost factors.
The lawsuit goes in to far more detail. Some specific numbers are below for the 4 analyzed REA years. Among unhooked applicants, the admit rate was ~5x higher for early applicants than regular applicants. If we use percentage of applicants with a high 1-2 academic ratings as a proxy for being highly qualified, we’d expect to see a 1.3x higher admit rate among unhooked admit rate rather than 5x, suggesting that the vast majority of the higher admit rate relates to a boost, rather than more qualified applicants. The full regression analysis had controls for all reader ratings (academic, EC, personal, athletic, interview, LORs, …), rather than just academic. The analysis found that applicants with the same reader ratings, the same hook status, the same concentration, and the same many other controls were expected to have a ~4x higher admit rate if they applied early than if they applied RD, also suggesting that the vast majority of the actual ~5x higher unhooked early admit rate relates to a boost for applying early, rather than more qualified applicants.
Unhooked Applicants (Except URM)
Median early admit rate – 15%
Median regular admit rate – 3%
Hooked Applicants (Except URM)
Median early admit rate – 66%
Median regular admit rate – 18%
All Applicants
Median early admit rate – 23%
Median regular admit rate – 3.6%
So interesting! Clearly these schools have a party line that it is not a benefit to apply early, yet it’s untrue. If at Harvard with its super-high yield and non-binding early program there is a HUGE boost to early application as Data10’s information shows, just think about the real boosts for binding ED programs, at schools with lower yields.
It clearly isn’t true that the higher rate is due to the “remarkable early applicant pool”. Since Data10’s information corrects for all of those factors, that is not a viable explanation.
Any theories on why these schools like to tell us there’s no advantage?
They want to convince you that all their early admits are just as qualified. In reality, some of these early admits aren’t. There are a few schools where there is truly no advantage to apply early, but they’re so few that you can almost count with one hand.
@pickpocket “Don’t feel pressured to use the ED bullet. It’s not for every situation. Go to accepted students days to make the right choice.”
That was the attitude I had before this application season, but I’ve changed my tune. As @Data10 has pointed out, even Harvard (which has no real need) strongly favors early applicants, despite what they claim publically. If you bypass ED, you significantly reduce your admission chances at just about every school (not MIT or Cal Tech). I didn’t believe it a year ago, but I do now.
Psychologically, if you have to fill an empty room, you are going to be more generous about who allow in there when most of the seats are empty than at the end of the process when you have to pick from a line of people waiting out there and few seats left.
In order NOT to give early applicants a boost, you have to put in quota measures in the process which schools hate to do.
Maybe I’m a cynic, but I don’t trust most of what colleges say about their admissions processes. No one wants to hear that they have worse chances if they apply RD, that a certain college is need-aware, that big donors have better chances, or anything else, but that’s the reality.
@SuperSenior19 Some schools are very open about their policies and I appreciate it. BU said straight out that they were need aware and that they give a real boost to ED.
@momof3dds I think they really do need to know positively that they want to attend. I don’t think it needs to be their absolute clear first choice. As long as they would be happy to go and can afford the tuition, it can be worth the trade – certainty and lack of stress in exchange for limited choice.
In every college preso that I ever attended, and where the correct question was asked – ‘After eliminating hooked applicants…’ – the Adcoms all admitted that there was a slight advantage to ED. For example, a few years ago, one Ivy said a “few percentage points”. But of course, that slight advantage is yuuuuugggee on a % basis.
If for example, admit rate for RD is 8%, and ED unhooked is 10%, that results in a de facto 25% admissions boost for ED.
Of the 15 schools my kid applied to, ONE offered a pre-read. And that school didn’t consider NCP finances, so a pre-read was actually possible. At no other school would it have been possible to get the NCP info for a pre-read, even if FA offices were open to taking the time to do one without all the supporting docs and forms, for any potential applicant who asked. Which I honestly doubt, seriously. A pre-read for any parent who calls or emails? What FA offices have the staffing for that?
Are you saying that you couldn’t get a pre-read because of a non-custodial parent who would not or could not provide information? Wouldn’t that spouse had to have provided it during the regular application process?
@gallentjill I am saying two things. One is that only one school (College of Wooster) offered a pre-read. I am also saying that it was hard enough to get all necessary info in time for RD, nevermind getting it for 15 colleges for a pre-read in time for ED. This was before the prior-prior FA change too.
Single mom with a business, so NPCs were not very helpful. In the end, net costs varied by tens of thousands of dollars, even among “meet full need” schools. D wanted to ED to one particular school but it was just not possible.
All the schools we visited acknowledged that they admitted 35-45% of their class from ED applicants. Clearly families that don’t have financial concerns about paying for college are at a strong advantage for college acceptance. No surprise there—these families have strong advantages in ALL areas of life.
What I don’t understand is why this is the approach favored by the colleges. Is expanding their yield the motivator, or is attracting moneyed families primary? And why is yield of such great importance?
“What I don’t understand is why this is the approach favored by the colleges. Is expanding their yield the motivator, or is attracting moneyed families primary? And why is yield of such great importance?”
I think the main attraction for colleges is that it eliminates a lot of uncertainty. They have complete control over the make up of whatever percentage of the class they admit ED - which at some schools is over 50%. If it helps their rating by increasing yield, that’s an added bonus.
Its probably a bit of both. Yield control is a huge factor for schools. You can read about the problems some schools have had when yield goes awry. There was a scandal with one of the CA schools trying to rescind offers when they were over subscribed. They also get to build the kind of class they want, filling different majors and diversity goals. With the regular pool, they can’t know who they are going to get, they can only estimate. This has been exasperated in recent years as kids apply to an ever increasing number of schools. That has to make the estimation difficult.
I’m sure it helps to know early how many full pay students they will attract as well. Finally, it doesn’t hurt to know that the kids who are coming ED really want to be there and aren’t using the school as a consolation prize. School spirit counts.
Our family could not use ED, so please don’t think I’m saying this out of self-interest. I just understand why a school would want to do this.