Early Decision - is it fair?

Parents Forum
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I understand what you are saying, Calmom, but I think that what I am trying to say is that if a family needs to or should need to see what is available in merit aid, then the issue isn’t that they’re missing out by not doing ED, but that the school for whatever reason, even if one that is need-generous, is not offering enough aid for that family. Whether December or March, the issue is lack of FA, not when the offer is made. And that’s what I mean by “doable.” Unfortunately, some schools don’t offer enough aid for a family to choose them. But i don’t see that issue as any different no matter when the offer is made.

As far as changing circumstances in family situation, that could be a concern. Our income went down drastically while my S was in school, but the school responded with aid. I think anyone is taking a chance with a school that is not flexible on aid whether RD or ED, but again, that is a different story.

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@momofsenior1 – sometimes the EA or rolling admission schools say no. In December, my daughter had a deferral from an EA school, and in February she had a wait-list from an early write. Yes, those can provide peace of mind when decisions are favorable… but it can be even more anxiety-producing when the answers are not. (Same deal with ED of course-- at least with EA students are less likely psychologically to get their heart set on a school they have already decided to commit to along with the application).

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Private schools receive the benefit of quite a few tax dollars. So I do think tax payers can at least throw out their 2 cents in terms of how their admissions work. I’d much prefer the dollars doing into affordable and meaningful public options for all myself. When the average family income of Dartmouth students is about 200K and the average family income of our neighboring flagship is 95K (an institution that is still financially out of reach for many though they have added help for the lowest income bracket), you’re going to have a hard time convincing me elite schools are really trying to be fair and equitable in their process.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/04/08/there-are-really-almost-no-truly-private-universities/#76d2e28f57bc

Anyway - given CC is not a debate society, I’m guessing this thread will be closed soon so bowing out. Just to be clear, we are not low income. Standard calculations do not work for our situation. Fair would be YOU doing the calculating and saying what actually does work for your family. Or fair might be your EFC is 10-15% of annual income + federal loan limits and if schools didn’t want to meet it at least it would be transparent.

I can tell you we had a financial adviser look at our finances a couple years ago and recommended spending like 50K less than what the FAFSA says we can afford. Luckily we have some leeway on that. We still have plenty of privilege in the process and I’m glad we have the fantastic public options we do have. My kid had a rolling admission in October which was nice, and honors and merit money rolled in shortly after that.

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@garland My comments have been in reference to need-based aid. And families who need aid really do need to compare options. A difference of $5000 for year 1 is going to be $20K over the course of 4 years, so not insignificant.

And here is the problem that comes up again and again. A family believes that they can pay, say, $20K a year for college. If a college comes in with aid that is under that point – great. But the reality is that the family is often faced with a situation of no college hitting that target.

So let’s say they went ED based on an NPC estimate that turns out to be a few thousand off. Instead of $20K, first year costs are going to be $25K. That’s above their threshold – but not so far above that its impossible. (That is, $40K would definitely be off the table).

So the family can turn down 1st choice school at $25K… — but what if the offers in the spring are worse?

Let’s say, a choice between 3 schools at $27K, $28K, $29K. OK, $27K is the new best offer – but the student can’t go back to their first choice – they’ve already declined that.

On the other hand, what if the family decides to bite the bullet and go ahead with the $25K offer.

But maybe if they had waited until spring, the offers would end up as $17K, $19K, $23K, an RD offer from the would-be ED school of $25K.

Now its obvious they would have better options if they had waited

And there’s more – let’s assume that these are all peer schools. Any of the higher cost schools can be asked to review their award in light of the award from a competing school. No guarantee – but very often colleges sweeten the pot in those circumstances.

These numbers aren’t fantasy – they are very close to the kind of numbers I saw with my daughter.

And I definitely can tell you in hindsight, these things can make a big difference.

I think that there is a difference between want and need, and families who fall into a real “need” category will have hard choices to make, but are always going to be better off with full information. If the need is real, then the desire for a particular college or particular type of college is almost always going to give way to financial considerations. “Need” does not have to be dire in order to be genuine – but my point is that the choices the family faces when considering +/- $5K or $10K a year isn’t just foregoing a vacation or eating out less frequently.

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@calmom That is what a safety school is for. Safety doesn’t just mean you will 90% you will be admitted, but also that you will be able to afford it. The only reasons to apply ED to a school is because it is a clear first choice and you will most likely be able to afford it.

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Well that’s the point. Most students who need financial aid aren’t in a position to commit to ED without knowing what their award will be, no matter how certain they are that the school is their top choice. Hence the OP’s observation that ED primarily benefits students from wealthier families. They have an option that student’s with genuine need dont.

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As others have repeatedly said, there is no harm in applying ED as you can still have applications in to other schools and deny if it isn’t affordable. If you get in from the “advantage” it brings, then you got in. If you can’t afford it, you couldn’t have afforded it if you got in RD either.

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From our experience, this aspect at least was reasonably fair and worked for us.

My d19 did get in ED to her choice. The FA award was close to what the NPC projected. We did already know that she was accepted EA to a public that would have cost less, however we also knew that her choice was going to be in our budget (at the top of it, but it was there). We had run NPCs for other colleges already that she was interested in and knew that unless there was some miracle, those would be out of budget and not affordable. When she was accepted ED we went over the package carefully and determined we could do it, so she committed. The FA office never pressured us and indicated more than once that if it wasn’t affordable, she could decline the offer.

If it matters, we are solidly middle class (ie not calling ourselves middle class while still being full pay for multiple kids in needs met colleges!) and received a large amount in aid.

I know there are parents of some of her friends who think the whole ED process isn’t “fair”. They don’t like that they would be full pay at a college like Brown or Princeton, even with two kids in college. Funny how they don’t think it’s unfair that they can easily spend money on buying their kid who doesn’t work a car, paying all expenses relating to said car, going on regular ski trips and expensive places for dinner, etc etc. My daughter has another friend whose parents are low enough income that even though their kids’ college costs are less than $10k a year, they have to take out loans on their house. This kid has probably only eaten out at a restaurant a couple times in her entire life. Is that “fair”?

Anyway, fair is like beauty. It’s all in the eye of the beholder. However, I expect my apparently less qualified ED accepted d19 to enjoy her upcoming college experience.

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This doesn’t need to be personal. I will admit to my kids benefitting from ED, legacy, and probably even donations (not large enough to move the needle, but consistently for decades.) No one is saying ED admits are running some sort of scam.

I still don’t think it’s fair, for all the reasons I listed but especially because schools tout the much higher acceptance %age without telling people what goes into it. So you are being asked to commit to one school without having a full picture of if it’s actually going to be helpful. We were told the %age of legacy applicants that are typically accepted in a legacy info session. As far as I know, other ED applicants were only told the overall ED acceptance rate. Does anyone find that fair?

I actually think schools can run things how they like, but should be as transparent as they can.

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As I understand it, there is some expectation of a boost of liklihood of admissions based on the student’s promise to attend if accepted.
I am sure the schools get students that renege on their promise all the time. While a few may have had some shattering economical downturn after they sent their app, I suspect most that renege were either just “wishers” or hadn’t thoroughly explored the potential costs. That wouldn’t be fair to the school. Just reminding some that there are 2 sides to the “unfair” coin.

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I will not weigh in on fair or not fair, but I will share some observations from my experience and those of friends.

  1. I know some students who were admitted to their ED choice who had financial need and were pleased that their packages met their needs. Some of them were poor, some were working or middle class, and some were upper middle class. Some got full expenses covered through their aid package, whereas those with higher incomes were covered for the “gap” between expenses and what their parents could pay. I have heard from some parents I know how relieved they were when they saw their ED and EA financial aid packages. So I do not believe that ED is limited to the wealthy.
  2. I also know that colleges want the students they admit to attend, and sometimes may be flexible for them. In January of 2018, I listened into a group phone call for alumni of an elite college with the dean of admissions and financial aid, because I was interested in the process. Someone on the call asked if there are students who turn down ED offers for financial reasons. The dean replied that there are fewer than 5 students a year who cannot work out an aid plan at that time with which they are comfortable enrolling. The college lets them wait until April to compare plans. She said that usually 80% of them end up enrolling in the college after all. As she put it, for the loss of only about one student a year to another college, it is worth it to “do the right thing” by the students. I do not know how unique that college is, or even if my putting it into writing here will ruin it for everyone in the future because people will take advantage (!) and the unofficial policy will be changed, but I thought it was pretty awesome. In that same conversation, the dean boasted of their outreach efforts to attract financially needy students and get them to apply. I really do think that, although they are businesses, colleges try to help out brilliant kids who are less wealthy and see that as part of their goal and mission.
  3. I am a big proponent of early decision because it seems to work. From son’s high school as well as for the children of my colleagues, the kids who applied early decision to “reach” colleges got in, and while some had “hooks,” some of them were completely “unhooked.” Early action to top colleges was not as reliable a boost as ED; several of my son’s friends were deferred from their EA “reach” options. The regular decision round was more disappointing. While many kids heard good news, a surprisingly high number of kids near the top of their high school class ended up at their safety options. One might argue that this is proof of how unfair ED is. I will just say that I am recommending ED to anyone who asks!
  4. Getting into a college by an early plan makes the rest of senior year so enjoyable! You can relax and enjoy just being a kid.
  5. I agree with posters who pointed out that Early Decision only relieves anxiety and allows a nice spring if you are accepted, but can increase anxiety if you are not. Therefore, I recommend that anyone applying ED to a match or reach school simultaneously apply early action to a safety school.

(I saw that strategy work with my own kid. He got admitted to his state university EA one week before he was admitted to his ED college. He spent that week in a very healthy way— reading up on and daydreaming about going to the safety school. He was thrilled when admitted to his ED college, but if he had not been, he knew that he was already “in” at another college where he could be happy. He might have been disappointed, but he would not have been overwhelmed by anxiety about maybe not getting into ANY four-year college, and the future still would have looked bright and exciting!)

I also would note that, living in a middle/upper middle class area and being a public school employee in a similar area, I would not even know about the admissions experiences of less wealthy people if my son’s college had not done a great job of admitting and paying for students who are less financially fortunate than we are. Just hearing about the jobs and experiences of his friends and their parents is eye-opening, as they range from pretty poor to really rich. The diversity he is encountering in college is part of the education!

Is it possible that “need-blind” colleges actually deliberately use other information, like parents’ careers, to ensure that there are some full-pay kids in the ED round to cover the cost of others’ aid? Or does it just work out that way because a lot of high performers are students from more advantaged backgrounds? Who knows? I am inclined to be less cynical, just because I have heard a dean talk about their efforts to recruit kids from less wealthy backgrounds and I have seen the way a top college takes care of its financial aid students, covering everything from books to free career exploration trips to suits to the cost of skiing and snowboarding lessons. It is amazing how much the college helps out its students.

All I can say is that one should consider ED if these factors align:

  1. The online NPC amount looks good, and the family does not have factors that tend to skew it.
  2. The ED college is need-blind and meets-full-demonstrated-need. (True, this is not every college out there, but it may account for the ones where the ED advantage is most needed, because there are more very qualified students who apply than the college can admit.)
  3. The student is a flexible kid who does not tend to have regrets, who has researched colleges, and who is satisfied that (s)he will be happy at the ED college if admitted and not miserable if not admitted.
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@TheGreyKing Just do a quick search on CC for “got accepted ED can’t afford it” and you will get some pretty heartbreaking hits.

@mom2twogirls

While there may be some selfish people like this, I think the situation is more likely to be parents who have difficult financial situations that make them full pay (divorced parents, parents making good money now but had significant gaps in employment previously and now have high debt, etc.)

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Right. Life isn’t fair. I get that. My parents were divorced and remarried and I was responsible for my own entire tuition, room and board (my mom did give me spending money occasionally). It wasn’t a fair situation. I then chose to attend a private school that cost me double what an instate public would have. That was a choice and my private college wasn’t responsible for making it more fair.

None of that had to do with ED directly, but it’s analagous in that it’s all about weighing options and choices.

My daughter had a choice between a public school with no loans and a private with some student loans and the need to work through the school year and summers to help pay. There are some kids who will be going there completely on their parents’ dime, with parents paying (no exaggeration, already saw a discussion on a parent page) for weekly housekeeping.

There are students who live in states with unaffordable public schools. That’s not fair when some stages have very affordable publics. There are students in states with increasingly impossible to get accepted to publics and students in states with very easy to get accepted publics. That’s not fair. There are students whose parents have incredibly high incomes who won’t pay a cent, while others have parents who pray every night they could help their kids but don’t have the money or even collateral for a loan. That’s not fair.

Frankly, I don’t think eliminating ED would make admissions into highly selective schools more fair. Instead we will have more hooked kids racking up Ivy+ other elite trophies and posting about their oh so difficult decision, while kids who knew exactly which one place they wanted to go, and exactly what they would do, sit on the outside contemplate how much more fair it is.

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@mom2twogirls The colleges seem to want more fairness in the admissions to spread the ability to attend to more students. The kids in the states with expensive public schools really have a rough time of it as well. US News puts a lot of emphasis on fairness and equity in moving colleges up in the rankings. I find it ironic when from an admissions perspective, the deck is heavily stacked in favor of ED applicants - most of whom are able to afford the school at face value. I know life isn’t fair, but isn’t the point to try to find the places where the inequity exists and level the field out?

I know people say those full pay students pay for the rest. I don’t think this is the case. I believe it’s the donations and endowment earnings that pay. Alumni pay, not the current students.

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Do colleges release stats comparing full pay ED admitted students to students with FA?

In other words, is this perspective on whether it’s morenor less fair based on data or anecdote?

Really curious because anecdotally, of the 2 other admitted students my d19 has been texting, one is likely full pay and the other not (based on circumstantial info, none of them have flat out said either way).

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@mom2twogirls As we all know, they don’t release that info. All of this talk is conjecture.

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@mom2twogirls Most of the articles I’ve read about ED (or about who is attending the private schools in general) show that the majority of the students are full pay and from the highest income ranges. Some colleges have more students in the 1% income range than the lowest 60% combined.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html

Washington post research says that the rich benefit the most from ED:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/03/31/a-college-admissions-edge-for-the-wealthy-early-decision/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e6ce22eb9221

The University of Chicago newspaper had an article on this topic, that has wording from U of Chicago’s page that advises against applying ED if you need to comparison shop:

https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2018/12/4/early-decision-unfairly-favors-wealthy-applicants/

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@elodyCOH the first is about overall admissions and not about how many in ED are full pay vs getting FA.
The others are opinions pieces about ED and also don’t have that information.

Of course you can’t apply ED if you want to comparison shop. If you run the NPC, feel you can afford it and aren’t worried about trying to get a better deal, then you apply. If you are looking to get the best deal possible and will only pay the full amount if there is nothing better, then you shouldn’t apply. If you run the NPC and it looks unaffordable, you shouldn’t apply.

The tricky one: If you try to run the NPC and you realize yours is one of the situations that makes it unpredictable whether to apply, you have a choice. It doesn’t mean you can’t apply, but it means you need to know that even if accepted, it may not work out financially so you should continue to apply to other schools and not wait for the results. Or you can choose not to apply, especially if you have reason to suspect it won’t go in your favor (ie a non custodial parent is remarried with a high marital income/assets, you have contact but they have already given indication they won’t be helping). Yes, your chances may be lower for admittance, but if you can’t afford it anyway then it doesn’t help you to have been admitted anyway.

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I think the opinion pieces underestimate the impact hooked admits have on ED. What colleges tell us about ED isn’t the whole story. Nobody knows the admit %, or the stats of unhooked students during ED.

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It’s always unfair in just about every aspect in life to have money and informed parents who are backing you. It takes a whole lot of unusual savvy for a 16, 17 year old to navigate the college process. Even motivated parents have a lot of misunderstandings about the process. It takes a knowledgeable team, parents, kids and school counselors to get it together for Early Decision, learning the rules for the process, the benefits and drawbacks, and getting one ready to do the whole college thing early.

For those who can do it, it can proffer a lot of advantage, yes, and save money and stress senior year. All done with one application by year end if the financial aid works out. If it doesn’t, it’s a preview and early warning of things to come. If Williams College (random example), a school that generally gives A-1 financial aid packages, isn’t offering anything close to what you need, you need to reassess your school list and start looking at schools where full or close to full ride merit awards are possible, or local options.