I’m applying ED and EA for a few audition schools. I was wondering if I would be required to do an early audition for that school or would I audition with the regular decision applicants?
There are not too many schools that have an artistic ED round (often more for academics), but if they do, yes- you will have to do the audition 1st.
Emerson is one school with EA for the BFA MT/Acting, and they require you to do the first audition date on campus in November. That was my S’ “practice audition” (because we live in MA, he didn’t really want to go so close to home). It was a huge confidence boost when he got accepted before winter break – at least we knew he could go to school somewhere!
In the past BW had an EA for those who auditioned in November, and if I am remembering correctly, Ithaca had an ED. I know that NYU does - BUT the tricky part of ED at NYU is that you don’t get your financial aide package until April…
Ithaca has ED: http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/depts/theatre/prospective/programhighlights/mt/?item=7106 Deadline is November 1st.
Hartt has an EA and the audition is in November…or at least they did
@toowonderful --You get your financial aid package with your acceptance when you apply ED at NYU. If the financial aid package isn’t manageable, then you can back out of your ED agreement., But you need to accept your offer within 30 days or so of the offer. NYU needs to give FA info with acceptance so that you can make that decision.
@uskoolfish - That was not what we were told when D was going through process in 2014, I apologize if my information was incorrect. We did not utilize the ED option, so do not have direct experience with when it came
Younger D applied ED and was accepted to NYU as a studio art major. She received her financial aid package (aka plus loans) on December 1. Unless there was a glitch, everyone gets FA with their offer. The issue is that you need to accept it or withdraw your app in 30 days. So you can’t compare offers from other schools like you can in April. We were going to be full pay anyway, so we did forsake merit aid offers by applying early. NYU art and music department award merit aid in late March to non need based RD students. If you apply ED you miss out on this opportunity.
I believe all schools with an ED option give out the FA package in December as well as offers of admission.
I’m not an expert on this but I’m not so sure you can just back out of an ED offer if the aid “isn’t acceptable.” I think there could be some guidelines on what “unacceptable” means. (Anyone know the specifics?)
My son had a friend who tried to back out of an ED acceptance last year. The ED school did give him some scholarship money (and maybe aid in terms of loans) but in parallel he got a much more lucrative merit scholarship from another school that he applied EA to and wanted to follow the money. The ED school would not let him out of the commitment because they had met his financial needs and the school knew the family had means.
It certainly seems to violate my understanding of the “spirit” of ED (as opposed to EA)
@halflokum Most schools do not meet full need, so in most cases if a school doesn’t meet full need during ED round, you would be able to get out of the ED contract.
Your friend’s story sounds a bit off. If he had financial need and the ED school met it, did the other EA school give him even more money? Did the EA school give so much that it reduced the parent’s EFC?
Sounds like these people pissed of the ED school off by having them try to match an EA school’s aid. That is not ok. If his full need was met by the ED school, they fully met their obligation to the student. But maybe they still had loans in there or work study. If that were the case, they should have still been able to get out of ED by saying they couldn’t afford the student loan. But again, if they tried to have them meet another school’s package, they didn’t handle the situation correctly and in doing so violated the terms of the contract.
Or perhaps the student had no need and got merit aid from their EA school.
This actually happened to our D. She was full pay at NYU ED (as we expected) but ended up getting a $14K merit aid scholarship from Pratt (her EA school.) She wanted NYU, so we stuck with it. Not sure if we could have gotten out of our contract with NYU if we decided to pursue Pratt.
@uskoolfish I believe this student had no need (high profile parent) though obviously there is no way for me to know that for sure. The point was, that the other school to which he applied EA gave him a boat load of unexpected money which would have made his attending extremely inexpensive. The ED school still had significant costs associated with it. In short, the kid foolishly applied ED which meant he would not have the opportunity to compare offers. My point is that not “liking” the aid/scholarship offer doesn’t give you an out. So if you apply to a school in the hopes of getting a big non-need merit award, and it doesn’t come, you are still be stuck with the decision. In the example I gave, the family had the ability to pay for the ED school, they just didn’t want to once they saw the deal from the other school.
@halflokum If you have need and it’s not met, you can get out. If you don’t have need, it’s a different situation. We went into ED knowing that we would be full pay at NYU. We also knew that there were schools that might have cost less with merit, etc. When she got accepted to Pratt EA and then got the scholarship, we didn’t pursue anything with it. We knew we were bound to the ED contract and NYU was still D’s first choice. If she hadn’t gotten in, she would have accepted Pratt’s offer.
Also remember that at all the competitive schools, applying ED practically kills your chance for money. Unless you are truly needy, or a minority, you have just erased your chance to get scholarship money since they have you locked in and therefore have no incentive to give you a dime. Watch out.