<p>It could not be ED II, because he applied in October, while the application deadline for ED II is in December.</p>
<p>I agree that the OP is the kid and not the parent.</p>
<p>
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my S did not have to sign anything for his ED app, nor did the GC or I. The contract we all signed came only with his acceptance.
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Garland: What school has binding ED without a contract??? I'm just curious, because I've never heard of one... Only EA...</p>
<p>With ED there can be a date by which you must send the deposit. Perhaps this is the March 1st date.</p>
<p>Marite wrote:
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It is ethically wrong to wait until after an offer has been made then decide to wait until March to see what else is on offer.
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I agree -- but I think the whole structure of ED is also ethically wrong because the college makes an unfair demand of a 17 year old to secure a competitive advantage by being able to select only among students who are willing to forfeit their right to consider other colleges. The reason the demand is unfair is that all people change their minds some time, and teenagers by definition are less ready to make long-term commitments than adults. I mean you probably would be upset if your 17 year old announced that he was getting married -- you'd have a long list of reasons why he was not old enough ready to make that sort of commitment. But the same kid is expected in the fall of his senior year in high school to choose where he will spend 4 years of college - which choice in turn can affect the balance of his life. </p>
<p>I think as originally conceived, ED was geared to the type of kids who have had their heart set on a particular college for years. This does happen -- I knew when I was 14 where I wanted to go to college - and by age 16, I was there (no ED app needed, though -- the regular admissions process worked fine for me, and in those days colleges usually had a March 1 deadline for applications). </p>
<p>But it has become a way for colleges to pre-determine yield, so widely used that the failure to utilize ED puts the applicant at a competitive disadvantage. So the students are under pressure to use the process strategically -- if the student thinks he probably wants to go to a highly competitive college that will accept 40% or more of its entering class in the ED round, and if simple statistical analysis shows there's a 30% admit rate ED, but only a 15% admit rate RD ---- the student is faced with a dilemma --- and so the student essentially is forced to commit in October, without any way of knowing what his choices will be in May.</p>
<p>This is manifestly unfair. I do not think it is unethical for someone to want to get out of a contract that was unfair in the first place... especially when that person is below the age when he is legally allowed to sign contracts. I mean, at least in my state, most contracts with anyone under the age of 18 are considered voidable... precisely because state law views minors as being too immature to enter into contracts. </p>
<p>Several times in my life I have signed contracts and realized soon after that I had made a mistake and wanted out. Always I immediately notified the other party that I had changed my mind -- and maybe I have been very lucky, but in each case I was allowed to withdraw. I might have lost a deposit or two along the way, but in the end things worked out. I wasn't being unethical or cheating -- I just changed my mind once I had time to think about it, or to more carefully read the terms of the contract. </p>
<p>Colleges could achieve essentially the same result with nonbinding EA -- and they could offer the EA group special enticements (such as priority class registration or housing, or consideration for merit scholarships) to encourage them to send in early deposits. Colleges could also charge an extra application fee to be submitted with an early application, which would be applied to a deposit if the kid was accepted and enrolled; refunded if the kid was rejected; and forfeited if the kid was accepted but failed to enroll. I bet a lot of parents would think twice about that ED app if it required up front payment of an additional $500. </p>
<p>What is unconscionable in my mind isn't the fact that the student is encouraged to make an early commitment, but rather the fact that the college has the power to prevent the student from attending school elsewhere by notifying other colleges of the ED status.</p>
<p>Well, yeah, but the whole system is very warped...pushing kids to apply so early, psuhing kids to apply to schools that are such reaches, making one test soooo important, and so much more....sigh, I hope it gets better next year when my D applies!!! We can only dream....</p>
<p>I don't see anything unfair about the fundamental ED transaction. The student gets something of real value (1st choice school, not having to apply anywhere else, an unstressed senior year, extra time to mentally transistion to college). The college gets something of real value (highly energized students, guaranteed yield).</p>
<p>The transaction is clearly outline up front. Seems pretty fair.</p>
<p>Now, it may not be for everybody. That's OK. The schools offer a different kind of transaction, too.</p>
<p>calmom - Beautifully stated, imo, analysis of the flaws in ED. Unfortunately, interesteddad, the transaction is not always so clearly outlined up front. Just try to determine what definition is used to determine whether ED school has in fact offered an adequate aid package. Further, these 17 year olds think they have all the info they need to decide to go ED. Then, after they have signed the "contract," they find themselves gettting valuable input from other schools - contact from Deans, whatever - that they had no way of anticipating. The colleges know the whole picture "up front." The kids do not.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, you would be right if the the college were required to accept all ED applicants -- or at least give them a very quick response, such as within 2 weeks (which a lot of rolling admissions schools do).</p>
<p>But the ED process leaves the cards entirely in the hands of a college -- and what the student often "gets" is a deferral in December -- same stress, same need to apply to other colleges -- so basically, with ED the student forfeits the right to make choices, while the college gains a more powerful array of choices. </p>
<p>So what the student "gets" has the same value as a lottery ticket -- it is not a promise on the part of the college to do anything other than notify the student of the decision in December rather than April.</p>
<p>Jamimom:</p>
<p>If shopping for finanical aid is a key factor, then clearly the conventional application transaction is the preferred approach. I don't think the ED transaction is right for all kids. But, for those kids who understand the nature of the transaction, it is fair. I do assume some level of research on the nature of the transaction by the student and parents.</p>
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<p>I respect that other people have a different view. But, my opinion is that, if the odds of admission are no better than a lottery, then the student is applying ED to the wrong school. My feeling is that a student should be at least a midpack solid applicant for admission to the school to justify an ED application. Otherwise, why bother? </p>
<p>I'm not really a believer in wild-reach, wing 'n a prayer ED applications. Where's the well-researched appropriate fit in that? ED is a valid tool for getting accepted to the right school. It's not really intended to be a mechanism to "luck" into the wrong school.</p>
<p>It's okay for a 17-year old to change his/her mind between October and early December and asked to be put in the RD pile. The OP, however, seems to have decided to have it both ways: to go ED, get an acceptance, but then to see what else would be on offer. EA was created as a half-way measure between ED and RD.</p>
<p>"Where's the well-researched appropriate fit in that?"</p>
<p>Near as I can tell from reading this board, the top 25 schools are essentially a lotto for everyone. Research as nothing to do with it. No one is assured of being a fit for those schools, though the odds improve dramatically as you add different credentials and statistics.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Near as I can tell from reading this board, the top 25 schools are essentially a lotto for everyone. Research as nothing to do with it. </p> </blockquote>
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<p>I don't really think that's true. It's not impossible to figure out what a specific school is looking for and evaluate the odds reasonably well. Not perfectly, of course -- there are always going to be exceptions.</p>
<p>I think the "lotto" description does apply to Havard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton -- although, frankly, I think those schools are largely predicatable, too. Just predictably more difficult than most applicants think.</p>
<p>In my opinion, the "lotto" description is more of symptom of not really understanding how applications are judged.</p>
<p>"In my opinion, the 'lotto' description is more of symptom of not really understanding how applications are judged."</p>
<p>Given that most schools seem intent on keeping their decision process a mystery, I'm not sure that matters. Besides, knowing the odds doesn't mean that much when you're shooting craps, you can still go broke.</p>
<p>I think the biggest problem with ED is what it has become. While some students use ED for what it was fundamentally intentended to do, others use it merely as a mechanism to game the system and really try to obtain an unfair advantage by wanting to have their cake and eat it to (in the case of the OP, and those that apply ED and then look for ways of getting out because they essentially gave up their choice to compare packages). </p>
<p>Try as they might there is really no system of checks and balances and no cost for non-conformance for people who abuse they system.</p>
<p>The process in and of it self has become very flawed and probably needs a major overhaul beginning with each private university having either SCEA or ED (Public univeristies rolling admissions should still remain) so there isn't a scenario that I got into Joe and Willie ED, but I was also accepted EA to Mike and Ike, and got into the honors program with a freat scholarship at my favorite state u.</p>
<p>I do believe that maybe all schools go to the common application (everything else can be obtained as supplementals) where data is collected and sent to one major database for all ED applications. Every college should have access to this database, that tracks all ED admissions regardless of where they applied, and your application should automatically be flagged and pulled from the RD pile if it shows that you were admitted ED, (then let the student hash it out with the school for a formal process of getting out of ED).</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know how colleges use ED lists to mutually enforce the ED exclusivity obligation. I would imagine that within the Ivy League (which, as part of being a sports league, sets some mutually agreed rules on admissions) there is pretty good information-sharing. I've never been interested in ED, myself, as that is too confining of choices, but those who sign up for it had best assume that someone is checking whether applicants keep their word.</p>
<p>Anxiousmom: the college is Columbia. He just checked the ED rather than RD box at the top of the app. After his acceptance, we got a contract which we and the GC signed.</p>
<p>Seconding Interesteddad, ED worked for S exactly how it was designed to. He had a clear first choice school, and the benefit to him was a closer look from the school, somewhat better odds, and the knowledge of the adcom that it was, in fact, his first choice school, since it seems probable that they'd prefer students who wanted most to be there.</p>
<p>I think the schools have every right to secure full-paying customers (or football quarterbacks or English horn players) early, and it doesn't matter whether they are more qualified, less qualified, legacies or not. They have limited budgets, and this allows them to spend them more effectively the way they choose, and in keeping with what they see as their institutional mission.</p>
<p>I might disagree with the institutional mission (indeed, I often do) but not with this particular method of fulfilling it.</p>
<p>or people who know what their EFC is and are willing to live with it. (I've both known and read about on these boards plenty of people who needed FA and applied ED.)</p>
<p>Is anyone bothered by the lack of confidentiality inherent in the sharing of admissions data between schools? As a healthcare provider, I have to think about confidentiality continuously yet the fact that my son has applied to, say, 8 institutions can be shared among them? This doesn't seem right even if the reason is to maintain the strength of the ED system. What is the possibility that there is admissions bartering going on? Scary!</p>
<p>The issue was addressed when the Ivies and MIT had antitrust issues related to sharing of data for financial aid- comparing packages. I would think the schools are shying away from this...</p>