Fall 2013 ago D1 applied EA to 6 schools and RD state flag. She received her merit awards either with her acceptance or very shortly after…all by year end.
Her limited FA awards came in the spring (received one tentative off the CSS earlier) obviously since FAFSA only opened in January under the old system.
Fall 2016 D2 applying 1ED and 4EAand RD state flag. All applications and fafsa and css will be in by Nov 1.
With the new prior-prior and the schools now having all financial info (if applicant wants) by Nov 1 will the EA acceptances have any potential financial aid along with the merit ???
If so, doesn’t this give a good basis for comparison to a potential ED acceptance/package ?
@kelsmom…I know this is new territory but do you know if there is any protocol in this area yet ? thanks
I hope so S3. It sure seems like the colleges have everything they are going to get by Nov 1. No need to delay other than to force parents to pay more buy making them make a hasty decision. Do you take the low ball offer or wait for a better one? that is the situation they put parents in. The ED schools know that only families with the means to pay will do ED. You also indicate you are hot and heavy for the school and will pay more. They take advantage of that fact with low ball acceptance packages.
When you apply ED, you are making a commitment – assuming the aid package makes it possible to attend, you can’t just say no in favor of a better offer from somewhere else, at least not without being in breach of your contract.
@colfac. Maybe not under the new prior-prior guidelines. Which is the whole point of my question. Previously you had no option, you didn’t know what the other schools were offering until after the ED decision date. Now you may be getting an EA acceptance with merit AND financial by year end. Why can’t an applicant compare the ED with the EA offer ?
@s3, you can compare the offers all you want, but you made a contract with the ED school that if admitted, and it was financially possible, you would attend. The ability of EA schools to get their aid packages out earlier doesn’t change that.
The financial aid awarding dates for EA are all over the map and will likely continue to be so. My kidmappledmES to two schools and rolling to one. She got only one financial aid package by December. One other school was a Profile school so really, they had their data as we submitted the Profile in October.
My kid got one package in late December, the second end of January, and the third at the end of February.
Even though the schools should now have accurate financial info on the FAFSA and Profile for EA applicants…why would the schools make their awarding dates earlier than before? Many EA financial aid awards are sent out at the same time as regular decision. Or they are sent out after January. I don’t see that changing. It still will take the schools time to process these awards…same as in the past.
Here is my speculation. EA schools used to give you an estimated financial aid award…until your info was updated to reflect the tax year. With prior prior now being used, the schools have the accurate data. But remember EA is NOT a binding acceptance if I were a getting woman, I would bet that you will be seeing EA financial aid awards being sent later than ED ones will be sent. In other words, I am thinking the dates for those EA financial aid awards will be well after the first of the year.
I just attended a meeting of financial aid administrators yesterday, and no one is planning to package awards any earlier this year. It just isn’t possible for any of us to do so. However, that does not mean NO school will provide awards earlier. Every school is different, so you’ll need to check out each school to find out (website; call to financial aid office).