ED and Financial Aid?

Paying for College
1

<p>Hey everyone!</p>

<p>I've been looking around the forum, and I keep reading comments where people don't apply ED because of financial reasons or something similar. Why is that? Do you have to be wealthy to apply ED or something?</p>

<p>Tsukirin</p>

2

<p>It is because you lose the opportunity to compare offers. The FA offer at the ED school may be the best one you would have got. Or it may be the worst. Or anywhere in between. But you have no way of knowing and you have to withdraw other applications.</p>

<p>There was a post a while back from someone who canceled their ED school based on insufficient FA. Once he received other offers it turned out that the ED school was the best offer he received. But it was too late and he had no way of knowing that at the time.</p>

3

<p>There are a couple of threads running now on the parents forum about families who applied ED and now have packages that they cannot afford</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1057063-daughter-got-accepted-not-sure-i-can-afford.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1057063-daughter-got-accepted-not-sure-i-can-afford.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1056595-good-news-bad-news.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1056595-good-news-bad-news.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>When a handful of presgitious colleges got rid of ED a few years ago, it was precisely because they felt it favored wealthier kids who didn’t need to shop for FA.</p>

<p>Some–notably U.Va., I think–are making noises about instituting Early Action in the near future.</p>

5

<p>Also since many schools offer “preferential packaging” they will offer better packages to students they are trying to woo versus students they know will come.</p>

6

<p>D:</p>

<p>So it’s pretty much a gamble?! Gee louis, that sucks!</p>

<p>Then is it better to apply EA or ED? I mean logically.</p>

7

<p>EA…for EA acceptances you still do not have to make a commitment until May. You get the advantage of an early acceptance but you also can apply to other schools and in the end compare your bottom line costs.</p>

<p>If you apply ED…you have to make a decision about THAT ED acceptance without the advantage of seeing other offers. What you do NOT know…is that ED offer the best you are going to get…or not.</p>