<p>D has found a school that she loves where her stats are at the high end. School is not super selective so I have no doubt she will get in. One of the draws of the school is that it offers merit aid. (We also ran numbers through the calculator and it will be in our price range even without merit but we would still like to get as much help as possible.) What would be the school's incentive to offer merit aid to a student who applies ED? Would it be better to have her apply RD even though she knows that is where she wants to go?</p>
<p>Applying ED will really show the school that she is interested. Of course that could backfire and they might offer less knowing that she is ready to commit. On the other hand, some schools are more generous at the beginning of the pile. I guess if I were you, I would want the bargaining power that may come with having multiple offers in hand. Some schools will respond to the fact that another school has offered more merit aid if you go about it the right way. But, you said this is definitely where she wants to go. Do they offer a non-binding early app submission date? If so, I think I would go for that to show that she is really interested, but not enough to “lock in no matter what.”</p>
<p>The debate about how much merit $ will be offered to an ED applicant has gone both ways on CC. If the merit aid is assured (there are some schools that do that) then it should be a non-issue. Are you really sure of your D getting in? I don’t know of too many non-selective schools using ED. If you are I would just go with RD to keep options open.</p>
<p>It depends upon how the school gives out the merit money. In many cases, the merit money is given to admissions to try to “seal the deal” for those students they accept, so that the school gets a better yield on those students they most want. You can see that there is little benefit to give merit money to an ED accepted student under that scenario. The deal is already sealed with the acceptance. What one often gets with ED is that with the promise to come to the school if accepted are better odds at being accepted and earlier notication so that if accepted, the college app stage of life is over. There is no place for merit awards here. </p>
<p>You can ask the admissions officer outright if ED candidates do get equal crack at the merit money, and also what % of ED accepted student got merit money in the prior year. </p>
<p>Personally, I would not apply ED to a school under the circumstance you describe. What possible reason is there? The only reason that I can see is that some schools guarantee to meet full need for accepted ED kids whereas they do not for those who are accepted RD. You can ask about that and if you are hoping and are eligible for fin aid, that can a plus. Your student does not need the extra bump up in admissions consideration, and might get merit offers from other schools so that she can shop around Why tie oneself down early in the process?</p>