@3puppies this may be true if you are applying to schools like Duke. However, my daughter applied ED binding to her school and was given her merit scholarship in her acceptance letter. There was no mystery as she was a match for the merit aid that was clearly outlined in the brochure and on the the school website. It was transparent and easy. My younger son was accepted EA to an OOS flagship and his acceptance letter also indicated what his minimum level of merit aid would be. Though not binding in his case, the University was completely transparent in the grid they provided in the brochure and on their website as well. So, while what you say may be true at those schools at the top, it doesn’t work that way at a lot of other schools. You just have to know how the schools operate going into the application process.
@menloparkmom said it best–the harm that can occur if you withdraw ED after you have been accepted is that it will destroy your high school’s relation with that college. Most certainly, future applicants who apply ED from your high school to that college will not get accepted.
Our college counselor told us these three rules for ED. 1- “If I were to get into every school on my list, some with great scholarships, I would STILL pick the ED school. 2- I would be financially able to attend if my EFC is met. 3- my parents are on board for my applying ED. D1 ED to one school, and EA to four others. She was deferred at her ED, so she considered all financial and acceptance offers. Ultimately, she was offered admission at her ED school and she attended. D2 applied to 1 school ED (Colorado College) and 5 schools with EA or early deadlines (UCSD, Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, Westmont, University of Puget Sound, and Lewis and Clark). She completed two other applications (Tufts and ???) and submitted them for regular decision when her ED school notified her that she was accepted. I am guessing our experience was typical: By the time that acceptance was in hand, she had received acceptances from 4 of the other 5 EA school, and all but one (LMU) included a merit aide award. We rescinded all offers within 30 days as required, so we will never know whether she was accepted at Tufts or how much merit aide she would have received at LMU. Weirdly, UCSD admitted her this month even though she had rescinded. The reason she chose ED, and we supported her, was that the admissions statistics for CC were vastly different for EA and ED. Given her passion for this college and the relative randomness of acceptance on schools at this level, she wanted to maximize her odds. She is thrilled with her decision, as was D1. It’s my understanding that applying to A college That has binding ED (different colleges have different rules, but most are binding) requires that you sign a statement that you commit to attend if your EFC is met. I don’t think you can “back out” for financial reasons without retribution if they meet your EFC, and I know you can’t wait past their deadline to rescind without endangering acceptance.
If you are a family who does not qualify for need based aid, the ED agreements that I have seen would not let your student out of an ED admission simply because no merit aid was offered. If your student would not accept an offer without merit aid, do not apply ED.
Contrary to some of the other replies here, applying ED does not mean no merit aid will be offered. Grinnell, for example, says it will offer identical merit aid whether an applicant applies EDI, EDII or RD. My son recently received merit aid at Grinnell as an ED applicant and I’ve read several posts by other ED applicants who received merit aid there as well. But, we understood that it was a risk and we would have strongly discouraged our son from submitting an ED application if merit aid had been necessary to make it work financially.
@Andrew2199 – to clarify. Did you actually accept the ED spot before the merit award came in? Did you withdraw all the other EA/RD apps before the merit came in?
I don’t think this situation really arises much or at all. Mostly because it doesn’t make sense for merit-needers to apply ED. There’s no point – since getting merit is tougher than beating the RD odds. So who cares about getting the better ED odds?
But also because the ED/merit schools have this wrinkle figured out.
@northwesty – in my son’s case, the merit offer came at the same time as the ED admission.
Another important consideration in our case was that Grinnell was the only school on my son’s list that actually offered the potential of merit aid. It just happened to be his favorite after considerable research. The other schools on his list were need based aid only schools. Had he been interested in other schools with potential merit aid opportunities, it would have made sense to wait for the RD round to compare any merit offers.
That confirms what I thought. This just isn’t much of a real world problem.
The few schools who combine big ED and big merit have this figured out. Like Grinnell.
And I don’t think this comes up at Vandy (which I’m familiar with). Vandy’s ED admit rate is 24%. RD admit rate is 9%. Merit award rate is 1%.
So if you really have to have merit money to attend Vandy, why would you apply ED? Perhaps a few people do it by accident, but there’s no logical reason to do it.
@northwesty – Agreed. If merit aid is a must have, a student should not be applying ED.
The RULE is that you can withdraw from ED if need-based aid falls short – because obviously if the student can’t afford to attend, there is no way anyone can force them or their parents to pay money they don’t have.
Merit -based aid is a different thing entirely. One thing you give up with ED is the opportunity to comparison shop or go bargain hunting. So if you didn’t apply for need-based aid, you can’t withdraw because you had hoped for merit money.
The PRACTICE might be a little different, because most students who apply ED do want to attend, and it’s probably not worth it for most colleges to try to hang onto a student who doesn’t want to come after all.
But there are a variety of potentially adverse consequences from breaking an ED commitment, including the fact that what was once the top choice college is no longer an option.
Bottom line: if merit aid is important to you, then don’t apply ED. Apply to a lot of colleges RD, because post-admission in the RD round, merit aid can often be negotiated, and some colleges will match merit awards from peer colleges.
ED is for people who are prepared to pay the full cost of attendance or at least the full amount of their FAFSA EFC. (Which the college may or may not meet – but a significant gap between FAFSA EFC and financial aid award would be the typical situation in which the withdrawal from ED would be seen as legitimate.)
Denison is another school which includes merit award with the ED admission decision.
If the merit scholarship is not very critical for the affordability and you absolutely want to attend that school, then you should apply ED. If not for either point, don’t. The withdrawal from ED agreement for insufficient aid is a safety exit for you rather than an open door. There may be other consequences depending on your school policy. Also, you do not have the opportunity to compare financial aid packages with other schools. The chance of getting merit scholarship at any competitive school is next to impossible. If the school is not competitive, you are not likely to apply ED anyway.
“The chance of getting merit scholarship at any competitive school is next to impossible. If the school is not competitive, you are not likely to apply ED anyway.”
Exactly.
At Vanderbilt, you have a 1% chance of getting a merit award and a 9% chance of getting in RD.
So how is the smart play to apply ED so you can avail yourself of the more favorable 24% ED admit rate?
Bad hypothetical that really doesn’t happen.
@calmom while I understand your post and it makes good sense to me–I have a question. I have never looked at an ED agreement until I read the one from UChicago that was posted in this thread. That ED agreement refers to “financial aid” and does not distinguish between merit aid and need based aid. Since my understanding is that technically merit aid falls under the umbrella of financial aid, then I am unsure of where you see the rule that only need-based aid is a justification for backing out of an ED agreement. Wouldn’t you think that if that were the intent of the ED agreement, it would clearly state that not receiving merit aid is not a proper basis upon which to terminate an ED agreement? If this were an issue, one would think that the ED agreement would address this. Or maybe other ED agreements make this distinction?
Though it certainly may be fair to assert that backing out of an ED agreement due to not getting sufficient merit aid violates the spirit of the agreement, the actual terms of the agreement make no distinction between the two forms of aid (merit and need-based). I wonder why. Anyone have any idea? If there is a distinction as far as college policy goes, then why is that not addressed specifically? This issue has had to come up before, yet I wonder if any college has addressed it in its ED agreement. Or am I wrong in saying that merit aid comes under the umbrella of financial aid?
@PurplePlum Perhaps there are variations in specific school’s forms, but the one we signed referred to a family applying for financial aid and then not being able to attend because of the award. As a full pay family, we knew there was no financial aid coming and did not apply, but also knew our kid would get some merit, just not sure how much. So, by the language of the agreement, we could not back out for money because we had not applied for financial aid.
If a family had run the NPC, saw they would get no financial aid, applied ED and got no financial aid, and there had been no changes in the family’s financial situation in the meantime – it would seem disingenuous to claim that the lack of any financial aid was an appropriate reason to turn down the offer.
University of Chicago, distinguishes the difference between merit aid and finacial aid.
University of Chicago states the following regarding Merit scholarships
Merit money is not guaranteed .
University of Chicago Financial aid
[quote]
We meet 100% of your family’s demonstrated financial need.
https://financialaid.uchicago.edu/files/documents/no-barriers-overview.pdf[//quote]
If you did not apply for financial aid because you knew that you had no financial need, then you can’t withdraw based on the fact that you did not get merit aid.
@sybbie719 No, UChicago does not distinguish between merit aid and need based aid in its ED agreement. No where in the ED agreement does it address this. While there is wording on its web site discussing the difference between need based aid and merit, the actual ED agreement, which is the binding contract between the parties, does not specifically address this distinction. So, one would have to interpret what the college means by “financial aid” or “applying for financial aid” from other parts of the college web-site, rather than from the actual ED agreement itself.
Why not make this clear in an ED agreement? It only takes one added sentence to do so. Again, while I understand the difference between merit aid and financial aid and do not disagree with the premise that one ought not apply ED if one seeks merit aid to make the ED choice affordable, I do not understand why this is not specifically addressed in the actual contract.
Also, technically, if a student applies for an ED college’s merit scholarship (in those instances where a separate merit application essay is required, for instance), is he/she not “applying” for financial aid? If financial aid includes both merit and need based, then to me, it is a no-brainer to address this in an ED agreement for clarity’s sake.
I wonder if the school’s definition of demonstrated need is based on FAFSA or on their own arcane calculations.
I don’t see where it says this in the linked brochure.
I think you can still withdraw based on not getting merit aid if the cost of attendance does not make it possible for you to attend. If that’s the case though, it would be prudent to apply for FinAid.
There is no circumstance where you will be forced to pay money that you don’t think you can afford.
One more time.
The schools have this figured out. It is not an actual problem.
Schools that run on merit aid (like Dennison and Grinnell) make sure to bundle their merit awards into their ED timeline. More than 50% of kids at those schools get merit aid. By being transparent about their merit awards, they make it a lot easier for families to decide to apply ED. If the expected financial package doesn’t come through, then families can back out of the ED commitment. At these schools, the “package” will include merit and/or need based aid. To aid the process, many big merit money schools bake the merit awards into their NPCs. End of the day, aid is just aid.
UChi does virtually no merit aid. So there, the “package” is going to need-based aid. Not because the ED rules say it has to be that way. But because UChi really doesn’t do merit aid. If you happen to wind up as one of the four kids each year at UChi that gets a Stamps schollie, UChi can deal with it.
At the top 20 schools, the combination of big merit/big ED is pretty rare. At the schools that do some meaningful merit (Vandy, WUSTL, Rice, Emory) they have it figured out.
The policies of schools on merit and/or need-based differ. But they will synch up ED with whatever their aid policies happen to be. And also with their other admissions policies, like ED2, EA, etc.
But it is generally true that merit aid tends to go along with EA/RD most often. But not always (e.g. Denison). And ED/need aid also mostly goes together (at least at the highest end schools).
“Applications to Public colleges and U’s are exempt from ED rules.”
“ED prevents students from applying to other private colleges that offer ED.”
Just to clarify: ED is not exclusive to private institutions. One public university that my daughter will be applying to next year (possibly ED) offers ED admission - so how would it be exempt from ED rules?
Also, I would like to agree that there is no restriction/policy that disallows students from applying EA or RD to other colleges (that offer ED) while also applying ED to one college.
Here is the info regarding ED from a top public university:
“Note: While Early Decision applicants are eligible for financial aid and scholarships, students whose decisions to attend XX depend on financial awards are encouraged NOT to apply through Early Decision.
The university stipulates that applicants who apply to XX under the Early Decision plan agree, if accepted, to submit the $400 non-refundable matriculation fee to the university by January 15. This does not mean that Early Decision applicants cannot apply to other institutions, but rather that XX is the only institution to which they have applied under Early Decision, and that if offered admission, they will withdraw their applications elsewhere and attend XX. If a student does not accept the offer of admission by January 15, the offer will be withdrawn.”