<p>It does not seem fair that a school will say that they will match any other Ivy, MIT and Stanford's financial aid package, except ED accepted applicants can not apply and therefore do not get the same offer. Applying ED could cost you much more than if you had a chance to shop around. Yes, it increases chance of acceptance, but it also assuredly increases cost. </p>
<p>The school is not being unfair at all.</p>
<p>When you apply to a school ED, you are signing a contract that you will go there if you can afford to attend. Therefore, YOU are choosing not to give yourself the opportunity to compare financial aid packages and costs. YOUR decision.</p>
<p>What’s unfair. No one is forcing anyone to apply to any school ED.</p>
<p>I agree. Not unfair. Your choice.</p>
<p>If you want to compare, then don’t apply ED.</p>
<p>If you apply ED, then you would only have THAT school’s FA offer in hand in Dec/Jan… The others wouldn’t come in until Spring. How can you compare a Dec/Jan offer with nothing? </p>
<p>
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<p>You get certain benefits for Early Decision. For those benefits, you lose certain opportunities. There are trade offs.</p>
<p>The early decision is based on the following premise:</p>
<p>In exchange for an early decision, if admitted, you will attend. You will withdraw all other applications and you will not make any new applications. </p>
<p>You and your family must decide whether ED is worth the trade off of not being able to apply to other schools and not being abel to see and compare the financial aid packages of those other schools.</p>
<p>It doesn’t really increase your chance of acceptance over RD at many schools because-
You can illustrate your interest in the school with visits and essays.
Students that apply ED may be doing so because they do not need aid.
Many schools are need aware, especially schools which pledge to meet 100% of need.
( keep in mind, need is met through loans, grants and work study- the college also gets to decide what your need is)</p>
<p>Schools may offer a better aid package to a student they really want( fewer loans), but given two students with equal need and equal applications, they are going to offer the more attractive package to the student who has not yet made a committment.
By applying ED, the other student let them know they did not need to wait to compare aid packages.</p>
<p>If you really want to have an acceptance in hand early, apply to a school with rolling admission.</p>
<p>@emeraldkity4:
It varies by school. Some schools definitely do give a boost to ED applicants. Yes, you can demonstrate interest in other ways, but none of them demonstrate interest nearly as much as an ED application.</p>
<p>To put it another way, many people can say “I love you”, but say you’re in a society were a guy can only offer to marry one girl. Getting a marriage proposal from a guy would be more meaningful than any number of “I love you”'s in that case.</p>
<p>I’m so frustrated about this issue. D is a recruited athlete and requested to apply early by coach (she wants her roster set). D’s stats put her at the top of the heap with a 3.99/4.6 gpa and 35 act. There is no athletic money, but I’m pretty sure she would be offered a merit award if applying RD. Feels like a lose/lose situation. </p>
<p>I doubt your D will lose out on this. Her Coach will probably be working with the FA office to get her any merit that’s available. This sounds like the best of all worlds.</p>
<p>acemom - If the coach wants an athlete, he/she will get a bump in admissions AND FA. I realize it may not feel that way at the moment, but your D is in a good spot. H and I have both worked in admissions so we know. </p>
<p>Thank you, Erin’s Dad and Mahjfan. I will try to relax and have some faith that it will all work out in the end. Four more weeks!</p>
<p>ED applicants often get the “best” financial aid. The schools do NOT like withdrawals from ED offers due to inadequate aid, so they do try to get a 100% yield with ED students. Some schools, CMU, an example, that do not guarantee to meet full need will do so for the ED applicant, if accepted. So there is incentive on part of the schools to make sure they get their full ED class.</p>
<p>However, merit money? That does not always happen. A purpose of merit awards, which are often given out by the admissions office, is so that they can sweeten the deal to get the student they most want. No sugar needed for ED. The commitment is in the ED contract, signed, sealed and delivered by counselor, parent, student. So any funds tha admissions has to try to “buy” the class they want would not be put to good use towards ED students. Some schools do include their ED pool in their merit awards, and some awards are truly distributed to the top students in that entering class whether they are accepted ED or RD. But there are schools, and awards that are not so so distributed but are part of sealing the deal in terms of getting RD students to come.</p>
<p>
Like recruited athletes…</p>
<p>LOL, Erin’s Dad. And so it should be. It can make a big difference in a decision. One of my son’s friends was all Syracuse or Penn State. Got merit money that brought the price down to half for Tulane and Denver, and those became his choices. My kids had to find schools that either had lower than the going well known private college rates, go locally, go in state or get merit money. With the cost of college what it is these days, merit money can make a huge difference. That’s another reason I don’t support ED in general. You can start out in love with a school and then upon mulling it over during the application season, come to the conclusion that a whole other one is a much better deal. With ED, you are stuck with that choice and often that price. Why should Admissions use their pot of merit money on those accepted ED when they are pretty much stuck coming there? They need to focus on those still uncertain.</p>
<p>Things often change once you get into a school, too. There is a rush, a momentum that goes with ED. The “gotta get in, gotta get in early” and when it’s all over, the student is accepted to a school, often stuck with a full price tag and then student/parents get to see peers getting some half off deals that start looking really good. Really hurts when they are from the ED school that your kid got, and didn’t get a dime whereas RD kids with similar stats get some sizeable chunks of change.</p>
<p>I really do not understand why anyone is surprised by different treatment for ED applicants. The applicant is asking to be treated differently for admission purposes. The price of that is being treated differently for $$s as well. Seems like the whole point of ED is being missed which is “this is student’s first choice under (nearly) all circumstances”. </p>
<p>I think people view ED as a gimmick to boost admissions chances. There doesn’t seem to be any real emotion behind it, just a desire to get a leg up on the competition.</p>
<p>For me, it sounds like ED is like walking into a car dealership and telling the manager, “I’ll buy the first car from the left behind the door,” and handing them a blank check without ever seeing the car or hearing how much it costs. You’re leaving your price up to the individual policies and scruples of total strangers working for the college. It might be a good idea, don’t get me wrong, but it seems strange to simultaneously expect the college to give you a leg up on the competition for accepting their offer before they even make it AND give you wiggle room to go and find other potential offers at other schools. </p>
<p>If you don’t like the offer they gave you, you can say no but I don’t think it makes sense to expect them to give you a break for applying ED and then also give you all of the benefits of RD too.</p>
<p>It is different for these one-off situations like recruited athletes where the student is told by the coach to apply ED to secure a spot. Since their services are desired they are looking for a quid pro quo.</p>