You have no dilemma and there is no right way to do something that you know is wrong.
The message that you will be sending your daughter that ethics and integrity do not matter.
She was accepted to ED school. Once you and she decided that this is where she was going to attend, she was suppose to withdraw any outstanding applications and not make any new ones. This is what you, your daughter and her high GC agreed to do when she submitted the ED application.
There was not suppose to be a lets see how things are going to play out.
After accepting the ED spot, she asked if her admission could be deferred so that she could take a gap year. The school granted the gap year, which again means that she should not be applying to any other schools.
Personally, I would not have been a party to any of these shenanigans; I would have contacted all of the other schools to inform them to withdraw the application because your child had accepted a binding ED admissions else where. You would never have me in a position where my ethics came into question, which is also what you are doing to your GC and your high school.
At my school, we would not have even sent out a mid year report for any of the other schools until we had proof that she she was released from the ED school.
She can only attend one school. Hopefully, if the counselor worth his or her salt and has an ounce of integrity, s/he should be sending the final transcript (which can only be sent to one school as proof of graduation) to the ED school and contacting all of the other schools to let them know, that she has been accepted somewhere else during the ED round and accepted that offer of admission.
You need to make this right with your high school, take the ED seat and gracefully decline all of the other acceptances… If your daughter still needs a deferral, she is playing a dangerous game and could end up with not having a college to attend next year.
I had a somewhat similar situation with my son. He applied ED to his dream school, but due to California’s deadline for applications to UC schools, he had to apply in case he didn’t get the ED. He got in and was thrilled, and he withdrew his apps, but the system was in full swing, so he got acceptances from all but one of the other schools. That made him start thinking and, in my opinion, wishing he could be choosing among those options. I basically told him what others have said here about the importance of standing by your commitments. He got over it in a week or so. You’re right that they’re only 17 and make mistakes, but they also have the resilience of the young. Tell her to take pride in doing the right thing.
Permit me to present a different view. I have heard stories of people breaking ED agreements for reasons other than financial aid. Maybe you can Ask the Dean this question. She has a lot of experience with all of the ins and outs of college admission.
People probably do break ED agreements for compelling non-financial reasons, but that is something that should’ve happened right away. You and your kid weren’t allowed to wait and see. I’m sure the ED admission included a reminder of your obligation to withdraw your RD apps. You let this happen and should’ve foreseen the ethical dilemma you were creating. Don’t ask us to help salve your conscience about breaking the RD agreement.
Are you seriously asking for advice how to renege on an agreement without any negative consequences? Amazing.
Your situation pretty much captures the downfall of using ED as an admissions strategy to an elite school for its prestige or rank. While this may have been a “dream school” it wasn’t her clear number one choice. If it were, she wouldn’t have thought “oh yay, now let’s see if I can get into these other schools”. By far, most ED students are thrilled when they are admitted and gladly pull any outstanding applications. It means they are DONE with the college application process. Finished. They are through. They are IN.
It’s too bad you didn’t nip this in the bud when she was accepted ED and had her pull her RD apps. I don’t buy the argument that “it was only a few days or a couple of weeks until she heard from other schools” That’s a few days or two weeks (!) when she could have taken five seconds to send emails to the other schools.
Thanks @momyel for the suggestion. I wasn’t coming here to be attacked about my or my daughters ethics, I was merely asking a question. It wasn’t as sinister as some have made it out to be-my daughter applied in an ED2 cycle at the same time that she applied to many schools RD. She, her guidance counselor and I all signed off on the ED. It was a long shot application which she felt that she had little chance of getting in based upon her grades and SAT scores. Fortunately for her, schools saw her exceptional contributions outside of the classroom (it’s not as if her grades and SAT scores were terrible, they were just very average for the level of schools she was applying to as reach schools). All of her hard work paid off and she was given an ED at her top school. It took a couple of weeks for them to review her deferral and during that time she did not pull her RD applications. In fact, she received two RD decisions the same day as her ED. I think it was fair to make sure that her deferral request was granted before pulling her other RD applications. Since the deferral approval took a couple of weeks, more RD acceptances came in. There was only one outstanding RD application out there by the time she got approval on her deferral.
I am of the belief that you stand by your commitments. It’s a wonderful surprise that my daughter has been given these choices as many of her friends have been rejected or wait listed at the same schools she got into. Our intention is not the play the system or try to play both sides from the middle. I was merely asking how a deferral and ED play into the situation and what the potential impact could be if she had a change of heart.
She will get over the other school and refocus her excitement on her “dream school” which she will be able to attend after her gap year program.
There is a lesson to be learned here that I will share with parents who are going through the college application process for the first time-don’t underestimate the strength of your child’s application. Each student is very different and I am extremely pleased to see that colleges are looking at the depth and breath of a students contribution. I have been an avid CC reader for a couple of years and truly believed that colleges focused mainly on GPA and SAT scores, class rank and other matrix’. While I am sure this is very much the case, there are students who are being admitted into top tier universities who have done incredible things outside the classroom and are being recognized and rewarded with admission.
“Does anyone have experience with withdrawing from a ED without being blacklisted at a RD school? what the potential impact could be if she had a change of heart?”
She will lose her spots at both her deferred ED school and at the college where she attempts to enroll . They will find out because the ED college will contact the GC at her HS to find out what the ^&*^ happened. He will have an obligation to tell them, since he signed the ED agreement as well .
Further more, upcoming seniors at her HS may be shunned by the ED college for a long time to come.
College admissions offices take ED commitments seriously.
Its too bad she didn’t.
@jerrysmom Anyway you try to justify it, you cheated the system and cheated other students the opportunity to be admitted to those RD schools…wonder what she’s going to do when your not there to Clean up her messes for her anymore…SMH!!!
There’s a lesson here, but it’s not what you’re claiming it to be.
Has your D asked her friends who were waitlisted and rejected from the “wonderful surprises” your daughter received how THEY feel about how she gamed the system for her own benefit?
Thank you for that @GnocchiB. My mouth is literally hanging open that a parent would openly gloat that her kid beat out other friends for spots at sought after schools and that she wouldn’t see any possible connection between her daughter’s failure to abide by the ED rules and the friends’ results. Yes, yes, I realize that it’s not assured that any of them would have gotten in if she had withdrawn, but she did take a place she should not have and it might have gone to someone else. Unbelievable.
absolutely unbelievable . and unjustifiable, no matter what “excuses” you and your DD tried to cook up to cover her tracks.
you should feel the sting of shame instead of being proud of what you and she did. :-q
Her request to defer should not have played into this at all. She applied ED and whether she asked for a deferral (or even if her request was denied) was not an acceptable reason to not pull her RD apps. Once accepted ED, she’s done. Period.
The deferral and ED DON"T play into the situation. The deferral request is irrelevant. If she has a change of heart - she withdraws from the ED school but she does NOT just waltz into another school.
What don’t you get? The RD schools were off the table the moment she was accepted to the ED school. Let’s say she found out she was accepted to two RD schools on the same day - so what? Her immediate response should have been to inform them of her ED acceptance and turn down their acceptances. Like I said, I don’t buy the timing argument at all.
I have to say I’m shocked not at the content but the vitriol being thrown my way. Call me ignorant in the college application process. You have no idea anything about our situation other than the very specific information about a very specific question I had. I have read CC for a couple of years but have mainly stayed in the basic “colleges and universities” forum which I have found informative and generally positive. I put this question in the parent forum because I thought there were parents who may have had some experience or knew someone in this situation and could shed some light. All you have done is be nasty and rude,attacking and insulting. Shame on you as parents for not being kind and answering the question for an unaware parent. You have no idea what battles other people are fighting. Think before you insult. I would hope you were teach your children that.
@jerrysmom, consciously or not, your daughter did something that’s very frowned upon in the whole college admissions process. Something that colleges take very seriously. Something that could create unpleasantness for her GC and other future applicants from your daughter’s high school.
It’s great that your daughter has “options.” Sadly, they in all probability came at the expense of someone else’s – who didn’t have a previous commitment to an ED school.
Basically, your daughter cheated. She may not have known it, and you may not have know it, but that’s what happened. And that’s why the tone of some of the responses.
As CC parents we’ve tried to console plenty of upset, deserving kids who didn’t get into their dream school. I doubt they’d be comforted by the idea that someone took their spot who shouldn’t have been applying/pursuing admission in the first place.
Your situation does not matter. The EC agreement is clear, and your kid (apparently with your encouragement) violated that agreement. Now you are looking for a way to help her weasel out of it. I would hope that you would say, “Oh, crap, I didn’t realize that we were in violation. I certainly don’t want to encourage my kid to violate an agreement she and I both signed off on. I better fix this right away, and have her turn down her RD acceptances today.” But you would rather act surprised that the expectation is that it was okay to not have your kid keep her word.
You seem to think the deferral matters, possibly that if the ED school said no to the deferral, your daughter would have been free to blow off the ED school and try to get an RD school to let her defer.