So my daughter was anxiously awaiting to hear if her best friend would get accepted EA to U Michigan. She did not. But my daughter knows of other kids who had already been accepted ED to other places, but kept their Michigan applications open so they could see if they got in. Now my daughter is not the kind of kid who will rat these kids out, but what do we all think about this? My daughter, as soon as she got her ED acceptance, withdrew all her other applications so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else’s chances- that included Michigan, which she would have loved to know about, and UVM, who we are sure would have offered her a nice merit $. But since EA is nonbinding, is it really required to withdraw those applications? and if so, how quickly?
The ED schools expect admits to matriculate shortly after admission and FA are delivered (unless money does not work out) and withdraw other pending applications upon matriculation. There is probably little or no enforcement on the last part, though.
Our GC told my S he had two days to withdraw the other apps. Probably the GC wanted to make sure other kids from the high school weren’t competing with a student who’s not going to go anyway. I am not sure if there is a hard and fast rule about this but GC was very firm about it. The ED contract has language you can go back and read.
We were told to withdraw once FA offer was given and there were no issues with paying. D20 got acceptance and FA award together on Friday night. She accepted offer of acceptance and paid the deposit on Saturday. She started calling schools on Monday when she got home from school. It took 2 days because she gets home about 15 minutes before most admissions offices were closing. One EA app was withdrawn the afternoon before decisions were available in the portal. Sure, it might have been nice to know other results but she honored the ED agreement.
We live in an affluent town- it was not financial concerns that kept these kids from withdrawing their other apps.
It is my understanding that while you are expected to withdraw your other applications, there is a little leeway involved while one waits for the financial aid details to arrive (which don’t always come at the same time as the ED acceptance). Also, some of these early notice programs exclude state schools for say EA/REA.
The high school GCs are usually the ones to enforce it, but it may take them time to get around to reminding the kids.
Yes, it is unethical to hold a spot you can’t accept, but the loopholes, at least in the immediate short term, are wide and many.
Usually a student has several weeks to send in their deposit if accepted ED (assuming no ongoing issues with financial aid package).
While some people (and counselors can set their own rules) will say one has to immediately withdraw all other apps, or withdraw apps within x days, etc., bottom line is all other apps have to be withdrawn when the ED deposit is made.
Agree with ucbalumnus there is little enforcement on this (I mean, students do back out of ED for non-financial reasons). But, there are no ED police coming if an applicant doesn’t pull their other apps ‘immediately’.
A lot of times, it’s the high school’s rules, enforced by the GCs that come into play. At many high schools, it doesn’t happen. Some ED letters will have time limits as to how long the offer is open, when deposit has to be made, and when to withdraw other applications, turndown any early acceptances. However, these letters are often vague in time limits.
I’ve heard of kids withdrawing their applications after ED acceptance but still getting acceptances and FA offers from the schools despite the withdrawal. There are a lot of missed emails during Nov and Dec, and it is likely those ED acceptances just came in.
Yes, there are missed emails. My kids’ GCs notified the schools as well but that doesn’t always happen.
A lot of ED is dependent upon “gentleman’s agreement” as an old expression.
Sometimes things do go awry too. My one kid applied early , time line wise, to one school with restricted EA because he was sent an invite to apply for free. Though he indicated on the app that he was applying RD, it was processed as a SCEA, and he got accepted early. GC and son both let Admissions there know, but they let the acceptance stand, and then when notification of ED acceptance to first choice came through , though again the school was notified by both son and GC , it did not register with them.
My son also w/d his UofM app last year immediately upon getting his ED acceptance elsewhere. He knew he had several friends vying for whom UofM was their number one and said he would have felt awful had he gotten an acceptance he could not accept, and they did not. He was in the minority at his school though. Most kids waited until they got the UofM news because they wanted to know if they got in. I agree, its not ideal and and pretty selfish if there is no a financial aid package that ED is contingent on. Of course, we both would have loved to know if he got in, but not at the expense of a classmate.
^ my D was one of those who only found out she hadn’t actually successfully withdrawn an app when she got an offer a few months later. She immediately declined it, and we heard nothing further.
Re the comment in the first post, is it realistic during the EA cycle that a few people not withdrawing instantly will “take others spots”, though? I wouldn’t have expected that level of insane competition from non-restrictive EA, plus, they must know that they will overlap with some ED schools and that some of their offers will go to ED applicants elsewhere. GW ED for example came out yesterday - even if someone withdrew their UMich EA application instantly it would have been too late for Michigan to reallocate that slot.
Those at the margins at the other colleges are the ones most likely to be affected by ED admits keeping other applications open (assuming that ED admits doing that will be admitted to those other colleges, which is not necessarily the case for all of them). In other colleges’ EA pools, those at the margins may be deferred rather than admitted, although timing issues may mean that ED admits withdrawing may not be in time to affect some other colleges’ EA processes. In other colleges’ RD pools, those at the margins may be waitlisted rather than admitted.
I agree. If a student turns down a college it doesn’t mean that the college is going to accept someone else. They expect some kids to turn down their offers and those numbers are built into their process.
Even if they did accept one more kid, the chances that it would be from the same high school are remote. If 8 kids from one school apply and 5 are accepted it doesn’t mean that 5 slots have been allocated to that school. It means they wanted those 5. If they wanted the other 3 they would have accepted them.
quote from above:
"Even if they did accept one more kid, the chances that it would be from the same high school are remote. "
right. remote. but not zero. my kid would not take the chance that her curiosity could have the slightest chance of hurting her friends’ chances, and i applaud her for that. I know that schools have complicated yield formulas and expect a certain number of applicants to decline. so what? it is naive to think that more applicants in the pool does not affect kids’ chances. of course it does. ED expects you to withdraw other applications for a reason. it’s the right thing to do and the fact that some people don’t agree just shows how out of control this whole process has gotten.
For each admit, the college presumably estimates a yield chance. So an admit with a 20% chance of yielding adds 0.2 student to the class. However, if the admit has already matriculated to an ED school, the true number of students added is 0. If that applicant had withdrawn, then the college would have admitted additional applicant(s) at the margin to add (for example) 0.2 more students.
Of course, it is not necessarily the case that the additional marginal admits will be in the same high school.
The expected yield is likely way different between the student that withdraws due to an ED acceptance vs the marginal deferral/WL student.
Yes, the expected yield, determined individually, will differ for different applicants/admits. It may require several strong applicants to withdraw to open space for another marginal applicant to be admitted.
Of course, if an applicant who would not be admitted anyway withdraws, that does not open any more space for more marginal applicants.