<p>Taking this advice at face value is ALSO a mistake. For people with GREAT need, applying ED can offer substantial benefits at schools that match demonstrated needs. Families with very low EFC should NOT hesitate to apply ED, if the school is a clear first choice. </p>
<p>Further, applying ED does NOT eliminate the right to compare package AFTER turning down the a non-workable ED financial aid package. The financial aid package would have been the same in April than it was in January, and all the remaining choices are still open in the RD round.</p>
<p>Now a two part question: what colleges have this auto-erasing process which would affect the student’s RD applications to said college? And what schools have an auto process which makes getting out of ED especially difficult? The CC community should know what colleges do this so that people can be warned.</p>
<p>It seems like the colleges that do this want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to say that ED is meant for all, regardless of income or need of FA, that it’s not something that is only for the well-to-do. Look, they say, see what it says on the ED agreement: you can wait to see the FA award before commiting. Then they turn around once they’ve mailed an acceptance and tell you you’re locked in. </p>
<p>If this is truly the way that some colleges are operating, that’s a violation of NACAC policies. If the high school wants to warn off students from applying ED at those schools, that’s fine. If the high school wants to have a reputation of always delivering ED applicants into the hands of the ED school, that’s the high school’s choice (though if they’re not standing behind the student with the ill parent that’s pretty repulsive in my book).</p>
<p>I think the risks of applying ED if you have financial need outweigh the advantages unless you are bound and determined to make it work. I’ve seen it work out, indeed, but when it did not the headaches were not worth it. I tend to evaluate these things on the problems that ensue if things do not work out. Things are always hunky dory and wonderful when they do.</p>
<p>Not really. This is exactly the issue I have been debating with Vossron for the longest time. It USED to be that a student was BOUND to accept the offer and NEEDED a release from the school if the OFER was not sufficient. With the (unfortunate) language added to the Common Application, it appears that a student has two options: accept or decline. There is no third alternative, namely “negotiating” a better package and drag this out until April. </p>
<p>However, the option to “work it out” is not an opportunity to negotiate and drag on the process, except for a very short amount of time as the acceptance of an ED offer still carries the need to cancel all other applications.</p>
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<p>What specific risks are there for applicants using the Common Application? Do you mean they might lose an “ooprtunity” to compare packages in April?</p>
<p>“If you do not get the package you like, you need to try to work it out with the school.”</p>
<p>This, IMHO, is bordering on abuse of the ED process, if the intention is to game the system, and where I agree with xiggi (but I find the new Common App language fortunate in that it encourages the not-so-well-to-do to participate in ED, because there is no danger of being trapped).</p>
<p>VR, I called the language unfortunate because it created another level of ambiguity. </p>
<p>The real solution to this problem was for the Common Application to force all its members that offer ED to post a CLEAR supplement to describe the options at their school. Further NACAC should pressure ALL schools that offer ED to clearly spell out the various scenarios and post the recent statistics of applicants who turned down an ED admission offer. From the NACAC statistics, we know that this number is below 10% and at around 3% at the most selective schools. </p>
<p>With ED, it’s a take it or leave it situation. A lot of pressure on the parent to take it. Most parents are amateurs at all of this and may have no idea what is an affordable package. The family I know who reneged got a Holy Cross Acceptance. The cost was high but the school does meet full need, a discussion with the school and others pretty much gave the parent the idea that this is indeed what has to be paid for this caliber school and is a good financial aid package. Which it was. The letters withdrawing the other apps were sent out.</p>
<p>Except two schools either did not get those letters, didn’t care, or maybe they did not sent out all of those letters. Can’t say for sure. But kid receives two offers that are much better deals than HC plus gets into the state university honors program. By now the reality of coming up with $30 a year for 4 years has sunk in fully. Also other kids are getting merit and financial aid offers that makes the $24 K aid package look anemic. So they want to back out. Trouble. Yes, a lot of trouble. These folks never should have applied ED. The word “afford” is such a relative one and people do get unrealistic when it comes to what their kids want. I know too many parents who have decided to take a flyer on colleges that they really could not afford because they just were not prepared for the way this works. When you have an array of choices and the comraderie of other s in the same situation as you, there is more perspective to be gained. </p>
<p>Also, the ivies and certain groups of schools certainly subscribe to the common ED list. I believe the old "A is for Admissions’ book made that clear. There are schools that are not part of the common group of schools that also participate, because it is is an important component of admissions. </p>
<p>Is the way this is worded in the Common App appropriate? I don’t know. But do you really want to get into this fight during the time of college admissions. I can guarantee you that admissions officers at many selective school take the ED commitment seriously and it can affect your chances if you get into a problem with this concept. It is rare enough that it happens that it isn’t going to take a hunk out of the admissions pool, and ED is a very valuable tool for admissions management for many small selective schools… It behooves them to keep the agreements sacrosanct. </p>
<p>It is also pretty clearly stated in most college websites and high school sessions that this is a serious commitment. To go into this with an idea of reneging is really not a fight to take on during this already stressful time.</p>
<p>There are times when it does make sense. If you truly know what you are doing, the risks, the willingness to deal with them, fine. Most parents and kids are not there. I know families who are willing to pay anything for their kid to get into HPY whether they can afford it or not. For them the chances that ED does not have a financial aid package that is expected is not going to be a big deal. But for those where cost is an issue, it is not an a good idea. </p>
<p>Most of us are amateurs in this area and it is not something one really wants to have. Selective college admissions is a stressful enough endeavor as it is.</p>
<p>“With ED, it’s a take it or leave it situation.”</p>
<p>This is the intention, accept the ED FA offer, or decline it, no questions asked.</p>
<p>“A lot of pressure on the parent to take it.”</p>
<p>Perhaps from the student!</p>
<p>“The family I know who reneged got a Holy Cross Acceptance.”</p>
<p>The situation described is outside the norm, and is clearly abuse of the system, accepting the ED FA offer, and then reneging and suffering the consequences. No surprise there.</p>
<p>The situation with Holy Cross and ED is different than what I was thinking about when it comes to “backing out”. I was thinking that the family received an acceptance and FA award in December, decided then and there that it wasn’t workable, and asked to be released from their ED commitment. If at that point HC said nothing doing, HC would be in the wrong. </p>
<p>But it was the family that changed their mind months later after other acceptances came in, which is violating the ED agreement. I share your frustration that in this case they really didn’t know what they were doing when applying ED. </p>
<p>I like xiggi’s suggestions of how the CA could handle this. I’d like to see a mandatory checklist that must be signed by the student and parents, point-by-point, specifying that accepting an ED offer means that the student cannot accept another offer for admission. The problem for the colleges is that they really have no recourse if the student tosses them over for a public college that’s not part of the CA. Then the ED college’s ire will fall onto the high school counselor. Some high schools might not care; for those that do, they need to come up with some way to fully educate parents about ED commitments.</p>
<p>ED is a GREAT idea for a student from a family of means who’s “dream school” is a reach. For anyone else, especially where $ is a concern, ED is a TERRIBLE IDEA. Why this is still being debated mystifies me. Many top schools have eliminated ED, I wish they ALL would.</p>
<p>I believe the college counselor does have to sign off on ED applications that use the Common Application. </p>
<p>Though you, as a parent, may want to know which schools share this information, they do not have to and do not share it with you. I think there is the pervasive thought that admissions officers do share information on applicants as many know each other, and that forms of second guessing whether an applicant will go to one school over another occurs when making decisions on a candidate. Every admissions officer I know has negated this scenario with the exception of early decision applicants. If you want to know if a specific school shares their early decision lists or partakes in the use of such lists, ask them. </p>
<p>Though it is possible that an ED offer comes with an inadequate financial aid package, and the family just looks at it and says, “no go”, I’ve never known it to work out that way. It’s a time fraught with anxiety particularly for those families with financial need. You have a family with a kid who is up there in stats and has a clear first choice school and wants the edge on it or, in more cases wants an edge on a name brand, selective school and picks one to bolster chances of admittance. The parent is, like most parents, thinking full need is need as he defines it. All systems are go, and the offer comes in below expectation. Fish or cut bait? What if you let this go and it is your best offer? You don’t know if you are an amateur and most of us parents are. Heck, I’m on my fourth kid to college and I’m still an amateur and I’ve made a lot of mistakes including having a kid renege on ED, a story that I am ashamed to tell and full of muck and mire.</p>
<p>Yes they do, but that can mean absolutely nothing. D1’s counselor signed without, as far as I can tell, asking either us the parents or D1 if we understood the ramifications. As matters stood, we did understand the ramifications frontwards and backwards. We went over every single objection to ED with D1 before signing the form. We the parents went over our finances to confirm that yes, we could afford being full-pay at that school, including annual COA increases as predicted from the school’s COA for the last few years. </p>
<p>If we’d been applying for FA, would the counselor have known, or cared? No idea. I doubt that she’d have taken us through the nitty-gritty of COA, or asked us what our college budget truly was. It’s too awkward to talk about. Too bad there’s no equivalent in college admissions to being pre-approved for a mortgage. </p>
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<p>You can ask, but then you’d be worrying about how it’s going to affect your admissions chances. Ask the ED school “if my FA award isn’t workable for my family, will I be granted a release from my ED commitment?” and the ED school is going to know that you’re not solidly in the bag. Ask the RD schools “how do you treat RD applicants who’ve been released from their ED commitment because of inadequate FA?” and you’re telling the RD school that they’re certainly not your top choice.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I’ve ever really heard about this, either. D1 mentioned that some of her fellow ED accepted students posted later on facebook that their awards weren’t good, but I’ve no idea if the students turned the offers down or if the parents said they could manage. It would definitely take great strength of character and foresight, with the parents saying upfront that the total budget was going to be no more than $X, and if the FA offer didn’t make that possible, it was going to be a no go. Better yet the parents would put the number $1-2k lower than what they could really afford so that they’d have some wriggle room when the offer came in. Then would come the hard part of sticking to that decision.</p>
<p>Copterguy, I know of 3 ED renegs here but the Holy Cross situation is one that i know in detail since I know the family well. And this is happening in real time. </p>
<p>Financial need is not an absolute. As in the situation in another thread on this forum, you can get a PELL eligible EFC and still might end up close to full pay under PROFILE or the school’s calculator. The best you get from your ED acceptance is an estimate based on the info you provide. When your fill out the actual form for the real award, you can be in trouble if new info came into the picture that changed the numbers or you weren’t as thorough as you should have been in the estimated PROFILE which many people aren’t since it is not the “real” thing. I’ve seen this happen too.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins felt that a absent non custodial parent was not absent enough and wanted his information after ED acceptance in a case a few years ago. That case was a mess. A kid who accepted ED and notified all of her schools found out that her dad has multiple myeloma and needed a bone marrow transplan–that was not a fin aid issue. All of these headaches would have been avoided without the ED option. </p>
<p>I love the idea of ED and envy, envy, envy my friends whose kids got in with one shot at it. I’m still sitting here biting my nails. But the risks were just too great in terms of flexibility of options and frankly cost.</p>
<p>One quote I saw (can’t remember where, but it was here on CC) was that for every dollar increase (decrease) in actual 1040 wages above (below) estimate, the financial aid package decreased (increased) by forty cents, whether ED or RD, from estimate. Has anyone here seen actual numbers?</p>
<p>Yes, but should you not ask what will happen in the remaining years? The estimates are based on the prior income, and in the case of early applications, all the data for the year that is about to end might not be available. It is obvious that people with potential great variances of income are not great candidates for Early Decision, but they will be in for a rough ride in the RD round as well as in the next years. Need-based financial aid is based on annual reviews. </p>
<p>The stories of someone being subjected to changes in finances are not restricted to ED. What is a student finds out the transplant need in June or in September?</p>
<p>This is a good discussion, and I hope any parents who are hoping for and/or needing financial aid reads it. Every case is individual, and, yes, I can see situation where applying ED could be the best way to go for a family who needs financial aid with little risk involved, but for the person to make that determination could be risky especially if this is someone new to this whole process. I’ve seen experienced parents get burned on this and other such risks. If you can come up with a figure that is absolutely your maximum that you are willing to pay for college and can commit to it, and are willing to reject anything lower and also have it configured in terms of loans, work study, grants, it can work.</p>
<p>This is from Wake Forest’s website. To me, it was pretty clear that if you are depending on funding beyond what you have to attend, they do not want you applying ED.</p>
<p>Because of the binding commitment that early decision entails, it is important that you have considered your options carefully. If your college enrollment is dependent on financial assistance, we believe that it is important for you to have the opportunity to compare aid packages in the spring from a number of schools rather than committing yourself now through an early binding agreement. Our aid decisions, both need-based and merit, are made in April. </p>
<p>For those planning to apply for financial aid or whose enrollment is contingent on merit based aid, or for those who have misunderstood the binding nature of our early decision policy, we strongly encourage you to move your application from Early Decision to Regular Decision by contacting the Office of Undergraduate Admissions by e-mail at <a href=“mailto:admissions@wfu.edu”>admissions@wfu.edu</a> or by telephone at 336.758.5201. Your admission to Wake Forest and your consideration for need-based or merit based scholarships will not be adversely affected by a withdrawal from Early Decision.</p>
<p>Many questions. What if the numbers on the PROFILE don’t change? Is the FA award sent with the ED acceptance “guaranteed” somehow? Or does the ED school have the right to change the FA award downward from the numbers sent out in December? Do schools vary in how they handle this? What kind of warnings are sent out to the families about the importance of taking great care with the accuracy of the estimated PROFILE?</p>
<p>If the ED FA award can change even if the PROFILE information doesn’t change, that entirely changes my view of ED if you need FA. How can anyone be asked to sign a contract to attend with such enormous financial uncertainty? </p>
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<p>This would be the kind of case where the school should have a heart. No one can predict something like this. It’s not even just an ED-specific problem: what if the student applied RD, made a decision, put down a deposit, and then the father was diagnosed in the early summer?</p>