<p>My D has one school that is overwhelmingly her first choice (LAC that gives need-based aid) so she strongly wants to apply ED. However, we will also need financial aid, so I know that we won't be able to compare. If the package is unacceptable for us, what repercussions, really, would there be if we turned down the acceptance? Don't get me wrong - we are going into the application trying to do what we reasonably can to send D to her dream school, but if we can't afford it ... I just don't really see a downside to going ED even if you need FA. Any advice?</p>
<p>ED agreements do all have a clause that you may break the agreement if the school does not offer enough financial aid. So in theory, it seems like there is no disadvantage to applying ED.</p>
<p>However, the devil is in the details. You see, it’s not enough to just declare you can’t afford it; you must DEMONSTRATE that you can’t. And at a school that claims to meet 100% of demonstrated need, that is not a trivial task. Also keep in mind the problem if you get aid primarily based on loans (if the school’s aid package will leave you $100,000 in debt by the time she graduates, they have still “met your demonstrated need”).</p>
<p>So what happens if you just break the contract? Well, that depends on who finds out that she did so. Any other colleges that find out will probably refuse to accept her, because now they can’t trust her to honor agreements with a college. If her high school is aware that she got accepted, they probably will refuse to send transcripts to other colleges. These aren’t certainties, yes, but is it REALLY worth the risk just so you can send in an ED application?</p>
<p>You might try posting in the “Financial Aid” forum. What I’ve seen people say on the forum, but I’m not sure if they’re right, is that if you decline admission at the time of ED acceptance you’re ok, but some people try to game the system and keep their other apps active and compare awards in the spring. The latter is definitely frowned upon and can lead to some consequences.</p>
<p>Have you asked the school for an early read? This is when they give you a good idea of what you’ll get re aid. Many schools have calculators on their web site. You can also use the one here or on College Board. Unless you have an unusual situation like owning a business, you should be able to figure out what you’re likely to get by using these calculators and calling the college with any questions if they don’t do early reads.</p>
<p>You can get out of ED no problem. But they don’t have to make it pleasant. And they do share ED lists with peer schools which could damage her chances at them.</p>
<p>If she needs financial aid, it is really, really, really foolish to apply ED UNLESS your family is unbelievably poor and the ED school is a place like Harvard that meets full need without any loans.</p>
<p>If you are a normal family, with a normal level of need, she is much better off to apply only in Early Action, Regular Decision, and Rolling Admission categories. Her acceptances will come at different times, but all of the aid awards will arrive in April and you can spread them out on the table and compare them.</p>
<p>This weekend, sit down with your daughter and run the FAFSA and CSS Profile calculators at [College</a> Calculators - savings calculators - college costs, loans](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>How Much Will College Cost – BigFuture | College Board) Talk with her about just exactly your family plans to come up with your EFC for the next four years. Read the financial aid pages of the websites of the schools she wants to apply to. See if you can discern how much of an aid package is likely to be in loans, and how much is likely to be in scholarships/grants. Talk with her about how long it will take her to pay off the loans she is likely to accumulate for her education.</p>
<p>You do not want your daughter to be broken-hearted that she got into her dream school ED, only to learn that your family can’t pay for it with the aid package she’s offered. You don’t want her to go through that, and in April be searching for a compatible school that will admit her, and can still give her some aid once she breaks the ED contract.</p>
<p>You’re right, I certainly don’t want her to be broken hearted at the end of it all. However, I’ve been reading posts on ED for a while now, and I haven’t come across anyone who’s had the experience of being unhappy with their aid after ED. I’m sure they’re out there, just haven’t read much about this being a problem. Of course, if most kids applying are from financially well-off families, it probably isn’t a problem.</p>
<p>Usually, it will work out. Usually, if you are accepted to a school which says it will meet your demonstrated need, ED or not, you will get an acceptable package. But you don’t want to gamble on not being one of the few people for whom it doesn’t work; you want to do research into the school’s financial aid system and be confident that it will indeed meet your needs, before you apply ED.</p>
<p>If you’ve done your research and have a handle on your EFC, it should not be a problem.</p>
<p>But read these boards in April, there were many kids shocked by their aid awards at schools that meet need–the families just hadn’t done the homework. Has nothing to do with ED vs. RD at schools that meet need, it all comes down to knowing and accepting your EFC and the school’s loan/work study/summer earnings policies.</p>
<p>We also see a lot of families here that don’t want to disappoint a kid. It’s also important to think through cost and loan increases over the 4 years and to really look at the debt your child will end up with. Many kids are not thinking about things like how much better off they’ll be at no loan schools.</p>
<p>It depends on the school. I went to a 5-college presentation that said if you applied ED and absolutely could not pay, then you could back out. But then I asked another school entirely if this was their policy, and they said that it would be best to apply RD and then make it clear this was the #1 choice- Do the interviews, the essays, tour the campus, enthuse about the school in the ‘why here?’ essay, etc.</p>
<p>You should either ask the school, or take option 2.</p>
<p>I can’t remember the specifics from last April, but there were a couple “I can’t afford my ED with the aid they offer, what can I do now?” threads. They may have been in the Financial Aid or Parents Forums, rather than here. As hmom5 says, you need to find out what your EFC is likely to be, and get clear about how you are going to meet it for the next four years before you do anything else.</p>
<p>I really don’t understand this, but seriously, are CCers just overracting? I mean, if a school wants you to go, they’re not going to build a bad relationship with you by trying to suck more money out of you… I don’t think they’re going to give anyone they’ll accept a hard time affording the school, even if it was ED.</p>
<p>Of all the middle-class EDers who are int’l I know, none of them had to pay more than they could afford.</p>
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<p>That’s shocking, most middle class American’s are asked to pay far more than they feel they can afford by all but about 4 colleges.</p>
<p>“Middle-class” is a very elastic term. username could be talking about some pretty rich “upper-middle-class” ppl. I kno that I call my self upper-middle-class and I’m not applying for FA at some really expensive LACs. </p>
<p>That said, hmom5 is right. If you’re truly “middle class” only apply ED if you know what you’re getting into and that this is truly a dream school. I believe mikemac is also correct. If it’s obvious you’re not gaming the system (who would turn down an ED acceptance before they get any other acceptances for any reason than FA or being really stupid and applying to the wrong ED school), you should be fine. They’re not evil and won’t try to ruin your life for no good reason.</p>
<p>Here’s the potential problem as I see it: your child has been accepted to her dream school, and you have about 2 weeks to decide whether the financial aid package makes the college affordable. If you like the offer, you say “yes” and you’re done. What’s not to love about that situation? But if you decide it’s not financially feasible, there’s no second chance: you tell that college “no” and she will not be going there, even if all her other RD offers present less attractive options, financially. She can’t ask for a do-over; she won’t be able to compare the financial aid offers side-by-side. If you could predict exactly what aid the ED college would offer, it would be a fairly simple decision. But since offers can vary considerably, and merit aid could enter in at some colleges, you have to decide whether you want to give up the option of seeing all the offers.</p>
<p>Let me be more specific: </p>
<p>the people I know for some odd reason all ED’d cornell. There’s about 8-10 of them, and their avg. income in CAD is ~70,000 I think (I’m estimating generously)</p>
<p>the avg aid they got was 35,000 USD, no loans.</p>
<p>" mean, if a school wants you to go, they’re not going to build a bad relationship with you by trying to suck more money out of you… I don’t think they’re going to give anyone they’ll accept a hard time affording the school, even if it was ED."</p>
<p>There are colleges that have need-blind admissions that also don’t promise to meet 100% of students’ documented financial need.</p>
<p>There are plenty of students who come from modest homes and whose financial aid forms reflect high need, but those students actually have doting relatives who’ll fill the financial gap if the college doesn’t meet their need.</p>
<p>Consequently, colleges may accept students ED even though the colleges won’t meet the student’s documented financial need.</p>
<p>Therefore, for virtually everyone, if money is a factor, then don’t apply ED.</p>