ED- If financial aid doesn't come through

<p>Hello, all-</p>

<p>I applied ED for Fall 2012. Rice is absolutely my first choice, and I have every intention of attending. However, I don't have the money to pay for it, and I'm scared that financial aid will not be sufficient. If, God forbid, I had to decline my admission, I'm afraid that other schools would know I was accepted ED somewhere and then choose not to admit me, thus shutting me out entirely.</p>

<p>As far as you know, is there a list of some sort that accepted ED applicants go on? Would this hurt my chances of getting into other schools?</p>

<p>My experience with financial aid leads me to tell you that you will not have an issue finding the required funds to attend. After I decided that Rice was the school for me, I still had the issue of not having enough financial aid from them to be able to attend and was going to have to turn to Vanderbilt instead (not that that’s a bad choice at all, it’s just that Rice was the place for me). When we called them and explained that we would not be able to make attending Rice work financially, they granted me a full ride with only a couple thousand in loans without too much hesitation at all.</p>

<p>However, I was also a QuestBridge Finalist; that may have had an effect on their generosity. Either way, hopefully my personal experience was the rule rather than the exception.</p>

<p>As for your question about a list, I highly doubt that colleges share their lists of accepted students with other colleges. If you have to break the ED agreement, which happens–I believe a few students actually had to do that last year–then they aren’t going to try to penalize you by preventing you from getting into any other college. That would simply make no sense.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>You are allowed to break your ED agreement in the event of being unable to pay and insufficient financial aid. Colleges have been known to swap lists, but that is to make sure people do not apply ED to multiple places. You are well within your right to walk away from ED due to financial reasons and will not be penalized for it.</p>

<p>I feel the same way. I applied ED and am worrying about not getting financial aid because I lack the W-2 I’m supposed to send and doing the CSS profile is perplexing since the income tax form has a lot of blanks…Anyways, I would love to go to Rice, but if I get accepted, do I have to withdraw the moment they notify me? I’m worried that if I have to withdraw my applications from others schools and find out I have to decline the ED offer because of a lack of money, I won’t have any options because I withdrew my apps from other schools. I’m worrying about this constantly…</p>

<p>If you get in and you cannot financially afford it, you contact Rice and let them know. In certain circumstances, they let you break the ED agreement. If so, you do not need to withdraw from anywhere else.</p>

<p>Make sure Rice is aware of what is going on. You will be fine.</p>