<p>I was accepted to Brown ED. I do not know what I want to do only that I am not interested in concentrating in math or science. Maybe I would do computer science but I really have no idea. I am very artistic and would love to do something creative with my life, which is why Brown is such a perfect fit with RISD being right next door. I enjoy to draw, I am interested in film. Possibly international relations. Really I don’t know. I also would prefer a smaller school. </p>
<p>Granted everything, I have been having doubts about Brown. I am an athlete and I have the opportunity to attend UC Berkeley. At Cal: I have priority registration as an athlete, I have in-state tuition, I have a scholarship that will increase each year…It is half the price of Brown. Though I have the money to attend the ivy league (I would come out with at most 10-20k in debt) I am very frugal. If I were to attend Cal, I get to keep the extra money.</p>
<p>Cal is an hour away from home and my heart is calling for a new experience. Thoughts from current Brown students, Brown alumni? How is your experience and how has Brown helped you find not only a job but a career after graduation? Thank-you.</p>
<p>Well for the most part, ED is binding, but you can get out of it for financial reasons. Although I did not attend Brown, you say you are not too interested in math or science, and Berkeley is a VERY science driven school, although the athletics and probably overall atmosphere (from what I heard) would make your live as a student very well rounded. </p>
<p>Honestly, though, if you can come out of school having to pay much less money and no debt, then that would probably be a very tempting offer.</p>
<p>I know I didn’t help much, but good luck on your final decision.</p>
<p>Why on earth did you apply ED, let alone all the way across the country if you had any doubts?</p>
<p>DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT bow out of your ED agreement. You claimed that you do have the money to attend an Ivy league school and if that is accurate then I’m sorry, but if you want to avoid possible rejection from both Berkeley AND Brown, stick with your agreement. You are ethically required to honor that agreement and could possibly hurt the chances of future Brown applicants from your school if you back out not to mention draw the iyre of those current students who applied and did not get in.</p>
<p>It’s not like Brown is a sloutch of a school . . .</p>
<p>^There are actually very few consequences for backing out of an ED agreement, but that does not mean it should be done. Personally, I feel that you should go to Brown simply because you got in ED. No questions about it.</p>
<p>If you can afford it and get past your miserly attitude (not trying to insult haha), you should go. You did apply ED and are bound. If you CAN afford, I think you have an obligation to attend.</p>
<p>Grow up and stop lamenting the fact that you have to make a choice between two excellent schools. Were you a recruited athlete? If so, you should really think about your values Did you see the recent research about how people who obsessively post on social networks suffer from narcism? … Perhaps you should go to Berkeley after all…</p>
<p>As a deferred applicant to Brown, I would be more than happy to take your spot and it irks me that someone like you gets in and then decides you don’t want it anymore. It doesn’t work that way. If you don’t want to go, back out … If you have doubts, you probably don’t belong there anyway …</p>
<p>As an ED applicant to Brown, you promised you wouldn’t send in any other applications, or that you would remove any you had already sent in. You clearly didn’t live up to that part of the deal.</p>
<p>If you are a recruited athlete and received a slot via likely letter and you back out, you will definitely harm relations with your coach and club and the chances of other athletes from your team/club to receive the same opportunity from Brown will be jeapordized. That slot will be lost to the coach for the year. Berkeley and other D1 schools just manage their scholarships and another recruit can occupy that spot. That is not the case at the Ivy schools, so if you received a likely as a recruited athlete think twice about backing out.</p>
<p>I agree with all the anger regarding the ethics of a person who applies ED to a top notch school, gets accepted, and then keeps playing with the coach at UCB. Too bad the college application process focuses more on grades, test scores, and perhaps, athleticism, than the heart of who people are. As a parent of children who would love to be at either Brown or UCB, I am infuriated reading this thread. The kid ought to be kicked to the curb by both institutions and have to go deal with the real world.</p>
<p>Go to berkeley, I don’t want you as a fellow Brown alum if you’d sign a binding agreement only to keep playing the field and now ask people in a public forum what you should do.</p>
<p>I’d have no problem if you were saying you were freaking out and looking for reassurance that Brown was the right move. You flat out lied to both Brown and Berkeley, and quite frankly you don’t deserve either.</p>
<p>Stop beating up blaaaa. Circumstances and interests change. Having a chance to play a D-I sport at a huge school like Cal as opposed to an Ivy is a big change in circumstances. As blaa points out, there are also ssignificant financial considerations. </p>
<p>I agree that it is not a good idea to back out of an ED, although I have more sympathies for athletes than for students accepted ED based on academics. Athletic potential and opportuntiies often do not arrive on a neat time clock to coincide de with the start of senior year, unlike academics where students have an idea based on grades, classes, and SATs the schools at which they have a reasonable chance of admission and then make an ED choice from among those schools. </p>
<p>My advice to blaaa (other than getting a new username) would be to break the ED agreement at Brown and go to Cal, but to talk with the coach at Brown and explain the circumstances, including the financial issues.</p>
<p>It sounds like your parents are pressuring you to go to Berkley (or giving you a sort of dishonest incentive by saying you can keep the savings.) But lots of parents do those sort of things. (and we wonder where the ethics of their kids come from?) But the question for you should be where you really want to go to school? Remember that this is about your education. At Brown you are much more likely to really get to grow, explore: courses, potential “majors”, the artistic stuff,life on the East Coast, and whether your career as an athlete is really so important to you? Also would your scholarship at Berkley be jeopardized if you were injured, or just decided you had other things in your life besides that sport? Brown will not take away any aid you are eligible for if you don’t play whatever sport.
I apologize for the vitriolic nature of the responses above, but you have to look at this from their point of view. (and some jealousy).
Did the coach at Berkley know you were ED admitted at Brown?</p>
<p>blaaa looks like a person just trying to dig up some trouble and enjoying people screaming at him/her. blaaa has posted the same question in Berkeley Forum also and just waits quietly without responding enjoying all the virtual attention</p>
<p>It’s easy to back out of an ED agreement, and people here make it sound much more difficult than it actually is. and no, berkeley won’t find out and reject you, that’s the most ■■■■■■■■ thing I have ever heard.
go to berkeley if you really want, it’s much stronger than Brown, unless you’re one of those kids whose obsessed with ivy prestige</p>
<p>Having graduated from Brown undergrad and done graduate work at Berkeley, let me add my two cents. Go to Brown. Gods contention that Berkeley undergrad is stronger than Brown is laughable. Despite Berkeley undergrad being multiples time bigger than Brown, Brown produces more Rhodes, sends more to better law schools, sends more to Wall Street, has much more influential grads in what is still the more influential part of the country, the Washington to Boston corridor, I could go on and on. I didn’t find Berkeley students to be particularly bright. The impersonal nature of the school, along with the propensity to be niggardly in allocating resources to undergrads makes this a no brainer. And while prestige should not be a decisive factor, anyone who tells you that Berkeley is in the same zip code for prestige as Brown is smoking something you want no part of.</p>
<p>Agreements carry with them different ethical and legal obligations. For a whole range of reasons, ED agreements may not be legally enforceable. That means nothing about the ethical considerations.</p>
<p>You should absolutely not, other than for very serious financial reasons, break an ED agreement. It is deeply unethical.</p>
<p>I did not know that. I was always under the assumption that an ED acceptance was a legally binding contract with the student and the school. If it’s not, why is it so easily enforced? From my experience, there are kids willing to do <em>anything</em> to gain an upper-hand in the college admissions process, so why would they not just apply ED to a prestigious school but relatively high acceptance rate just to get one school in the bag, and then not matriculate? Is it because the high schools would not let them?</p>
<p>Also, blaaa… go to Brown. You don’t want any skeletons in the closet when it comes time to apply for graduate school or a job.</p>