Financial Aid at Wealthy Privates

There is no “ED at Stanford”… their non-RD option is Restrictive Early Action (REA), which is a distinctly different admissions policy than ED.

If you want to stay in California, I recommend looking at University of San Diego, Loyola Marymount, Chapman and Cal Lutheran. I believe that all of them show you what Merit Aid you will receive based on your stats when you run their NPC. My child received great aid offers from all of these schools, and some of them have competitive full tuition scholarships available. You also may be automatically admitted to their Honors program if your stats are high enough.

@mamato3
Thanks for the recommendations! I have considered LMU, but it’s pretty low on my list. I’m not a big fan of religious schools. USD is definitely a no though, I want to get out of San Diego for college, plus I don’t like USD’s atmosphere and student body. A bit too preppy for me.

@Alamom

Stanford doesn’t have early DECISION. They have Restrictive early ACTION.

Early action is never binding…at any school.

Early decision is binding.

They are not the same thing.

@thumper1 I’m confused. Are you saying that it’s risky or just that my semantics were off? I read that link to mean he/she would be safe applying in that round.

^ Yes, semantics (but important because as thumper pointed out ED is binding EA and it’s variations suchas Restrictive EA are not binding) .

Yes, it would be safe (in terms of FA reasons) to apply. It is not binding.

@Alamom your wording was inaccurate. You said

.

Stanford has EA…early action…not ED…early decision.

So yes, your student would be safe applying in that round.

But your post was a bit misleading because it said ED…and that could lead someone to believe that Stanford has ED.

SCEA is what Stanford has. It is not as risk free as EA at for example Tulane. What you give up by doing Single Choice Early Action at Stanford is the ability to apply early action or early decision to other schools.

SCEA at Stanford is very risk free if Stanford is your top choice. And you can still apply to your instate public university.

Yes, you are only prohibited from apply to private schools early. Public schools EA and anywhere RD are OK.