I am considering applying Early Decision to Johns Hopkins (before you say “the deadline is passed!” know that I was given a 3-day extension). My application is entirely complete (besides the ED form from my counselor) but I’m suddenly having second thoughts. JHU is my absolute dream school, with everything I could want from a college, but I’m not sure if it’s worth graduating 50k in debt or whatever. Their FinAid net price calculator says that, after a signing a $3,500 loan, my net price would be a few dollars upwards of 4k. This seemed good at first, because the annual price is usually like 60k for them. However, I heard that ED students sometimes get less financial aid because the school knows that you can’t turn them down. Even if it sounds bad, I’d be willing enough to slide into some debt to go to JHU, but I don’t want to be crushed under a ridiculous amount of student loans.
I’d have to submit the ED app in 3 days, on Nov. 4th. Does anybody have any advice for me?
Since they meet 100% of demonstrated need, you will get the same whether your do ED or RD. Just don’t expect any merit. There is no motivation to give merit to an ED applicant (it may happen at some schools, but I doubt it).
Anyhow, the only thing that could “go wrong” is if the NPC is incorrect (either it’s not very good, you entered information incorrectly, or you have unusual circumstances). In this case you can back out due to FA reasons. I don’t usually encourage that but if you’ve run the NPC in good faith and believe you can afford that amount and have every intention of enrolling as long as it is near that amount then I think you are fine.
I did receive a full-ride offer from a local state university, but I can’t begin to tell you how much I don’t want to go there. The graduation rate is pretty low and some of my older friends who went there said the classes are jam-packed and the professors do not seem to care much about what they teach.
How good was the information you put into the NPC? Was it the exact income of your parents, the full value of assets, did it ask about all he assets you would have to disclose on the FAFSA?
If so, and you think that it is a good estimate, I don’t know if you’ll get any better of a deal than ~$8000 yr. Are there any other schools on your list that are offering better? Do you need the opportunity to compare offers? If so, EA or RD are better options.
I’d take the chance and apply ED. If your offer from Hopkins comes back at that you’d have to pay $30k, you can turn it down and then have lost nothing but applying to another school ED.
@ClaremontMom I used my parent’s tax forms, so the information should be basically exact. Also, I wasn’t aware that you could back out because of FA reasons. Thanks for informing me.
@twoinanddone I used their 2015 tax return forms, so I think the information should be nearly exact. And there are no other schools I’d want to apply ED to really, so I don’t think that would be a huge loss. Thanks for the advice!
Yes, you can back out of ED due to FA reasons. You will get your package and have some time (probably a couple weeks) to look it over and accept or not. Good luck!
If the NPC looks good and it is clearly your first choice, go for it. But don’t stop working on your other apps. If you get accepted, don’t withdraw your other apps until you have a FA package you can live with in hand from your ED school.