My son will be applying to some full need met colleges for financial and academic reasons. His chances of getting in are
low because the colleges are in the top 30 LACs, so we were thinking of having him apply to the one he likes best ED. I know there is an ongoing debate on CC as to whether there is a statistical advantage applying ED but hopefully it would help by showing his interest to the college.
The downside is that he would need to attend if accepted but since it’s a full need met college and I ran the NPC, the EFC is manageable. I have read some posts though that caution that colleges you apply ED to can see that as a way of not having to offer as much aid since you will be attending no matter what.
Since it’s a full need met college, would the college raise our EFC because they know we will be attending? We can handle the EFC shown on the NPC, but not much more than that.
the risk is that the ED college may meet part or ALL your “need” with LOANS, not grants, which MUST be paid back and carry a high interest rate.
If you / your son CANT afford to have to pay back potentially $200,000 worth of loans, then dont allow him to apply ED.
Colleges are not supposed to claim to “meet full need” with parent loans or parent cosigned loans. However, they have considerable flexibility in (a) defining “need”, and (b) setting an expected student work contribution.
In terms of ED, is the school in question his clear first choice? Is that school’s NPC generally considered reliable, and do you have a relatively common household finance situation (i.e. no small business or real estate income, no divorced and possibly remarried parents, etc.)?
You aren’t bound to the ED school if you find the number doesn’t work for you. You have the estimate and can show them that’s what you expected. But if they found a reason that doesn’t apply )like business deductions for calls and cell phones, say) then you can decline and go with the RD round. I do not believe colleges have a separate formula to give worse aid to EDers. It seem reasonable to me, to try ED your case. Perhaps if ED helps anywhere it is LACs. You just miss the chance to compare offers, for the student to focus on just a few admitted schools and have time to compare and think more.
@menoparkmom don’t know where that comment came from about surprise 200k loans. Meets needs school will just put the student loan in at worst, and some don’t give loans up to certain incomes.
“some don’t give loans up to certain incomes”
True- the ones with huge endowments can afford to be more generous.
BUT, the OP did not name the school nor what his EFC was in the ORIGINAL post, so I was only adding a word of caution, based on recent FA horror stories.
$50,000 per year X 4 = $200000.
No businesses or other complicating situation other than that we do have a fluctuating income due to possible work bonuses etc. The NPC should be a reliable one.
My D applied ED to Cornell after we had checked the Cornell EFC. We were okay with what the EFC numbers were.
After acceptance her financial aid award was slightly higher than expected but tuition had risen. I believe they
gave us a little more aid because of the higher tuition. All in all the EFC was almost spot on with what she received.
If it were not close, we may have had to decline or confer with the FA office. If it did not work out she would have had to apply RD to numerous colleges. We got away easy… only applied to one college and that the made the whole thing much less stressful. In my experience if you put the true numbers into the schools EFC than the award will match.
One risk is if there’s a change in the numbers between what’s submitted at the time of the ED application and what’s submitted early the next calendar year (when you have your final year-end numbers). This is why it is vitally important to be as accurate as possible with the financial numbers submitted under ED. A few families that weren’t careful and accurate in filling out their PROFILE form at ED time have been unpleasantly surprised to find in April that their FA is substantially lower than initially projected.
If your family’s income varies dramatically from year to year, there could be a lower than expected FA award if income ends up being higher than expected.
The caution about schools not awarding as much money for ED is for some schools that award merit aid. Merit aid is a recruiting tool. As you say, if they know that you are coming, they don’t have to offer you any lures. However, this depends on the school. Some have even given more merit money to those applying ED. If the ED school your child is considering offers no merit money, it’s a non-issue. And since it’s a school that meets full need, it’s definitely a non-issue. If any merit money is awarded, that would just mean less need-based money.
Use the financial aid calculator of the college in question. If you enter accurate information, and your aid package turns out to be significantly less than they claimed it would be (assuming no changes in finances), then you will almost certainly be granted an appeal by the university and they will increase your award or you can cancel your Early Decision Agreement. This is in no way legal or professional advice, so please verify the accuracy of my post.
Even if you run the NPC and you think you can afford it, that does NOT obligate you to accept later on…even if they give you the exact amount on the NPC. In Dec, you can still say, “no, we cant afford this school.”
@artie1 - Yes, there is an obligation, but I believe mom2collegekids is right, there is also a loophole and you can claim that you can’t afford it.
My son applied ED. We used the NPC for a full need met college and were prepared to pay as long as it came in the ballpark of that number. It did (in fact our NP was slightly lower than the estimate), so it does not appear we were penalized financially for doing ED.
The Common App ED agreement does contain language that you can turn down the ED offer of admission if the FA offer does not make the school affordable. You, the family, get to decide what is affordable. If you turn down the ED offer, that means you cannot later accept the ED offer in April–you are turning it down for good for that admissions cycle.
There have been a few schools–very few!–that do state upfront that they do not offer the affordability escape clause. Do check with the specific school website to make sure they don’t have a separate ED agreement that is different than the Common App ED form. Just in case.
Applying ED can help significantly with many top LAC’s. OP hasn’t named the LAC’s so we’re talking generalities here. But in the right situation ED can be a powerful way to enhance the chance of admission to a LAC. Also many LAC’s admit between 30-48% of the class through ED. ED tends to mostly benefit full pay applicants who don’t need to worry about FA. The colleges know this and that’s why they give you the “out” of saying you can’t afford it. It’s a way to give FA applicants a chance to take advantage of the ED boost. If the OP’s kid has a first choice school that offers ED and the EFC on the NPC looks acceptable, then I say go for it with the caveat that if you turn down an ED acceptance, you are done with that school and can’t go into the RD pool.
BTW- 2 more questions on ED- first, can other colleges see you are applying ED and does that hurt your chances at the other colleges? Second, when you are accepted ED do you get the FA package at that point or do you need to wait until the normal RD FA packages arrive for the other students?