<p>amtc, I do want to go to Northwestern and I am very grateful that I was accepted. If the aid is close then I will go to Northwestern. I just want to know if UChicago will be giving me substantially more than Northwestern so that I have the option to have less debt exiting college. I realize that UChicago and Northwestern are very different, and I love them both equally, and I think that what is best for me and my future is to have cost determine where to go.</p>
<p>Squirrelgirl93 - ED is not to be used as a way to compare financial aid packages and that is what you are doing. “If the aid is close then I will go to Northwestern”. Wow - thank you so much Squirrelgirl.</p>
<p>For me, I hope you go to UChicago.</p>
<p>In terms of the NU ED binding agreement, it doesn’t matter one bit if UChicago (and frankly I’m VERY surprised that’s the school you’re torn about) offers you more FA than NU. As many have already said, the only thing that matters is if NU fails to meet your family’s DEMONSTRATED financial need. Is there something about this that you don’t understand?</p>
<p>Since NU does not offer merit aid (but as I understand it is VERY generous with need-based aid) virtually EVERY admitted student at NU had better MERIT offers at other schools. That is totally irrelevant to your ED contract.</p>
<p>FWIW, if you look at the recent NY Times article about a worldwide survey of business leaders about where they recruit, NU is ranked at #6 while UChicago was #10. ;-D </p>
<p>[Education</a> - Image - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Education - Image - NYTimes.com”>Education - Image - NYTimes.com)</p>
<p>“I still may attend Northwestern, but my mind has changed a little since applying. I would like to keep my options open.”</p>
<p>“what is best for me and my future is to have cost determine where to go.”</p>
<p>Not sure which is more correct but in either case your new thoughts are too late. If financial aid is to be the final determination you should have not applied ED. If you wanted costs to be the determining factor than you should have applied to a wide array of colleges including state schools so that you could have compared FA packages. If NU is too expensive I suggest you attend for one year and then transfer to a more financially appropriate school. Expensive lesson learned.</p>
<p>I agree with amtc that you should view this as a significant life lesson. If nothing else, perhaps you and your parents may learn to read contracts very carefully before signing them.</p>
<p>Also understand that your situation is NOT unique or special. Virtually EVERY NU student was admitted to many other great schools and most had significant merit offers elsewhere. NU students are ALL people who will have many fantastic options throughout their lives, and in D’s experience they are also people who make and honor commitments thoughtfully. My hope is that you can become such a person, wherever you end up.</p>
<p>I suppose another option for you is to take a gap year and devote it to earning money for college.</p>
<p>I have many friends that wanted your ED spot. I hope you do end up going to UC.</p>
<p>If it really came to FA, why didn’t you complete the CSS Profile by December 1? You would have had it a week ago.</p>
<p>You must accept the ED financial aid offer or turn it down; you don’t get to compare offers. But it is your decision, not the school’s.</p>
<p>Unless I’m mistaken, you may choose to reject an ED school’s offer of FA (for example you may elect not to take offered loans) but unless they have failed to meet your demonstrated need refusing the offered FA does NOT extract you from your obligation to attend. You would still need to formally petition to be released from your ED obligation, which is separate from rejecting the offer of FA.</p>
<p>Mom, where have you seen this procedure specified? It seems to be in conflict with the Common Application rules for ED:
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>It doesn’t say the student must ask to be released. Only the family can determine if an offer supports attendance, because FAFSA/Profile know nothing of a family’s bills or cash flow. I try to imagine it any other way, e.g., the school doesn’t release the student, somehow compels attendance, and the student is then expelled when the bill can’t be paid due to family obligations. I imagine the horrible PR should a school do such a thing.</p>
<p>Schools want to encourage top needy students to apply ED to their number one favorite school, but must show that students can in no way be trapped into attending a school they cannot afford, or such students won’t apply.</p>
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<p>I am not an Admissions or FA expert, but it is my understanding that this statement does NOT give a family carte blanche to arbitrarily decide they “can’t afford” a school’s offer of FA to break an ED agreement. The institutional determination of demonstrated family need is made objectively through the FAFSA and CSS Profiles, and is not simply a question of whether or not a family is in the mood to make the EFC and meet their ED commitment. I’m sure that if there are extenuating circumstances that are not covered by the CSS Profile and/or FAFSA they can be explored in the formal petition, but if a family has substantial assets I doubt that cash flow issues would be considered a valid reason for a family not to make the EFC.</p>
<p>For example, I’m no financial genius but I assure you I could go out tomorrow and buy an extra house that would make cash flow tight enough that it would be hard for us to meet our $60k/year NU expenses. Does that mean we should qualify for extra FA, or be excused from an ED obligation that someone else has to honor?</p>
<p>While I agree that no school can (or would want to) force someone who honestly can’t afford tuition to attend, I am also quite sure a student must formally petition to be released from the ED agreement, and not just refuse the FA offer and consider it done. </p>
<p>If anyone has (or gets) more firsthand experience with this I’m sure many of us would be interested to hear it.</p>
<p>Reading this thread with interest since I was always curious about how a contract can purport to “bind” someone to attend a college. (My son has every intention of following through and attending NU as he absolutely loves the place.)</p>
<p>I’m clearly not an expert in this area, but vonlost has a point. I clicked on the link and the quoted language does read: “Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment.”</p>
<p>I was surprised it reads this way. We read it at the time we signed it but didn’t pay too much attention since, again, my son really wanted to attend so backing out was not an issue. </p>
<p>The people who write these agreements are not idiots. Clearly if they meant to say that only those students whose “demonstrated” need (ala FAFSA guidelines) are allowed to withdraw they could have written the contract that way. Instead they opted for the much more vague language, leaving a gaping loophole if there is a legitimate financial issue. There’s no discussion about how they go about proving it, which again I’m surprised about. </p>
<p>Bottom line is that it seems like you’re not breaching the agreement if they are not giving you enough money to make attendance possible, whether or not they have satisfied the FAFSA guidelines. If attendance is not “possible” then you are not required to attend even if they met the FAFSA requirements. Obviously there is no objective standard for what is “possible” in this context, and so it is up to each student/family to decide. </p>
<p>Shopping around for the best deal, on the other hand, clearly is not what they have in mind. </p>
<p>My $.02.</p>
<p>Those of you questioning the policy, just call some schools and ask them if an ED offer can be declined if the FA offer is insufficient to support attendance, and who determines that fact. Ask how they interpret the published rule, if a formal petition is required.</p>
<p>I agree that’s the only way to know for sure about any given university… and I’d also ask if they send out a list of students who do not matriculate under binding ED to other schools. In addition, I’d ask your high school counselors how they would handle it in terms of supplying future transcripts and recommendations to other schools, since I have heard that some will not provide any further support to a student who may be giving their school a bad reputation (SIL is a high school counselor).</p>
<p>I seriously doubt that one can just arbitrarily decide they don’t like the FA offer without going through some sort of formal petition or appeal process to be released from binding ED, as otherwise it’s a meaningless agreement, but I’d be interested to hear any firsthand information as I’ve also wondered about it.</p>
<p>The generic Common Ap ED agreement referenced above does mention the fact that you need to be familiar with your individual school’s ED policy, so I don’t assume that is the complete contract.</p>
<p>Here is language from Northwestern’s website…</p>
<p>If you are admitted under Early Decision and apply for financial aid, you will be notified of your aid decision around the time of your acceptance, provided your family has filed the College Scholarship Service Financial Aid Profile (CSS Profile) by December 1. Students admitted under Early Decision may be released from the commitment to enroll at Northwestern only for demonstrated financial hardship.</p>
<p>“I have heard that some will not provide any further support to a student who may be giving their school a bad reputation”</p>
<p>So if a GC thinks a declined ED offer could hurt the school’s rep, no transcripts or LORs would be processed for the RD round? Such a GC should be fired on the spot.</p>
<p>My understanding from my SIL (high school counselor at a top HS for over 30 years) is that both high schools and Universities take ED commitments very seriously. I know D was told firmly by everyone involved, and every published bit I’ve seen emphasizes, not to apply binding ED unless you are absolutely planning to attend the school if admitted. </p>
<p>A high school counselor will not be fired for following their school’s policy wrt supporting students who arbitrarily break a binding ED agreement, so it might be worth asking what your school’s policy is (not you, @vonlost, since I don’t assume you’re a student considering breaking an ED agreement).</p>
<p>Btw, I hope everyone reading this thread understands that so far it is all completely academic, since so far NO ONE here has posted that they have received an inadequate FA offer from NU.</p>
<p>Based on prior years’ ED threads, I assume that NU will make FA offers to every admitted student that fully meet their DEMONSTRATED financial need, just as they commit to doing, so the questions posed in this thread would only be relevant to those who had either utterly failed to research their family’s EFC (for example by using NU’s online FA calculator) before applying ED, or who are trying to game the system as in the OP.</p>
<p>I hope everyone is enjoying a lovely holiday season, and once again CONGRATULATIONS to all who were among the lucky few admitted ED this year!!</p>
<p>“A high school counselor will not be fired for following their school’s policy wrt supporting students who arbitrarily break a binding ED agreement”</p>
<p>There’s the problem. The GC doesn’t know if it’s arbitrary, having no access to the family’s finances. Refusing to cooperate with RD apps because of suspicion is dereliction of duty.</p>
<p>Everyone should take ED seriously. The problem is getting needy top students to apply ED to their first choice because of imagined fears that they’ll somehow be trapped into attending even if they can’t afford it. It’s a constant battle convincing them that they don’t need the school to agree that the family truly can’t afford the ED offer, that they just need to say so. Remember, the schools already have all the data they use to determine the offer; FAFSA/Profile simply don’t capture all family situations. I hope the net price calculators will help prevent ED FA apps that have little chance of success, so that these kids don’t face the devastation of being admitted but not being able to afford it.</p>
<p>BTW, in case it’s not obvious, my comments are general, not for NW in particular.</p>
<p>I saw that some people used the word “contract”. I am not a lawyer but I am under the impression that ED agreement is not really a contract, not in the sense that the school could/would sue you and recover damanges if you breach it. So students would have the freedom to breach without worrying about any legal consequence.</p>
<p>But I guess schools do have an arsenal in their disposal; to make the “binding” meaningful, they share the breach with their peers IF they deem the excuse invalid. I think chooing your own state flagship is a valid and genuine reason when one realizes he’s really better off to graduate debt free. But choosing a peer school over a difference of couple thousand dollars seems to be an obvious game one is playing. So you often can smell BS and tell if the person acts in good faith. If the info get passed along, it’s up to the schools that receive the info to decide what to do. If that other school thinks the breach reflects poorly on the character of the student and since character does count a lot in the admission decision, that other school may very well withdraw the acceptance. While peer schools generally compete for students, in this case, they may actually collaborate since it’s in their best interest to do so.</p>
<p>@vonlost - No worries – since you call Northwestern “NW” I was pretty sure you weren’t specifically involved with NU. ;-D </p>
<p>As I say, this discussion is largely academic since so far not one person here has posted that NU has failed to meet their demonstrated financial need, and I have never heard of anyone being “trapped” into attending a top university against their will (HAH!).</p>
<p>It doesn’t appear that NU is having any trouble attracting qualified students of all financial demographics to apply ED, as I’m sure they would if there was even a hint that they wouldn’t meet all family’s DEMONSTRATED financial needs. From everything I have heard, they are very serious about meeting 100% of all admitted students demonstrated need and certainly have done so for every student D knows.</p>
<p>Also, I think there are programs like Questbridge that bring in many lower income families ED, though I don’t know much about the program other than hearing it mentioned on cc.</p>
<p>Northwestern’s FA is highly unlikely to be less generous than its peer schools, save the tippy top schools.</p>
<p>One thing to note is that ED/EA schools like to honor each other’s policies. Most likely, if you apply ED to one school, other schools will consider it improper form/unethical for you to enroll at their institution. Northwestern might let you back out, but in most cases, no other peer school will let you enroll. The same would be true if you got in ED at other institution and wish to enroll at Northwestern. Public schools might not care though. Good luck!</p>