<p>When you apply ED you are agreeing to a contract. If you don’t want to comply with the terms, then don’t enter into the contract. By applying ED, you agree to withdraw your other applications if you are accepted, and you also agree not to apply to any other schools ED.</p>
<p>When you apply ED, your guidance counselor and often your parents have to sign off on the ED agreement. Your GC will know if you are accepted to your ED school. At least at my sons’ high school, once a student receives an ED acceptance, the GC will no longer send out transcripts, mid-year grades, etc., in support of applications to any other schools. Most other schools will not consider an “incomplete” application, which includes those that do not include a mid-year grade report from the high school.</p>
<p>In addition, our GC will not support applications to other schools after an ED acceptance for any situation other than insufficient financial aid…and she has this discussion with the applicant and family before the ED application is submitted. While the GC certainly wants you to get into your favorite schools, it is the high school that she represents…and if she does not act with integrity, students from the high school applying to that college in the future may have a tough time getting in. She is not going to sacrifice others’ opportunities for one student’s desire to game the system.</p>
<p>It is a big decision to apply ED if you need financial aid. You don’t get to compare packages. And, if you do decide to withdraw from an ED acceptance, you surrender the chance to go to your first choice school–and some schools (not all) give more generous aid to RD applicants–so you might have been able to go to your first choice school if you had applied RD instead.</p>