<p>At the same time you submit an ED application you can also sumbit EA (assuming not SCEA) and RD applications. </p>
<p>When you get your ED acceptence you are supposed to withdraw your other applications … however, applicants applying for financial aid are given a little more time to review their financial package to see if that works … however this extra time will not be enough to be get your RD acceptances and compare the FA from these acceptences (other than some very early RD acceptences).</p>
<p>The consequences of withdrawing from an ED contract are not well publisized and many theories are thrown around on CC. Top schools certainly let students out of their ED contract … the scenario that makes the most sense to me are students who then head to cheaper state schools or other schools with merit scholarships. The scenario that isn’t as likely is to turn down a top school ED to compare other top schools in the normal time frame … first, if you don’t like the FA package from Brown then you’re not likely to like the FA package from Dartmouth or Bowdoin much better. Finally, it has been said that the top schools share lists of their ED accepts (they can not share lists of applicants but they can share accepted students) and that in general other schools will honor these lists and not accept kids who do not honor their ED contracts … to me it seems this is much more likely to occur with schools closely conected (the IVY and NESCAC schools for example) than schools that have no relationship with each other (IVY and a small LAC in CA for example).</p>