My daughter STRONGLY preferred Brown University (next best choice was Cornell). She had already spent time on both campuses but when it got to early fall of her senior year and she was seriously contemplating an ED application, we took another trip out to focus on those two universities. No, we are not rich - the trip was way over budget for us.
She LOVES Brown. We are, according to these schools, financially needy. We did our due diligence on the net price calculators for both schools and learned that while it would be tough, we could make it work. So she applied ED to Brown - she has very strong stats but facing the regular decision chances of about 8% acceptance was just not the best choice for her.
Yes, she got in ED. And the financial aid package is a little better than what we had seen on the net price calculator. So she is set. But since anyone can use the NPC and those estimates can be saved - if the student gets in ED and the real aid package is not as good as that NPC calculation, that is grounds for backing out of the ED agreement.
Looking at the ED acceptance stats for Brown this year, and incorporating what admissions has said about their desired total freshman class size, they have accepted 40% of their freshman class already. Our “best guess” calculation of the ED acceptance rate for unhooked applicants (where we include recruited athletes and legacies, where for legacies, we took an educated guess on numbers) – this unhooked acceptance rate this past December was about 14%. For us, comparing that 8% to 14% reveals a HUGE difference in acceptance rates - her chances nearly doubled going ED.