<p>I have a friend who wants to apply to a really expensive college (Darmouth is just one of them), and her parents have very little money, but grades and scores are only average, and she wants to get it, but we all keep persuading her not to apply ED as she'll be forced to go if she does get in and won't be able to pay for it. So, if you apply ED and the college cannot meet your expected need, will the college release you of your contract, or force you to attend even if you don't have the money?</p>
<p>So long as you can concretely prove that you cannot pay the expected contribution + whatever else, then they will release you (e.g. if the amount they expect you to pay is like outrageously high or you have other things, such as medical bills, etc. that they failed to include).</p>
<p>However, you can also ask them to review your financial aid package in terms of other factors. They’ll generally work with you, but if all else fails and you can’t pay the money, they will release you from the binding decision.</p>
<p>If it’s a Common App school, you don’t have to prove anything. Here are the instructions:
<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’s YOUR decision, not theirs. No school would (or could) force you to attend and then just expel you when you couldn’t pay the bill.</p>
<p>But like nluu said, talk to them. If they accept a financial aid student ED, they really, really want the student to attend.</p>
<p>One advantage to not applying ED is that you can often negotiate your financial aid package if you have better terms from a comparable school. And there is nothing to stop you from indicating in your application that this is your first choice and, were it not for the financial aid consideration, you would have applied ED.</p>
<p>That said, there is no reason not to call the Financial Aid office at the school you are thinking about EDing at to ask them what kind of package is typically offered to a student with your financial situation. Many of them are more than willing to talk.</p>
<p>I think the Credit Crisis has put this situation in flux. Two years ago, when student loans were plentiful and brokerage accounts full, an elite college could legitimately say “We don’t release applicants from ED unless there has been an extreme change in your family’s fiscal situation.” Today, many families have had extreme changes in their fiscal situations, and I think colleges would be foolish not to give applicants a “free pass” to withdraw their ED application. JMHO of course.</p>
<p>First, if she has only “average” grades and scores, she can apply ED to Dartmouth with little worry, sinc she’s unlikely to get in.</p>
<p>Second, remember that if a school “lets you out” of ED, it’s a final decision. You cannot wait until you get your other decisions and then figure that you really can afford your ED school after all. Once you’re released, you’re done, just as if you had been rejected.</p>
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<p>Also remember that it’s not the school’s decision, it’s the student’s decision to decline the ED FA offer.</p>
<p>Again, I do not claim to know much about this, but I would assume there should be some sort of validation that the student needs the financial aid. In other words, let us say according to the college aid criteria, the student has to bring in say $10,000 a year, with the remaining $45,000 a year coming from the college through grants, scholarships, etc. At that stage, I think that student cannot claim that “I want to be let out of ED as I was expecting a full ride even though I can afford the amount that the college wants me to pay”</p>
<p>In other words, my assumption is that if the college cannot meet the demonstrated financial need, then you may be able to get out of ED and not because you did not like the size of the aid package or it was less than what you were hoping for. Is that assumption correct? In other words, ED is not an opportunity for a candidate to game system but the candidate has an “out” in genuine circumstances. At least that is the way it should be.</p>
<p>“if the college cannot meet the demonstrated financial need” is the difference between schools that gap and schools the meet full need. No one would question a student’s declining the aid offer from a gapping school, but even at a school that meets full need, FAFSA and PROFILE don’t always capture a family’s true circumstances (e.g., bad parental decisions could result in heavier than average “life style” debt burdens that truly prevent fully funding the legitimate EFC). There’s just no way a school would somehow force (if it could) a student to attend, and then resort to expulsion because the EFC bill wasn’t paid.</p>
<p>See <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/strategy.html?_r=2[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/strategy.html?_r=2</a> for another take on this.</p>
<p>Dartmouth has considerable guidance on its financial aid web pages. The first thing for the OPs friend to do is read those pages and run the FA calculators. “Her parents have very little money” may or may not mean ‘demonstrated need’ will equal COA.</p>
<p>Note that Dartmouth calculates EFC to be the higher of either the Dartmouth or Federal computations. Also note that there is a student contribution in addition to the parental contribution.</p>
<p>Bottom Line: There’s a big difference between “I’m opting out of the ED contract because there is simply no way my family and I can pay the EFC, even with loans” and “No I didn’t really look at Dartmouth’s FA information … I just assumed Dartmouth would pick up anything over what my parents say they can pay.”</p>
<p>The Elephant in the Room: Generally speaking, parents with very little money are novices with regard to college financial aid practices. The OPs friend is wise to get outside counsel on this … the best counsel available is probably the Dartmouth Financial Aid department.</p>