<p>I'm EDed to a university that I'm now having doubts about attending due to changes in my family/financial background.I know ED is binding, but has anyone broken the ED agreement? The consequences I've heard of vary from legal implications to having to pay a year's worth of tuition to being black listed by all US universities. None of the admissions officers are willing to address what actually happens if the agreement is broken.
Not saying that I will break the contract for sure, but what does ED imply and what are the consequences if it's broken?</p>
<p>If you break ED, about the worst thing is that no other school will accept you.</p>
<p>For most schools, you can break ED without consequences if you can’t afford to attend (Financial Aid reasons). One caveat there is if you go to another school just as expensive, if ED school finds out, then you might be considered to have an invalid reason to break ED (and loose your seat at the other school).</p>
<p>At this point in the year, what other choices do you have? Are you considering taking a gap year and reapplying/working for financial reasons?</p>
<p>
And how could that possibly happen? If you advise your ED school that some recent adverse event has made it financially unsupportable for you to attend, they aren’t going to launch an investigation to determine where else you decided to attend and what kind of financial aid you received from that school. They also aren’t going to sue you for a year’s tuition or anything else. They have better things to do, like opening up the waitlist and filling your spot in a New York minute. I’ve never seen a single post on CC about someone breaking an ED commitment and suffering an adverse consequence, and until I do, I won’t believe it happens.</p>
<p>Don’t know if you trust the Dean here.</p>
<p>“There is a group of highly competitive colleges that do share their admitted Early Decision applicant list with each other. But this happens only after the students have been accepted and have agreed to enroll.”</p>
<p>[Do</a> OTHER colleges know if you?ve applied Early Decision or Early Action elsewhere? - Ask The Dean](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/do-other-colleges-know-if-youve-applied-early-decision-or-early-action-elsewhere.htm]Do”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/dean/archives/do-other-colleges-know-if-youve-applied-early-decision-or-early-action-elsewhere.htm)</p>
<p>Seems odd “and have agreed to enroll”. Seems like they would include anyone admitted.</p>
<p>I have seen comments where some HS notes on the transcript if a student has applied ED and where. Then it is easy for another college to contact that school to find out if student was admitted and released from the ED commitment. Also, some students are not the smartest and a FB post or Tweet could be seen by one one of the schools and is followed up.</p>
<p>I was just pointing out a low probability event. Just in case it happens to Bannapeels, then he/she can’t complain he/she was not warned.</p>
<p>Note: I have never heard of anyone being sued. I think the most someone risks is having their admissions offer revoked.</p>
<p>Best plan is to try and get released from your ED commitment. If you can, then you have no worries. The worst thing that could happen is the schools says no. They are going to figure it out anyway (that you are not coming, not necessarily why) when you don’t enroll/matriculate.</p>
<p>An ED admission does not obligate you to attend. Contact the school and let them know that you cannot attend due to a financial reversal. Ask to be released from the agreement. Thank them for their time.</p>
<p>Are you an international student? Have they sent you the I-20 paperwork? If so, ask them If they want you to mail the paperwork back to them, or it you can just destroy it and save the postage.</p>
<p>What’s left out of the first post is more interesting than what’s in it. When you apply ED and are accepted, if you decide to enroll then you are supposed to withdraw all your other college applications. So I am interested in hearing just how it is that the OP has college alternatives several months after the ED decisions came out.</p>
<p>The remaining options might come from local public universities. The ED rules, even before the Common Application added the release language, have always been pretty loose regarding releasing a student to a public university, especially of a lower caliber.</p>
<p>^^^Or they could be acceptances from schools where the OP applied EA. I’m with MommaJ. I’m convinced that the talk you hear on college boards about ED legal action, “blacklisting” etc is just that, talk. My daughter broke an ED agreement. It was based solely on financial reasons. Our admissions officer encouraged us to appeal the FA package, which we did, but unfortunately the additional $$ they offered still wasn’t enough to make it feasible. We wrote a letter asking to be released from the agreement and that was that. We never even rec’d an offical letter releasing us from the agreement. So after spending a little too much time online I was a little hysterical about it…I called our Admissions counselor and asked point blank if there were any negative consequences, blacklists, etc. He actually laughed at me. He said he doesn’t know of a school that would take the time, effort and resources to ruin a kid’s chances at getting accepted to a school that works best for him/her and his/her family. He said he was really disappointed that it didn’t work out, but that “things happen for a reason” and any school that she ended up attending would be lucky to have her. Couldn’t have been nicer.</p>
<p>Son applied to 8 schools, one EDII and others RD, was accepted EDII. Upon accepting EDII he “withdrew applications” from other 7 schools. Much to his astonishment, three of the schools later sent acceptances. He was in a panic thinking it would ruin his EDII, he called the schools and they all told him to just decline admission. So I understand how someone could still have admissions after ED.</p>
<p>
And I have yet to see anybody dispute that. They give you an offer and FA package, if you decline that is fine.</p>
<p>It is a whole different ball of wax to accept the ED offer, keep all your other apps alive, and then in the spring decide where it is you really want to go. As reported in post #5, some colleges share a list to prevent this. While I don’t have any inside information to say I know they check, you can imply this happens from some school websites such as Penn
How would they know if you applied ED elsewhere unless there was some list sharing going on?</p>
<p>Believe me, I’m not advocating for breaking ED agreements. I think if a kid, and even more importantly his/her family, signs on to a school ED…they should do so with the best of intentions of attending the school if it’s financially feasible. And maybe the list sharing does happen…I don’t personally believe it, but who knows? Every college posts on their website that information “warning” about ED applications. And rightly so, since it definately shouldn’t be entered into lightly. Maybe I’m wrong, but I didn’t infer from the post that the OP was sitting on live applications just holding out to pick the choicest school. I interpreted it as he/she had intentions of honoring the committment until something financially “unpleasant” happened in the family which changed their ability to contribute to college expenses in the way they originally planned. It happens…and when it does, I’d hate for a kid to be afraid that a school will go out if their way to ruin their chances at other schools.</p>