Is ED the right decision if I'm worried about money but Penn is still my first choice?

I’m interested in Wharton… is it worth going undergrad to Upenn for Wharton (considering the costs)? I know it’s not a guarantee, but if Wharton is worth the cost, then I can potentially foresee myself doing ED (despite the debt). It’s either I apply ED to Upenn or I apply single choice early action to HYPS etc. Which option would be better?

My fifth child applied to Penn ED. We are medium-high need. EFC from FAFSA is very low, but I’m divorced. But after Profile, my S still got an excellent package, comparable to Northwestern and Williams, where my other kids went–actually a bit better, since Penn has a no-student-loan policy.

Before my fifth child, I listened to the advice of not applying ED. I found that actually for medium-high need (and high need) folks, ED is a great option. I wish we’d done it earlier.

You are allowed to opt out for financial reasons, if the package is impossible financially. For us that didn’t happen at all. But if the package were to be impossible, you can opt out, and you still have time to apply RD to other schools.

Obviously, if you have no expectation of financial aid - the NPC can be misleading but it is a good rule of thumb for a straightforward financial situation - then miracles won’t happen and you won’t get significant financial aid at Penn. OP, even with the $200K it’s possible you will get some aid, especially with 4 children; it depends on your family’s circumstances. But it may not be the aid you are looking for. However, it’s unlikely you will get different purely need-based aid anywhere else either.

What people are talking about when they say apply RD is not the pure financial need offers that schools like Penn offer, but merit-need scholarships that might be offered. This may be best for the OP. Merit-need is need that takes merit into account. Many non-Ivies, many excellent colleges, have such awards. That’s where you may find you can compare/contrast offers. (Also pure merit,of course).

For instance, my D who got into Northwestern was a National Merit Finalist, and could have gone to some schools full ride. This would be a pure merit. My older S was awarded several merit-need scholarships from LACs that wanted him, and he ended up with full tuition-plus, although the NPC indicated less would be offered. It depends how much they want you. This is where RD and comparing/contrasting comes in.

That said, Penn ED can certainly be a good decision if you are high/medium-high need. It worked for my son.

@tt8082 you can break out of the ED contract at Penn if the financial aid Penn gives you is less than what you have indicated that you need in your application. So you could apply to Penn without having to commit to it if the FA is not what you need. Also while your parents make good money, 200k is not huge especially when they have 4 kids to bring up and put through college. I think you would still qualify for aid.

You will get the same amount of FA from Penn no matter of RD/ED. They will apply the same formula. By ED, you forfeit the chance of comparing FA with other schools, and the potential benefit of bargaining.

Wharton is worth applying ED for. If you can’t afford it, you can back out. You may not be able to compare costs, but Wharton is probably worth not comparing them if the number you receive from Penn makes it possible for you to attend.

I’ve heard that Wharton is worth the cost, no matter if I get aid or not. Is this true? I am willing to sacrifice and take on the costs if it means that I will have an excellent career in the long run. Looking at the stats, it’s really hard not to do ED if my goal is Wharton. However, I don’t know the breakdown by major/school applying to.

I don’t think that’s universally true. Penn generally has pretty good financial aid. If your family circumstances are such that you and your parents genuinely can’t afford the net cost even after aid, then you need to ask for a release from ED and look at other options. As always, whether you have an excellent career depends more on you and what you do than on where you go to school.

I only meant that needing to compare costs among schools is really only necessary when you are comparing comparable schools. Wharton is so far out there that if it was a little stretch it’s probably worth doing. But preventing your siblings from going to college, no it’s probably not worth that.

Wharton is great, but no school is worth ANY cost.

First off you would need to figure out where you would get the money – as a student you are limited as to what you can borrow (I think $5,500 freshman year) and your parents would have to agree to sign for anything above that. Are they willing to do that? From what you say in other posts your parents make $200k and won’t help you pay for college – what makes you think they will guarantee all this debt for you? Have you asked them? It is unlikely that you will get a ton of need based aid at your parent’s income level.

Second if you do take out a tremendous amount of debt to fund Wharton the debt payments over the next decade or more would tie your hands and limit your future choices. For example you might not be able to take that lower paying job that offers a fantastic experience, you may not be able to consider grad school, etc.

If your parents truly won’t help you out for college or are not willing/able to pay what the NPC indicates the cost will be, then you should spend more of your time seeking out schools that have great guaranteed merit aid (ex. UAlabama, Temple to name a couple) so you will be sure to have a couple of affordable options in the end.

If your parents are not going to help you with college costs and you get no need based money from Penn, it really doesn’t matter if Wharton is worth $70,000 a year or not. You cannot take out loans for that amount of money. Your parents MIGHT be able to take out such loans but that would be inadvisable.

If your parents offer to help out with $20,000 a year, you would still need to come up with an additional $50,000 A YEAR.

Do go ahead and apply to Penn but start figuring out how much your parents are going to give you every year and find great schools you will be happy attending and you can afford with merit money so you will have options when the time comes.

I was in the same situation as you, financially and interest-wise. Go with RD!! It may lower your chances, but focus on improving other parts of your application! There are other amazing colleges out there too, so you don’t want to be committed to one and be unable to pay for it even if it is your top choice. I thought I wouldn’t get in by doing RD but I will be attending Penn this fall so it works out!

@tt8082

Here’s my advice, take it as you see fit. It is June. Penn’s ED is Nov. 1. So, what to do in the meantime?

  1. Relax a little bit. Prepare your application as if you were going to apply to Wharton ED. Getting an early start is good and worst case scenario is you send it in RD a few weeks later.

  2. Meanwhile, agressively explore your options. Without knowing your stats, state residence etc., it’s impossible to say (and it’s hard even if I did know your stats) but assuming you are a high-stat student aggressively interested in business I would suggest you deep dive into lower-cost, high quality business programs. If you were, for instance, a CA or Mich or Texas or VA (or a number of other states) resident, it would not make much sense to go deep in debt and forgo Cal/UCLA or UMich or UVa undergrad for Penn - ESP if you are thinking MBA. And the cost difference, assuming very little need aid, could be quite significant.

Look at stats for places that give good/decent aid for a student with your stats. There are a lot of threads on them in CC. See if you could imagine attending one of them even if you got into Penn/Wharton.

Also, if you really think you will get little to no aid, you might want to look at private scholarships. (My kid, now a rising soph, just learned they got a 5k private scholarship on top of their merit aid for next year. Since we are full pay, all scholarship and merit money is pure profit… well, pure “non-debt.” One of our agreements with our kid was they promised to be aggressive in chasing scholarships. So far so good.) One hint, go after bigger money scholarships. They all take the same amount of time (generally) to apply to.

Then, in Sept, take a deep breath, have another money conversation with your parents, look at your list and decide if Penn ED makes sense (and if you even have a way of financing it. If your parents or someone else won’t contribute a fair bit, you likely can’t borrow the kind of money it would take anway.) Or you might want to use an ED application on a school that is more likely to give you more money (or on one, like Columbia, that also allows you to apply to state schools at the same time as ED. I don’t recall if Penn does that.)

But my suggestion to every rising senior, use your summer to do as much deep college research as you can. You are about to spend 4 years of your life, 10s to 100s of thousands of yours or your parents money (and in your case, perhaps locking yourself into years of monthly debt payments.) Esp since you are considering grad school, being a “Wharton Undergraduate Grad” will usually mean much less than being a “XXXX Masters or Phd or MD” grad.

Good that you are considering this early. Work on your common app and Penn applications this summer regardless. Good luck!

“Btw I just found out they make closer to 200k combined”

$200,000 salary, minus taxes and FICA and Medicare, plus if they are putting 10% into a 401k (which is quite important to do), they might be left with a bit over $100,000 take home, let’s say $120,000. If they live frugally on $60,000 per year, assuming that the mortgage is already paid off, that leaves $60,000 left to pay for universities. With 4 kids in university at once, that is $15,000 per student. This may be optimistic for several reasons.

If you want to go to medical school, you should avoid debt altogether if you possibly can, and DEFINITELY if it is possible at all don’t take out any more debt than the $5,500/6,500/7,500/7,500 limit that a student can take out without a co-signer.

Can you do U.Penn for no more than $20,000? I doubt it. Apply EA or RD, but don’t count on it. Can you attend a very good university for no more than $20,000 per year, do well there, and then apply to top schools for medical school? If you are a strong enough student to have any chance to get into U.Penn, Yes.

@CaliDad2020 I’ve already started my common app!

Also, I live in Nevada and UNLV/UNR (literally the only two schools that aren’t really low) are definitely not on my list at all…

I’m considering USC, UNC, lower UCs where I can get merit scholarships, and schools with Stamps Scholarship… my parents will enter their financial information into the NPC for Upenn, with updated numbers, soon… so I should know an estimate before I make the decision to apply to Upenn

Update: I input all recent information into the NPC, well my parents input the information I just clicked calculate lol. I won’t give the specific number, but the total net price per year was calculated to be under 10k… does anyone know if NPC for UPenn is accurate or at least in the same range? If so, I think Penn is definitely an option for me and it might make sense to apply ED.

Again, NPC is not close to accurate, and Penn is not bound by it. Do not apply ED if you expect more FA.

If it helps, we just received my daughter’s aid yesterday for senior year. On about $110k income, she received a grant of just over $40K, basically covering tuition. Housing, food, books etc. are on us.

I found the NPC to be very close. We received more grant money from Upenn then the NPC estimated. If you are comfortable with the result of the NPC, and you really want to go to Upenn, then apply ED. It increases your odds of admission. If the award does not meet the NPC, you can get out of commitment for financial reasons. Make sure to apply to some non binding early action or rolling schools that will work as a backup.

Agree with @BigPapiofthree . My S applied ED and received a very generous need-based grant. He is going to Penn for much cheaper than our in-state university.

He was prepared to go elsewhere if Penn was not able to meet his needs, and had already applied non-binding early action for some schools, and would have applied regular decision to others. You are permitted to withdraw from ED if the financial piece doesn’t meet your needs.

The only caveat is that the NPC can be tricky to fill out and doesn’t always take into account financial pieces that would be reflected in the Profile application (what you have to do in addition to FAFSA). So if your parents’ finances are more complex - eg they have large/complex investments, holdings, properties etc - then the NPC may not reflect this.

Hi, update, my parents filled out FAFSA and my EFC is around 15k.

Does this change opinions on if I should apply ED? I think I might be able to get a reasonable financial aid package from Penn and the admissions boost would be more evident than an EA college.

@tt8082 Is a 15k EFC manageable given your family finances? I would say do Penn ED and see if they meet your financial aid. If not, then break the contract and apply to places RD. HYPS does not really give a boost for SCEA vs RD, but Penn definitely does give a boost ED.