<p>If I, say, applied ED and then had second thoughts?</p>
<p>lol. I doubt it. why are you having second thoughts?</p>
<p>well it hasn't got anything to do with financial hardship.</p>
<p>Call them. Some colleges allow you to back out of ED this early. They may understand. Just say it's for financial reasons becaue you want to compare aid and mert scholarship offers. A college cannot hold it against you to be worried about costs. They probably havn't started reviewing apps yet, so it may not be too late. Better now than later.</p>
<p>If you A) get in ED, and B) don't plan to attend college at all that year (want to take a year off), basically all colleges will allow that no matter what, and some will even allow a 2nd year.</p>
<p>If you A) get in ED, and B) want to be considered only for RD, you can call up and ask for that, i'm sure.</p>
<p>well I think legally if you sign it and you're not 18 yet your signature isn't even binding.</p>
<p>not that I'm encouraging that or anything, just saying</p>
<p>The last two posters are wrong. Well you can defer a year after getting in ED, but still have to go the year after that. If you get in ED, you have to go. You can back out, technically, but you will probably not get into any peer institutions RD, hell I doubt you will get into any of the top 100 colleges in the US. You will be black listed. Call them now and tell them you want to change your application from ED to RD if you want to change it. Do it now before they review it. I would assume Columbia will not have a problem moving your application before they make a decision. If you ask in December, it will be too late. If you back out of ED after they admit you, almost everyone from your school for some number of years will be rejeted from Columbia. That is not fair to the other students. If you back out after an acceptance, then you are finnished. If you back out now, they may not mind. It may hurt your chances if you were boarderline to start, by applying RD, but only a little if at all.</p>
<p>
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well I think legally if you sign it and you're not 18 yet your signature isn't even binding.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Even if it's a valid, binding contract, it's absolutely never going to be enforced. You think any college is going to go court to get an injunction to force you to enroll at their college? Imagine the public relations nightmare that would be.</p>
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f you back out of ED after they admit you, almost everyone from your school for some number of years will be rejeted from Columbia. That is not fair to the other students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow, what a crock. Like Columbia will never take another kid from Andover or Choate if some punk there decides to bail on his ED acceptance.</p>
<p>Actually, Columbia needs a way to enforce the ED policy. Colleges threaten highschools with the prospect of harming future admisions. It keeps highschools in line, and makes schools make sure the studnet understands s/he has to go if s/he gets in ED. It happened to my school when a kid decided to not go to (I think) Yale ED. We sent kids to Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and other peer institutions, but not Yale for several years. Also, Columbia will not force you to go if you get in ED, but will probably tell every other Ivy and top colleges that you turned down your ED agreement. Those schools will probably take back your admission as well. They would expect Columbia to do the same. The underlying concept of ED is you have to go. If massive amounts of applicants bail on ED because they have second thoughts (and who never ever has second thoughts at 18) then it defeats the whole purpose. The only way you can legitly bail out of ED is for financial reasons. Other than that, you have to go or else some bad stuff may happen. Also, think about it. You cannot apply ED two places because if you get in both places, you have to go to both colleges. If the two colleges find out what you have tried to do, both will reject you outright. These schools have enough qualified applicants that they will not be losing much rejecting you. If you get in Columbia ED, what is stopping them from telling all the other Ivys and top colleges that you are theirs, and that the other schools should not admit you? Columbia will never take you to court, but they can use behind the scenes stuff that will keep you out of top schools. This is why if you are having second thoughts, you should call Columbia and ask to change your application from ED to RD soon. They havn't made any decisions, so they will probably have no objections.</p>
<p>Schools don't talk to other schools about admissions, financial aid offers, ED, or anything like that. There were major lawsuits over collusion in the 1980s and colleges don't work like that anymore. There is also no faster way to ensure that Columbia gets sued - an institution with a lot of money and obvious target for lawsuits - than by having them work "behind the scenes" to ensure you don't get into collges.</p>
<p>They absolutely will not "penalize" your high school. The observations you make about your high school are hysteria and speculation, they are not evidence and certainly not proof.</p>
<p>I mean, don't apply ED unless you mean to go, but it's not the end of the world. Venkater is just fearmongering here.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Schools don't talk to other schools about admissions, financial aid offers, ED, or anything like that. There were major lawsuits over collusion in the 1980s and colleges don't work like that anymore. There is also no faster way to ensure that Columbia gets sued - an institution with a lot of money and obvious target for lawsuits - than by having them work "behind the scenes" to ensure you don't get into collges.</p>
<p>They absolutely will not "penalize" your high school. The observations you make about your high school are hysteria and speculation, they are not evidence and certainly not proof.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Absolutely true, and great point about the collusion scandals.</p>
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Venkater is just fearmongering here.
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</p>
<p>I think he's just grossly misinformed. He's posted in two different threads that SEAS will look down on you for not taking the Physics SAT2 simply because you took physics in high school.</p>
<p>interresting discussion....</p>
<p>actually, venkater isn't as wrong as you make him out to be. When i applied ED to columbia, my school made me (and my parents) sign an agreement that I would enroll in columbia if I got in and my college counselor made it clear that colleges prefer schools whose students are honest about their ED decisions. Similarly, my school also made those applying to EA schools sign the same form saying that they are only applying to that school despite it being EA and that they would enroll....apparently this also gave my school more credibility with colleges. </p>
<p>As you might assume, it would be alot easier for my HS to screw me over if i decided to break the contract....the least of which being that my college councelor would tell all the other schools i apply to regular decision that I am a lier etc etc. and could probably go as far as not letting me graduate...which may have been written in the paper i signed...i dont think i even read it and if i had i certainly dont remember what it said four years later.</p>
<p>There is only one way to test this. Apply to Columbia ED and do not enroll when you get in. See if you get into any other Ivy League school. I would assume if you can get into Columbia you have a shot at the other 7. </p>
<p>What is the point of ED if people can back out whenever they want? Why don't people abuse ED for their own personal gain? Colleges say on their ED agreement that you will not apply any where else if you get in and you will pull all applications in risk of losing your admission. How can they check this if they do not talk to each other in some way? Your school cannot stop you from sending transcripts to 10 colleges before November 1 if you are applying ED to one, and cannot stop you from finnishing all of your applications before you find out if you get into a college ED. How can your highschool force you to pull all applications to other schools if you get into your ED school? </p>
<p>Maybe i am misinformed, but the above poster put it a new way. His school forces you to go if you get in ED or you do not graduate. That adds to a school's credibility. For private highschools, i would assume a lot of their prestige comes from where the students go to college. If out of a class of 100, 25 go to Ivys, and annother 25 go to other top schools, the private school will gain a very good name. To keep that good name, schools have to have to maintain high numbers of graduates going to top colleges and maintain good relationships with those colleges. What can sour those relationships is students not living up to the ED agreement they made with colleges. </p>
<p>"I think he's just grossly misinformed. He's posted in two different threads that SEAS will look down on you for not taking the Physics SAT2 simply because you took physics in high school."
No, I posted that if you took AP Physics junior year or before in higschool, it may look strange that you did not take the physics SATII. It just seems to me that if you took that class and did well, it makes sense that if you have an SATII requirement, to take the physics test. Think of it like not reporting your AP scores on your application. They do not play into your admissions, but if you do not report them, it may look like you did not do well.</p>
<p>Quote from Parent's forum
"Columbia University has publicly said what they do. They release 1 or 2 ED acceptees a year if 1) they can't make the finances work; and 2) ONLY to non-competing schools (they specifically said lower cost state schools.) They share data on acceptances with other members of the COFHE consortium (meaning all Ivies, virtually all prestige LACs, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, etc.)</p>
<p>I expect the other COFHE schools do the same. As for the rest, I've never seen any hard information."</p>
<p>Well, this discussion has strayed from my original question (I would be calling before I heard about acceptance). </p>
<p>Anyways, I have decided not to request a defferal. Thanks for your comments guys.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"I think he's just grossly misinformed. He's posted in two different threads that SEAS will look down on you for not taking the Physics SAT2 simply because you took physics in high school."
No, I posted that if you took AP Physics junior year or before in higschool, it may look strange that you did not take the physics SATII. It just seems to me that if you took that class and did well, it makes sense that if you have an SATII requirement, to take the physics test. Think of it like not reporting your AP scores on your application. They do not play into your admissions, but if you do not report them, it may look like you did not do well.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, it doesn't look strange. Most people who get into CU have done well in most classes that they have taken in high school. They take a couple of SAT2s because that's all that's required. They don't run around taking more SAT2s than necessary simply because there's some inference that adcoms think you would have done poorly if you had taken it.</p>
<p>SEAS requires you to take either SAT2s in chem or physics. If you take both AP chem and AP phys junior year and get A's in both, you need only take one of the two SAT2s. There's no inference that it "looks strange" if you only take one, as you seem to suggest. Sure, it's nice if you get 800s in both, but you're absolutely fine if you get an 800 in one and don't take the other.</p>
<p>Just face it --- what "just seems to make sense to you" is incorrect in theory and incorrect in practice.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
"Columbia University has publicly said what they do. They release 1 or 2 ED acceptees a year if 1) they can't make the finances work; and 2) ONLY to non-competing schools (they specifically said lower cost state schools.) They share data on acceptances with other members of the COFHE consortium (meaning all Ivies, virtually all prestige LACs, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, etc.)</p>
<p>I expect the other COFHE schools do the same. As for the rest, I've never seen any hard information."
[/QUOTE]
i'd sure like to see a cite about that. hell, i'm on the ARC, I should be able to ask a direct question about this. Lemme inquire. Any further discussion would kinda just be an ego contest at this point.</p>
<p>-D</p>
<p>I wanted to see what the parents would have to say. They seem more level headed than Columbia2002</p>