Another way to look at this would be to provide other colleges information regarding the commitments already made by their applicants so that they aren’t wasting time evaluating a student that has already committed to another university. It might be as much of a yield protection issue for the RD schools as it is for the ED schools. A 90% yield rate for ED could indicate that if there are ED cheaters, they end up enrolling in their ED school anyway (due to being rejected in the RD round or deciding that the ED school is their best option. It’s also not fair to students that are playing by the rules to have to compete in the RD round with students that used their “ED silver bullet” and were accepted.
D18 didn’t do ED, so I’m not too familiar with the rules. However, my understanding was that ED does not restrict a student from applying EA or rolling admissions to their in-state public universities. At the very least, this gives the applicants a baseline cost to compare to the ED offer before the RD deadlines.
At any rate, if the schools aren’t releasing the information until after the admissions and financial aid decisions are made, and if they are only releasing information identifying who was accepted (no financial aid information for example), then I don’t see this being anti-trust.
In a discussion here at CC over 10 years ago, @MichaelNKat suggests that this scenario could potentially give rise to a claim on the part of the student:
Funny to look back through that discussion, long before the consent decree on the financial aid Overlap Group. (There are a few reported cases on the Overlap Group, including this 3rd Cir. decision for MIT, remanding for a full rule of reason analysis. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/005/5.F3d.658.92-1911.html (1993). After that, MIT also settled).
Something else troubles me about ED agreements in general. Increased chance of admission is the primary reason students choose ED and yet that is entirely speculative in the holistic context, an utter gamble, and would never be included as a term in the agreement. Perhaps that merely points to the insufficiency of consideration rendering the ED agreements unenforceable as contracts, but maybe that’s the whole point - if consideration isn’t sufficient enough for the ED agreements to be enforceable contracts, is it reasonable that the information sharing should occur and is it ethical that the ED agreements should exist at all? (I’m just thinking out loud here.)
What’s funny to me about this is that shopping for a better financial deal would equate to unethical behavior. I’m probably missing something, but it’s getting harder to see how information sharing to prevent competition on price wouldn’t be anticompetitive. It will definitely be interesting to watch.
I think it depends entirely on what point the sharing occurs. I have less issue personally if the sharing occurs after the student commits to the ED school as that is the point all other applications are to be withdrawn.
The ED contracts and the info waivers probably are legally valid (as a matter of contract law but not perhaps as an antitrust matter). I see offer, acceptance, consideration, reliance. And capacity if the parents sign.
The problem is that valid contracts don’t automatically self-enforce. The school has to act to enforce it if it wants it enforced. So while they probably are enforce-able (putting the antitrust issues aside for now), they are not practically/economically worth trying to enforce.
Expensive for Williams to take an ED cheater to court. Horrendous PR for Williams to haul a cheater kid and parents into court. Unclear what William’s actual damages are if they win – since Williams can call up a full payor from the thousands sitting on their wait list.
And now, if Williams tried to do any of this, any defense lawyer would throw an AT counter-claim into their response and ask for treble damages.
Doing the actual info sharing (and also admitting it publicly) was brain dead stupid for these schools to do. That’s a flashing red light to regulators. They may have gotten sound legal advice that the info sharing was legally permissible, but actually doing it is just dumb. Feels like the group-thinking academics who made the info sharing decision didn’t think through the practicalities. I guess that’s often what academics do…
Exactly. ED cheaters cost them nothing, and may even save them money if they replace a need-based ED cheater with a full payor.
Moreover, sharing potentially confidential information just bcos its easier for them, is not a really a winning argument for the colleges to be making.
If they share information after kids give them acceptances and another college goes heh this kid applied ED to us too. No one loses if offers get rescinded except for the cheater. Hard to take a moral high road on some things and turn a blind eye to this kind of cheating.
@northwesty I’m not seeing what consideration the school is giving to the student in exchange for the student giving up comparison of any other offers under the ED agreement. The school might open the app on a sooner timetable, but possible early “decisions” include no decision, deferral to RD. I don’t see the college promising or performing anything. But, it sounds like you have a different view. Thoughts?
not northwest, but clearly the school is ‘giving’ the ED applicant the benefit of an early read on their application and a possible hard decision (accept, reject) by mid-December.
Our D’s college university states on their admissions website that ED applicants compete within a much smaller pool of students and historically, their acceptance rate in ED has been higher than in RD. I don’t know how many other colleges publicly make that claim, but it is supported by evidence from our D’s college’s common data sets. That was clearly a benefit for us.
If two parties agree to a term in a contract that is illegal, the illegal aspect of that contract is not enforceable. But let’s wait for the DOJ to determine if the sharing of this information is legal.
Everyone should have a problem with Fretwell if she really is circulating names of students who back out of ED for financial reasons. That’s unethical . If she has no legal remedy, that’s too bad. Retribution does nothing for Amherst. If these colleges want to use ED, then they should live with occasional bad results.
What “potentially confidential information”? The information the applicant agreed could be shared? That’s no longer confidential information. Not to mention that in all likelihood in a substantial majority of cases – my guess is about 95% – the information being shared (essentially that so-and-so applied ED to a particular college and was admitted – is widely enough known to negate any claim that it really remained “confidential.” In a few cases, maybe, but in most, no.
I do wonder about the scope of the problem. How many people are really backing out of Amherst ED for financial reasons? People are generally thrilled beyond belief if they get into Amherst ED, and I believe it’s one of only a handful of colleges that commit to meet full need for international applicants. I would be surprised to learn that Amherst had any substantial number of people rejecting ED acceptances, much less people “cheating” by claiming financial issues when they really were shopping for something better. What’s so much better? I had assumed that Fretwell’s statement was a cautionary threat never actually carried out. I am surprised to learn that there’s enough volume to sustain some regular practice among these colleges.
Where on the ED Agreement does it say that admissions decisions will be shared? Where on the Common App’s privacy policy does it say admissions decisions will be shared?
Someone previously stated it is on the ED agreement that is signed by both student and parent.
On your first link above right below the student signature line:
“I have read and understand my rights and responsibilities under the Early Decision process. I also understand that with an Early Decision offer of admission, this
institution may share my name and my Early Decision Agreement with other institutions.”
“However, my understanding was that ED does not restrict a student from applying EA or rolling admissions to their in-state public universities. At the very least, this gives the applicants a baseline cost to compare to the ED offer before the RD deadlines.”
Technically, they can’t do that. Once they’re admitted ED, they have to withdraw applications from every school, EA or RD. It’s possible, maybe likely that the decisions come at the same time, so you can compare. But that’s not the point of ED, it’s to lock in the student and the family without having them being able to compare.