Yes, you can opt out of ed if the financial aid package isn’t good, after reaching out to financial aid.
Merit typically comes at colleges where you rank in the top 25%, 10%, 5% of their pool if they award merit (some don’t).
Yes you can be released from the ED school because of financial aid, but you only have one ED, so you shouldn’t just ‘give it a shot’, it should be your first choice AND you should have a good idea of what the finances will be. Talk to the financial aid department as they can tell you what they’ve been able to provide to others in your situation. They don’t want a lot of ED applicants who back out either, so they’ll usually be honest with you. Athletes get ‘pre reads’ all the time from CSS schools.
@twoinanddone thanks man, i’ll make sure to ask them
Honestly…with your financial considerations, I would,strong,yo suggest you NOT apply ED. You won’t be able to compare net costs amongst multiple schools…and really…that ED offer might not be the best one you would get with multiple acceptances and aid packages.
Why aren’t you applying regular decision…? Why?
Here’s a link to good article talking about impact of home equity on net price of schools:
http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances-a-case-study/
The lesson here is that there ARE schools that will meet your need and calculate that need in a way that makes sense for your family. You just have to do the legwork and run the NPCs for the schools you are considering.
If that link gets blocked, here’s the pertinent piece of the article (pell grant eligible with EFC=0, home equity ~800k; sampling of about 20 east coast schools):