True, but like another poster has said, it is the responsibility of the family to know the financial risks and know what they are committing to. You cannot just assume you are getting XX in financial aid. Especially for ED1 now, NU has upped their commitment by offering those financial pre-reads. A couple of folks on this board took advantage of it.
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In my experience, they did accurately predict the cost. I canât speak for everyone, but my sense is that NE is more generous on need. If your financial prediction comes out 25k in aid, you should not be holding out for more in merit aid. Even if they gave you 20k, that would get absorbed into your estimated financial contribution. You would still end up with 25k.
We are going to have to agree to disagree on what is ethical. I donât think anyone should apply ED if they donât qualify for financial aid and they are banking on a big merit award.
I do understand that not everyone has all the information or know what resources are available. Our sonâs school made us also sign an agreement with them that we had done our due diligence, could afford the cost, and understood it was a binding agreement. They donât want their students violating these contracts whether they are legally binding or not. It looks bad and can affect future students who want to apply to these schools.
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I know, sorry if I was unclear
Yes, thatâs the essence of it. So to me, it crosses an ethical line if the student and family enter into an ED agreement, with the intent all along to âcompare the COA at each schoolâ (quoting a poster above) and then make a decision based on which school offers the most attractive financial package.
Of course if the school offers a financial package that isnât affordable, or isnât what would have been expected given the pre-read or previously estimated NPC, I would have no problem with the family breaking that agreement.
Even if the family was hoping for merit (as long as they can reasonably expect a certain amount of merit), but the financial package doesnât hit the budget they reasonably hoped for, I wouldnât necessarily blame that family for breaking the agreement⊠as long as they are sincerely trying to make financials work for the ED school that made them an offer.
What makes me uncomfortable is intent to shop around for a better deal.
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While I agree that it is unethical to decline for reasons not related to finances, if we are going to start using the word unethical, I think we have to acknowledge that we are not mind readers and do not know why another family is making the decisions it is making.
ED seems to work as intended because the yield rates for ED everywhere are, while not 100%, very high. Because, again, it would foolish to ED if you do not believe you will be able to attend
If it is ethical for a college to defer 60% or 70% or more of its ED applicants, and call that an early decision, it seems perfectly ethical for a family to make the commitment to give an answer within a week or two of receiving the financial aid packageâŠbut that answer might be âno, this is not affordable for us.â
When discussing ethics, it is always important to look at who has the information and who has the power and who has the sophistication. In this case, all of the cards are in the hands of the college. I would say thereâs a very high standard for saying that an individual or families actions are unethical in this case. When the college provides full information, a family can make a commitment to which they can be ethically bound. Without that information, it is still just theoretical.
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YesâŠI agree! And you really shouldnât be able to comparison shop because most schools will not be releasing decisions until after your response to the ED school is due. There are some cases where an EA might come in during that narrow window between the ED acceptance and aid package and when your response is dueâŠbut that is going to be rare.
ED1 is less likely to overlap with other offers for comparison shopping, just because itâs so early, but ED2 decision dates might overlap with lots of other decisions.
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True! I would be curious to see if there are more people backing out of ED2 agreements. Doubt any colleges are providing that data, though!
I have a friend that openly admitted to me they did this with their D23 for a private T50 university in the Northeast. She applied EDII because it would be close to the acceptances for the public universities in their state (FL). The EDII universityâs NPC has indicated an amount they refuse to pay, but theyâre hoping for merit money. If she is admitted but doesnât get the merit money they seek, they plan to back out of the EDII agreement. When I questioned this approach, she said she feels no guilt because âthe system is rigged and Iâm simply playing the game they created.â She said they are within their right to back out due to financial reasons, even though their financial reasons are just about merit money (which is difficult to predict anywhere) and not financial aid. She is hoping her D will receive merit money from other universities that they can use on an appeal. Thatâs part of the EDII strategy. Like other posters have indicated, I find this unethical, but itâs their choice.
She also applied EA to Northeastern but was deferred.
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When this conversation started, I think there was some miscommunication around some terminology. Thatâs where the ethical conversation came into play. So my comments are not about a person, but rather the issue.
As far as what the college does with deferments, thatâs a tough call. Would it be more ethical to admit every qualified ED applicant and leave little room for those who could not apply that way? Or just deny a bunch of ED applicants outright when they may be stronger candidates than those who applied RD?
I think applying ED should be a serious decision. There should be a good faith effort to understand the financial picture and not throw out an application with deliberate disregard to resources to help figure it out. I wish the pre-read had been more widely known because it was very helpful. I agree the NPC should be accurate to the extent that it is filled out completely and accurately (the pre-read required documents).
My biggest argument is that people should apply in good faith. I believe there is an ethical obligation to use the resources available and make sure you are comfortable committing to the number you get. It is a binding agreement and if the school has told you what they predict your aid package will be, it would be dishonest to apply ED if you are already thinking you will back out of you donât get more.
ED works as long as people act in good faith. If people are disingenous because they know the acceptance rate is higher, and they want to roll the dice for more money, I do think thatâs unethical. I have been on this board for a while, and I have seen people make the agonizing decision not to let their child apply ED because they couldnât commit to the financial package according to the pre-read or NPC.
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I hope their daughter is a rock star because those Florida schools are getting competitive. I have some shocked students. But even if the acceptance rates are close, it doesnât mean acceptance profiles are the same.
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My opinion is that a lot of universities over-defer. I have no problem deferring candidates you really and truly need more information about or wish to consider in the RD pool. But I really donât buy that for these highly selective universities deferring 60%, 70%+ of early candidatesâŠand I am including the extremely selective ones that do not have / arenât trying to pressure them into ED2. Harvard and Yale are a good comparison because they both only have REA and likely have similar pools⊠Harvard defers a lot, Yale defers few. Are Yaleâs AOâs just more prescient? LOL
I, too, believe people should act in good faith. In this and in everything.
However, I believe that this board is not representative of the families of applicants as a whole. Many are not able to make use of these resources. And the resources themselves are uneven and often wholly inadequate. Even accurate and up-to-date NPCs donât work for many situations.
Even in my straightforward case (no business, married, no divorces), I got two different estimates $20K apart for the SAME school with their two different NPCs.
The NPC is not mentioned on the ED agreement, so many families wouldnât even know to go looking for it.
The CDS is also a resourceâŠif merit seems likely, though not guaranteed, you could be basing your decision on that.
Why would NU even need to offer the pre-read if NPCs are accurate? Again, kudos to NU for offering this pre-readâŠwe are on the NU forum but this conversation has been more wide-ranging. A full pre-read, like athletes get, that includes predicted merit if available, would truly provide families the information they need to make a commitment. But this would be a bigger commitment of resources than most colleges could manage. They could, at least, update and improve their NPCs.
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I think that this is one reason why NU has now started the ED pre-reads for FA. If a family that needs aid is really interested in NU and their pre-read shows that NU will provide enough aid, then a family can allow their kid to apply ED. This is the first time I have heard of them doing it andI think it is great as it makes it more equitable.
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i just switched to EDII! 
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The NPC is entirely self-reported. The pre-read required us to submit all the documentation the CSS used. People can make honest mistakes on the NPC.
I agree, good faith means working with what you know. Completely different than disregarding information because you want the advantage of ED admissions rate knowing you wonât commit unless itâs more than what you were told. If the school does not come through with what the applicant genuinely believed would be the aid package, then backing out is understandable. Genuine cannot mean, âmy kid gets really good grades so I am sure we will get more than what the school indicated.â
The ED agreement probably should point out the NPC, but it does say it is a binding decision. You need a parentâs signature and a school counselorâs. I think people should take binding agreements they put their signature on seriously. Even if they are not legally enforceable.
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My sense in watching this board for a few years now is that the NU NPC is pretty accurate as folks have reported results. This is so long as you do not own a business or are not divorced and that is stated. Perhaps that is why they are offering the pre-reads, to better include folks with more complicated financials. Also, if they had the pre-read when my kids were applying, we might have felt more comfortable letting them apply ED (if that was their interest, which it was not) bc I would have known that staff had specifically looked at my particular financials directly.
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We would NEVER have let our son apply ED otherwise. We are very grateful both for the pre-read and the outcome.
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I wish now that we had run the NPC for comparison. We did it for a lot of schools when S21 was applying, and he got no financial aid (accurate!). We assumed it would be the same for S23 so we didnât bother. Then they offered the Pre-read and we were shocked.
I think given the yield rates on ED, and the fact that colleges seem to like having ED, the number of families, truly acting in bad faith is not enough to have an impact. I also think that you would be hurting your own child more than anyone else if you did this. The end result would be getting into a college that you canât go to.
As far as the language saying that it is binding, yes, it does, but it also says you can be released and decline if you are unable to attend for financial reasons.
Yes, I fully agree that offering the pre-read is a positive step and applaud it. It is far more inclusive than simply having a calculator that many people may not really understand how to use.
As I have said before, I do believe that NU is taking many positive steps to back up their rise in prestige.
I hope that the measures they are taking will enable them to fix the housing shortage and stay on course.