<p>^ because this has all gotten convoluted. </p>
<p>Eg, a few posts ago they were going to cal Cornell tomorrow. Now OP says “I never said I would turn down Cornells offer without their FA.” We’re trying to piece this together.</p>
<p>If you took responsibility for your actions, you’d attend Cornell if they are affordable. Because you signed the binding ED agreement saying that you would.</p>
<p>@MidwestDad3, yep, kids change their minds all the time, but actions and decisions have consequences. Consequences don’t go away just because it was a kid deciding.</p>
<p>I disagree that turning down Cornell without knowing FA is a smart idea.</p>
<p>youre making so many assumptions. Who says contacting Cornell means declining their offer?</p>
<p>You’re making so many assumptions. Who says contacting Cornell means declining their offer?</p>
<p>We only know what you do say.
No idea what you plan to say to them, but the whole focus here was getting out of ED. </p>
<p>“If you took responsibility for your actions, you’d attend Cornell if they are affordable.” Who said I wouldnt? </p>
<p>“We only know what you do say.” That’s true. Things will be less convoluted if you take the things I say purely as they are.</p>
<p>Ok, now it gets even more difficult to understand your intentions. On the other thread, there was near universal agreement in recommending you change the Cornell to RD. You went ahead and did what you wished. You will do the same now. Are you saying no further discussion can be productive?</p>
<p>What this thread is for is providing options I haven’t thought of. I will access them all and make the final decision.</p>
<p>Purple Titan, I get your point about responsibility. But I wasn’t suggesting that he “turn down” Cornell. I was only suggesting that he contact them to see if there is a way out of this. How about a governor who runs for President halfway through her term? Or a football coach who leaves before his contract is up? OP did what he was permitted to do under the rules of Chicago and Cornell. They will tell him whether he will be able to do this or not. I think everything else is just noise.</p>
<p>Besides, this thread is getting way too much publicity. It’d be better to continue this in private message.</p>
<p>There would be less confusion that way.</p>
<p>Can anyone tell me what bill in Congress OP was talking about?</p>
<p>Actually, for that matter, from now on don’t comment on this thread, pm me.</p>
<p>I will not respond to any more posts on this thread.</p>
<p>This is a confusing statement.
If you applied ED to your 2nd choice school, and EA to your 1st choice school, and we’re admitted to both, you only have options if the ED school is too expensive.
Not really a broad set of options, and surely before you applied ED you read all the cautions, so it should have already occurred to you that you were bound to your ED school unless the money didn’t work.</p>
<p>Just some comments on the alma mater. None of this matters to OP, I’m just responding to what was posted FWIW.</p>
<p>I lived in both Ithaca and Chicago. They were very different environments, but I liked them both. But I think I did them in the "better"order.</p>
<p>It is not inevitably obvious, IMO, that Chicago is the better location for college. It’s a matter of opinion, not fact.
I was working, with a real job, when I lived in Chicago. I’m not sure I would have liked it as much on a student’s budget. U Chicago is in a not great part of the city, and the UC students I met there didn’t really tend to leave Hyde Park that much. Cities are expensive and are not geared to a student’s budget. My D2 left Manhattan to go to Ithaca and preferred life as a student in Ithaca. Because it’s a college town in a beautiful setting geared to college students. More on point, here’s an old post by JHS:
“Chicago vs. Ithaca looks different to different people. I had a cousin who was an undergraduate at Chicago and a grad student at Cornell. He was from a small town in the Midwest, very outdoors-oriented, and he never felt comfortable in Chicago. He thought Ithaca was heaven on earth, and he had to be pried out of there with a crowbar.”</p>
<p>.Reasonable people may differ on location preference, of course. But these schools have not moved over the last year.</p>
<p>Ithaca area does not have Fermi lab, true, yet my classmates who deserved it worked at labs in and around campus and gained admission to top physics grad programs. And it offers breadth of branch-out opportunities due to the presence of its engineering school.</p>
<p>Regarding Cornell’s endowment, some recognition should be given to its land grant status. The statutory colleges receive substantial funding from the state,
from a June 2008 article:</p>
<p>“The yearly check from Albany functions as a de facto endowment for the statutory colleges, funding professor salaries, student services, and research initiatives. Last year, Cornell received $175 MM in state support. That’s the functional equivalent of a $3.5 billion endowment.”</p>
<p>@Sorool, trying to invoke “Plausible deniability” really will not fool the admissions committee. It may be thrilling in a Tom Clancy novel, but you really are not fooling anyone with this “Oh, I didn’t know how the materials subsidy would turn out in the Congressional action,” [dramatic pause; hand to forehead], “Dear me!!!” I hate to burst your bubble, but it likely will fool no one.</p>
<p>I get that you are trying to have a groupthink suspension of disbelief and have all join in the bubble. You say:</p>
<p>
,</p>
<p>but in reality you are not taking responsibility. You are hoping the plausible deniability of an act of congress will give you the fig leaf you want to hide behind. Taking responsibility, in the mature adult world, is to call Cornell, tell them what is up, and make your peace. NOT taking responsibility is asking everyone to rally behind a dilute rationalization that is not even a pale shadow of your true intentions, and looking for scraps of cover that you can use to rationalize your actions. You KNOW it is your fault. Take responsibility and be accountable to Cornell for your actions.</p>
<p>If you were to take responsibility, your argument would be closer to one of “I am a very vulnerable kid with a high stakes decision. I have changed my mind,” followed, if you were truly strong and truly taking responsibility with:</p>
<p>“how can you, with your ability to attract students and your decades of experience, require a binding agreement of a 17 year old, when it serves no one, except your brand in increasing your yield numbers for the USNWR rankings? How could you put such draconian restrictions on such a populace at such a vulnerable time in their life?”</p>
<p>It does not at all excuse you from breaking your contract, nor from this unsavory business of trying to assuage your conscience by trying to rally support for your fairy-tale rationalizing “plausible deniability” story. It is putrid. Do not think for a moment that you are taking responsibility. Maybe that’s alright- you made a mistake. But you are NOT taking responsibility until you tell the unvarnished truth to all involved.</p>
<p>The obvious thing to do is to put this behind you as soon as is possible.</p>
<p>@CCDD14 actually the OP did violate rules. All ED applicants (even to Cornell) sign a binding agreement that
I. If accepted to the ED school, they must withdraw all outstanding applications and
II. If accepted to the ED school, the student (financial aid barriers notwithstanding) will attend the ED school</p>
<p>That is why the student, parent, AND guidance counselor are all required to sign the form and why students are warned when choosing early decision, as they read the early decision agreement, as they fill out the early decision contract and by annotations provided by the Common App that this is a binding agreement and should only be selected to your top choice school where you WILL attend if you are offered admission.</p>
<p>This discussion reminds me of a similar one about four or so years ago (I’ll have to dig to see if i can find it). However, on that thread, there was a huge cheering section of posters who thought it was A-ok for the poster to weasel out of her ED acceptance. I believe that poster was a URM, though, so there was more sympathy for her. This poster is an ORM, so the bar is higher? </p>
<p>I don’t think race is at all an issue here, @CTTC, I think that the negative response is due to the fact that the OP signed a binding contract to go to a school he didn’t want to go to, perhaps costing someone else a spot, and is now trying to weasel his way out.</p>
<p>@Sorool - I hope you at least come back and post what the final outcome is.</p>