<p>I swear, Vossron, the more I hear about the supposed specialness of Reed from parents, the more dismayed I get. This is what the page you linked to says:
[quote]
Students applying under the early decision plans may submit regular applications to other institutions, but if admitted to Reed are required to withdraw all other college applications from further consideration and may not initiate any new applications.
.... a tentative financial aid decision will be mailed with the offer of admission. Students admitted at this time are expected to submit a non-refundable enrollment deposit of $300 by ... two weeks after receipt of a final financial aid decision.
[/quote]
How anyone could reasonably interpret that to mean that Reed has some unique procedure that allows student to opt-out of ED if they don't like the financial aid award is beyond me. It says in in plain language that they are required to withdraw other applications and pay a deposit within 2 weeks. </p>
<p>You may be technically right that Reed doesn't do anything to share the info with other colleges, so it may be possible to get away with violating the agreement, but I certainly don't feel favorably disposed to any college that would play such games -- and given that the section you cites says nothing like what you said, it is beyond me how some financially needy student is supposed to know or anticipate that Reed has some special leniency in their practices. </p>
<p>ED is a promise. Of course people can cheat and break their promises -- I'll bet there are a dozens of kids every year that cheat by applying to multiple ED schools at once, and then choose based on which ones accept them and simply lie to the others if they have the good fortune to be accepted at more than one. That they can get away with it doesn't mean that others should follow suit.</p>