<p>Hello...after much stress and worries I was amazed and ecstatic when I recieved my letter of admission from Columbia University (CC '2014). Though I am overjoyed, I have some reservations about whether or not Columbia will be skimpy on financial aid considering I got in early. Is it possible to still apply to other schools even if you made it early into Columbia? I am planning on applying to the Big Three (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) just until I get a letter from Columbia about financial aid and deem it affordable/ managable. The matriculation fee and contract (saying I agree to withdraw my applications and definitely attend Columbia, etc.) is due on Jan. 15 and tomorrow I have an interview with someone from Harvard College. Is it possible to not withdraw my applications even if I sign the matriculation contract and got in Early Decision?</p>
<p>If you can’t afford Columbia, you can’t afford the other Ivies because they are all need-based and will probably provide the same amount of aid. It says on their website that you can only get out of the contract for financial reasons, and if they let you out, they would expect you to attend a state-school, not another competing top-tier school.</p>
<p>EDIT: I read the post you made when you got in: “Going to see if I can get across binding agreement and apply to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, Brown, Sophie Davis, Dartmouth, Stanford, NYU, etc.” Right…financial reasons…why did you apply ED if this wasn’t your top school?</p>
<p>dear bulldog - your posts are very worrisome.</p>
<p>1) have you called columbia’s finaid office? they should’ve made you a tentative financial aid estimate (based on information you provided them in november). if finaid at columbia doesn’t get back to you, call the admission office and calmly ask them what the situation is regarding your financial aid estimate, and let them know that you are considering withdrawing until you receive more information. </p>
<p>2) if you do not withdraw your applications from other schools and it is discovered that you were admitted early decision to columbia, you could then have your columbia admission decision rescinded AND any school that abides by NACAC rules regarding this, ought to deny you as well. please do not play this game. i knew a bright friend of mine that thought he’d play the game, ended up being denied from his ED school and the three Ivies he got into. </p>
<p>3) your financial aid at columbia is probably going to be on par with what you receive at other need-based schools in the ivy league. the advantage to applying regular is certainly that the same person can look at financials differently, and schools differ in methodology. and most of the ivies will for the most part be willing to look at other finaid offers that might be more generous (aka matching). but on the margins your finaid should be the same. </p>
<p>4) THE ONLY WAY you can continue with your other applications is if you withdraw your columbia application and your admission, at which point you cannot reapply to columbia nor see what kind of finaid you receive. of course, you may then not be admitted to other schools.</p>
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<p>i know the financials of this are hard. my urging to you is to at once take your situation seriously (about how your family can afford it), and also have some fealty to the application process. consider - if you apply to these other schools without the intention of going, just to ‘check their finaid’ you are taking up a spot for someone that really wants to go there. </p>
<p>if you don’t rescind your columbia application to check out other schools, again, you are taking up a spot for someone who could be admitted regular (actually it is closer to two spots for regular). please be conscious of other students.</p>
<p>“4) THE ONLY WAY you can continue with your other applications is if you withdraw your columbia application and your admission, at which point you cannot reapply to columbia nor see what kind of finaid you receive. of course, you may then not be admitted to other schools.”</p>
<p>Even if he withdraws, won’t he still be blacklisted since he agreed to matriculate in the case of acceptance?</p>
<p>no, if he withdraws, columbia understands that it was because of circumstances and he is free to keep his other apps open. every year or so 1-2 kids decide to withdraw for financial reasons (usually kids don’t withdraw for other reasons). though of course columbia wishes they had done their research re: affordability, but they understand the reality is often different than the plan. and if parents wont let a kid go, it isn’t worth fighting the legality.</p>
<p>it is for that reason that the withdrawal by a student is considered very big - that it should be done only after the student is certain that columbia cannot provide the financial support their family believes is reasonable.</p>
<p>I saw your post on the official ED results thread. You said you were “going to see if [you] can get across binding agreement and apply to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, UPenn, Brown, Sophie Davis, Dartmouth, Stanford, NYU, etc.” It seems to me that the problem is not so much poor financial aid but a lack of true passion for Columbia (why else would you post such a comment right after you receive your acceptance). I think you made a wrong choice applying ED to Columbia.</p>
<p>here we go again…maybe someone (who has the patience) should direct the OP to the other threads (some VERY recent) about people trying to get out of their Ivy ED’s…</p>
<p>my heart bleeds…</p>
<p>I am truly sick at all your comments about the previous thread that I made which was merely an anxious response after realizing that admissions into Columbia closed my options for being able to apply to other Ivy League colleges. Of course I had some reservations and regrets but right now I want to see if I can loop around the binding ED because I don’t want to be fooled into thinking that I will go to some Ivy League that will give me a poor scholarship or financial aid. Right now I just want to know if it’s possible to keep my acceptance with Columbia and still apply to other schools until I deem my Columbia financial aid affordable</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be fooled into thinking that I will go to some Ivy League that will give me a poor scholarship or financial aid.”</p>
<p>No one forced you to apply to Columbia early, and going into the process you were well aware that EARLY DECISION means BINDING. If you did not feel comfortable with being “stuck” with Columbia, either for personable or financial reasons, you should not have applied ED. I mean there is a reason why people say ED is unfair to middle/lower income students who are not comfortable with their finances…</p>
<p>bulldog, to answer your specific question.</p>
<p>no you cannot keep your other applications open and wait for columbia finaid.</p>
<p>nor have you answered the question - didn’t you receive a finaid estimate. and if not, you should be able to get one from them if you submit things. ergo this thread is more about you have to deal with columbia asap at which point you’d get your estimate and your answer of whether finances are a problem or not.</p>
<p>i understand your anxiety. but especially that second post is unnecessarily defensive and smug. you don’t steal cookies from the cookie jar and then accuse other people of accusing you. there are many ways you could’ve handled this thread that would’ve elicited more positive responses. and i am sure you’re a Type A kid, like most of us here, you want to get your way, but at a certain point in time, you need to concede when you’ve done something off. and here - it means you can’t keep other apps open unless you withdraw from columbia.</p>
<p>no offence, but you are a dumb moron, to have applied ED w/out realizing its consequences. Dont play the system or else the system will eat you up and than spit out the remains and than stomp on those remains, uh oh, sorry that was excessive.
Either
Withdraw from Columbia and apply elsewhere or get the money (legally) to go to columbia!!!
Hope You get what you want!!
good luck!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And that shows?</p>
<p>OP, have you really not yet received an estimated fin aid package from Columbia? I was sent a folder detailing the amount of aid and the breakdown (grants, work-study, etc.) and I can also access it here: <a href=“(Columbia University) Student Log In”>(Columbia University) Student Log In; I think most ED students have received an estimation of their fin aid awards by now, though I may be wrong.</p>
<p>I signed the form and payed the enrollement fee that says that I will matriculate myself to Columbia University. I still did have my interview for Harvard University, and will agree to immediately withdraw my applications when I see my financial aid package from Columbia. Since I just signed the form, I don’t believe I’m expected to immeidately withdraw my applications, and many other kids who were accepted to Columbia from my school who sent their financial aid application materials just slightly before me have received responses, so I hope to soon be told of my financial aid and then be able to withdraw my applications to HYP (three schools where it is highly unlikely I would have made anyways…</p>
<p>You had an admissions interview with a competing school after you were accepted into an Early Decision program and signed a statement agreeing to withdraw applications from other schools? That is incredibly risky and, frankly, quite stupid. If Columbia finds out, they probably have grounds to rescind your acceptance. And I’m sure Harvard won’t be pleased if they find out they wasted an interview on an applicant who has pledged to attend another school. You’re playing a dangerous game, my friend; it might all work out or it might all come crashing down on you. Nonetheless, you seem to astoundingly ignorant rather than malicious and manipulative, so I wish you the best of luck.</p>
<p>^I agree, pwoods. It seems to me that the OP is suffering from a case of buyer’s remorse. If he or she is willing to withdraw an acceptance from Columbia to risk an acceptance from Harvard, Yale or Princeton, either s/he is a HUGE gambler or Columbia failed to understand his/her family’s true financial situation. If s/he tries to maintain his/her Columbia status while waiting for “news” from HYP, s/he is being foolish by risking his/her chance to attend ANY great college.</p>
<p>As an aside, my first-year Columbia student son, who was accepted ED, immediately canceled his Harvard interview upon his Columbia acceptance, even though his Columbia financial aid response was not what we hoped. That was the deal he struck with Columbia when he applied ED. He, and his parents, honored the contract.</p>
<p>As I was going through this thread, a question suddenly strike my mind. How does one college find that a student has applied early decision to another college and got accepted? For example, If bulldog does pay the enrollment fee to Columbia and still get accepted to Harvard, how will Harvard find it out or how will Columbia find it out that he has applied to Harvard Regular Decision?</p>
<p>your counselors and fellow hs students are pretty good at it…or when you gloat to kids during admit weekend. i mean columbia can’t figure it out through any official means, but if they are given probable cause they are then able to confront the student.</p>
<p>it is why it is a ‘game’ to try and do it. it is not like students haven’t tried it before and successfully got into a school RD after being admitted ED. it is just that the consequences are quite stark.</p>
<p>I thought that the Ivy League, in particular, maintains a database for exactly this purpose? No?</p>
<p>no pbr, i forget when, but it was considered a violation of anti-trust legislation to maintain that information. thus it can only be discovered indirectly. schools probably also could have figured it out when students answered the “where did you apply to college” question, that is now no longer on applications.</p>
<p>there is no certainty that a school will discover a student’s duplicity. but no less possible or harsh the penalty.</p>