This general thought crossed my mind as I read through this thread. There are two actors in this play, and the moral outrage over how one of those actors acts in its own best interests is confusing to me. You’re dealing with a college not a local church or Union Gospel Mission.
I see the point about ED (which for many students is a great option) and financial aid. Asking because I really don’t know: don’t most schools free you from your ED commitment if the aid package isn’t affordable?
Also see no rational upside in pulling the application now and agree with others who point out that if you liked the school to begin with, just swallow your pride and let it role and see what happens. What’s the downside? You’re not going to be teaching anybody a lesson by taking your ball and going home at this point.
They each have their own formats, etc. And teachers are busy…and honestly, and it’s learning on the kid’s part - but the kids are afraid to ask.
I know three kids who didn’t apply to Gtown because of the LORs. Three - including my daughter - but i suppose you can say, if they weren’t willing to do the work, they weren’t Gtown material.
Mine wouldn’t have been allowed to go anyway - no merit aid.
You are permitted to not accept an ED offer based on the financial aid package being insufficient, but that is supposed to be in good faith — and my question has always been “insufficient to WHOM”?
The calculators always indicate that schools consider us a full-pay family. But we have a threshold we don’t want to exceed.
My D22 considered applying to school ED that was at the top of our budget when we did the online calculator. After further communications with the financial aid office, we learned the true cost would be another $3,000/year due to tuition increases, etc.
We could probably swing it, but that would require some talks with our retirement advisor, and we were learning that she would qualify for merit aid elsewhere that would bring her lowest cost options down to about half of what we thought our least expensive option would be.
We elected not to do ED because it was too big a decision to commit to a school among the most expensive we could (maybe) afford when there were other schools where she could also be happy that would cost 1/3 the amount. She may still end up at the almost- ED school, but not without more visits and thorough examination of alternatives.
I did not feel comfortable applying ED and withdrawing based on OUR assessment that it wasn’t affordable to us knowing the school believes it is.
We did not let yield concerns enter into our decision making. Whether or not she gets in, it was meant to be, and she has lots of good options.
Teachers are busy. But teachers are professionals who understand that writing LOR’s is part of their job if they are teaching in a HS with college bound students. I have honestly never heard of a situation where a “Georgetown quality student” was afraid to ask a teacher for something which is a legitimate part of teaching HS. There are teachers who state on day one of Senior Year- “I will not write a recommendation if you ask me on December 28th” or who request that the student fill out a simple form (name, what class the student had with the teacher) just to make tracking easier.
But a student afraid of asking a teacher because the teacher is busy? Yikes.
I have no issue about “not willing to do the work”- because how time consuming is it to ask a teacher- who presumably knows you and likes you- if you will add one more recommendation to the pile the teacher has already committed to (and expects to) write? This is a three minute conversation with a teacher? So hardly “if you aren’t willing to do the work”, sounds more like “I needed to chuck one college off my list which was too long and Georgetown was the college that got chucked”. Which I get. Something’s got to give when the lists get too long!
It’s the repetitive asking that has these students uncomfortable…for some, it’s hard to ask once but then to do a second time is downright uncomfortable. It’s a life lesson - but they haven’t learned it yet.
But anyway, off topic and it’s just what i’ve seen. You see / feel differently - and that’s fine.
Makes sense; it’s a personal decision. And I’m sure some people use it to game the system, although if you apply ED one place and then don’t accept, I’m guessing it’s too late by then (when you’ve been given the admission and financial aid answer) to apply to another school ED. If that’s right, then I guess it’s less ripe for speculative abuse as just a way to go take a better offer. OTOH, that better offer might come in the regular decision round.
I didn’t go through this scenario myself so I can’t really say, but I imagine I’d have been ok (awkward though) not honoring an ED if in my own good faith assessment the financial aid was insufficient. I’m guessing it’s always awkward and there is a feeling of disappointment (at best) or burning a bridge (at worst).
Best of luck to your D in finding the right place for her (and you).
If the school offers you what was on their NPC, it’d most certainly be bad faith to not accept the offer because you had hoped for more. This is why they have an NPC!
Ah, yes. That makes sense. How common is it for a school to not offer you what they show in their NPC?
Based on the experiences of a few friends and acquaintances, I’m of the understanding that the small private colleges in the PNW (UPS, Willamette, Whitman, Whitworth, Linfield, PLU, etc.) can only go up to about 80% of demonstrated need. None of them have huge endowments. But that’s probably baked into the bargain. IOW, if that is true, it was a known quantity up front.
Probably depends on how closely the NPC matches the college’s actual FA methodology, including what questions it asks and what calculations it does. Some colleges use very simple NPCs that may not ask about things that the college’s FA department asks for and uses (especially for small business, self employment, rental, farm, etc. income), so families with situations other than mostly W-2 income may find them less accurate.
However, even NPCs that are well matched to the college’s actual FA methodology can be vulnerable to user error. A common example is a student with divorced parents using only the custodial parent finances when the college requires both parents’ finances, although many colleges could be more clear in their NPCs that this is necessary.
What bothers me most about the yield protection dynamic is that it induces the student to apply to many more match/safety schools in the EA round. To be sure, all reach schools are a crapshoot, but yield protection makes the process even less predictable.
From the OP’s description, it seems her son did everything right with CWRU. He showed interest and he applied early thru EA - but he didn’t apply ED. Obviously, CWRU didn’t dislike him as they gave him a defer (not reject) and the option to switch to ED2. Other schools do the same thing and it’s not a good look.
If you’re a school offering EA, you ought not to penalize students who take you up on that option and apply EA. If you don’t want to waste resources offering $$/spot to someone who might not take it, eliminate EA and go to a pure ED/RD system.
Did you consider that their options for a deferred applicant were to a) accept them without merit or b) wait until RD when they saw how much merit was left to possibly accept them with merit?
They know they are being considered because they offer merit. But the school needs to manage their merit offers to stay in budget. It’s one more level of complexity than simply managing overall matriculation.
CWRU (and a few others) follows, more or less, the same playbook successfully played by UChicago, with a few differences. CWRU makes it nearly effortless for students to apply while UChicago makes it more challenging with its essays. CWRU offers lots of “merit” awards to entice admits to enroll, while UChicago offers only a few insignificant merit awards. What’s common to this playbook is to attract as many students to apply via its multitude of early application options, and EA is central to that strategy. These schools never disclose how many applicants are accepted under their various early application options but few of them are accepted via EA by all indications. If a student fits certain profiles (e.g. s/he appears to be overqualified for the school, and/or if s/he is from a high school or a region where statistically lower than average number of admits matriculate, and/or if s/he applies to certain majors that indicate to the school that s/he likely prefers some other schools s/he may also qualify for), s/he needs to be aware and think twice about applying EA. I agree with @Auntlydia that these schools should eliminate EA, but they won’t because EA brings to them many more applicants than ED.
I get it, but that means lots and lots of eminently qualified (overly qualified) students won’t get in EA by design. Not because they failed to show interest. But because the school’s algorithm was set to produce that outcome. In a couple of years, it will happen to S24 (as it happened to D20) and I’ll tell him, “this is why you are applying to so many schools.”
And although I respect the general markers of interest (did the student attend an info session at school, visit campus, write a thoughtful essay, take an alumni interview when possible), I find some of the other proxies silly and creepy. Measuring how many times someone opens an email? Clicks on links? Spends time on a website? Measuring the parents’ activity in this regard? Maybe it “works” for the school, but it reflexively makes me want to gag.
Yes, that practice disadvantages many such students. It effectively narrows their options. With the high uncertainty of acceptance to their first-choice schools these days, they may be left with few options if they don’t have a desirable safety school that can challenge them academically.
EA is really only RD with a “potentally” earlier decision date. Some in fact are accepted (or rejected) EA. The rest are asked to wait until the regular RD date. Some will be admitted RD - with merit.
Even ED applicants get deferred to RD and then possibly again to the WL. So while the school may be asking if you want to apply ED, they aren’t saying you’d be admitted ED. But ED does mean, for the school, that you’ll come if they say yes rather than wait to see whether something better plays out. The fact that you won’t commit effectively says this may not be your best offer. (And yes, there may be good reasons for this at your end.)
Think of it as a dinner party. If your table seats 12, you aren’t going to invite 60! But as guests decline, you’ll extend invitations accordingly so as not to invite 2 couples and 8 single women, etc.
Again, I understand as a parent how painful these disappointments can be. It’s easy to think of the schools as bad actors. But if you understand what their situation is, it’s easier to make it not personal.
I understand these schools need to protect their own interests. But why do they need to offer EA to unsuspecting students and their families without disclosing their real motives? BTW, if you’re deferred EA and then waitlisted RD, you can still get in by calling the school and telling them you’ll commit if they take you off their waiting list. This type of practices seems deceitful to me.
I’m fine with a system that openly says this. Look, Harvard’s office is pretty darn clear about its admissions: 97% of you won’t get in, even though you are wonderful and qualified, and pls don’t take it personally.
But when it comes to the Very Good/Almost Elite schools, the message changes to, “you must not have shown them enough interest.” College counselors pushed that big time at D’s school when she was applying. It’s a problematic message bc it (a) assumes parents and students have far more control over this process than they actually do, and (b) pressures families to convert to ED2 even if they would be financially better off comparing merit offers.
I would have no problem if a school like CWRU made EA offers but delayed its merit determinations until the RD round. (I also happen to prefer merit that is tied to additional applications/essays - that’s at least a fairer way to gauge interest). I’d have no problem either if it explicitly made clear how few people it was inclined to take in the EA round as compared with ED (I think a few schools do break out this info. Maybe UVA?). I just wish schools would stop using demonstrated interest as both a sword and shield.
We are focused on a small percentage of presumably over qualified kids (for these schools) who are deferred during EA. Their major downside is they have to wait for RD to hear definitively from this school(s). While I am sure that out of those there are some who can’t ED because of concerns over FA, I suspect the majority are using these schools as “backups”. If CWRU (or others) were a true first choice and affordable, ED would have been used.
CWRU and others will have yield numbers for EA acceptances and specific profiles of those who accepted and those who declined which will drive their algorithm. Factors in their algorithm likely include stats, SES, demographics, geography, major and indicia’s of interest. The school may also choose to accept certain highly desirable students with a low yield probability because the school is willing to roll the dice on them by showing early love and perhaps enhancing yield probability with big merit money. Others, not so much. Predictability is important to all businesses. Schools with more limited resources have even lower tolerances for deviation. IMO, this is the primary driver of schools’ admission policies with respect to ED1/ED2/EA and managing yield. “Rankings” or bragging rights related to low admit/high yield rates in of themselves are secondary if considered at all.
Unless the school accepts 0 or almost 0 EA applicants, EA works for those who are accepted EA and hit the parameters of qualified students who have a good chance of attending. Even from a consumer perspective, this benefit for certain consumers outweighs the temporary uncertainty/disappointment for others, most of whom were trying to game the system in the first place to obtain an early 1 way option.