<p>It worked out great for my D, too. We didn’t let her apply ED to non-need met colleges. She was accepted to her second choice through ED II. We needed huge financial help. The school promised to meet need without loan for the families below certain income. Our FA package did not include loan. I don’t know if she would have been accepted through RD. We are very happy that we decided to go with ED.</p>
<p>Nice summary, #7, ucbalum.</p>
<p>Thanks, ucbalumnus, 1or2Musicians, and others for clarifying. Am much clearer on this now. It sounds like if there is a clear 1st choice that you would attend without needing to compare other offers, ED may be the way to go (especially if your odds of acceptable may be a little better in an ED round.) if you want to compare offers from multiple schools and possibly use these as leverage for negotiating, then it is best to go RD.</p>
<p>^ Well said. ED is not just for the well-to-do.</p>
<p>Oops…Meant to say “odds of acceptance”, not “odds of acceptable”…Darn autocorrect!</p>
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<p>One of those cases when some believe that repeating the same refrain often enough will make it true. The recommendation does indeed apply to. SOME, but represents HORRIBLE advice for far more people than expected. </p>
<p>The Common Application language has removed the binding part of ED for all intents and purposes. The ED advantages far exceed the real or perceived negative issues associated with financial aid. </p>
<p>The possibilities of comparing packages might be important, but one ought to remember that the offers are NOT for all years, but only for the upcoming year, AND subject to revisions and verifications.</p>
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<p>Having quoted that text many times in the PAST**I am afraid that it belongs in … the past. Columbia, by accepting the Common Application is also a school that has to release students as described in said applications.</p>
<p>** when there was a debate about ED releases. Ask vonlost. ;)</p>
<p>Imagine a school NOT releasing, somehow compelling attendance, then having to expel when the bill can’t be paid. There’s a reason we don’t hear of this result.</p>
<p>I actually do know of one case…more than a decade old now…where the college did sue the student. </p>
<p>Student applied ED to a small LAC. Accepted. Deferred acceptance for a year. </p>
<p>During that year, student got a job dancing in a Broadway show, which was a big hit. Reapplied to reachier schools. Got in one. Then told original school she was not coming for financial reasons. (In fairness, I think the family’s financial situation had worsened that year.) Enrolled in second school.</p>
<p>First school sued student and mother (custodial parent) for family’s EFC for one semester. I don’t know how it played out.</p>
<p>Note that when I said upthread that I did not believe a college would take any action to enforce the agreement, it was in the context of the student declining the offer within the 3-week (or so) period in which the college requests that the student confirm (or, implicitly, not confirm) his or her enrollment after an EA acceptance. Not confirming, deferring, and shopping for other offers. It’s still a pretty radical move on the part of the college, but it isn’t totally irrational to try to shut that down.</p>
<p>We used to have spirited discussions about the enforcement of the ED binding contract. Few schools were as clear as Columbia. All those discussions became moot with the addition of the release text in the Common App. This brought an end to the discussions I had with Vonlost about this precise subject. </p>
<p>The current conclusion is that one can apply ED and REJECT the offer freely as soon as the financial aid package is received. That window remains open for a few days or weeks. This DOES not mean that the window remains open for … negotiations. It is a take or leave proposal. </p>
<p>All in all, there is little bite left in ED. Students can walk away in … January. And schools such as Harvard have poached ED students in the RD round with little concern. There has been a number of stories on CC about multiple early applications as well as students callously and gleefully pursuing multiple financial packages without remorse. </p>
<p>Things HAVE changed from when I applied, and the 2003 information is no longer valid.</p>
<p>One thing to walk away within a few weeks after receiving the FA package. Another to play around with applying to other schools RD after accepting the ED school, based on anonymous anecdotes. There’s some upside, but there’s still the enormous downside of the schools in question having the power to rescind acceptances. Not a gamble I’d personally care to take.</p>
<p>If Harvard et al really are poaching ED students, that’s disgusting. I’d want to see confirmation that this really is happening. </p>
<p>Xiggi, are the multiple early acceptances and financial packages for multiple ED/SCEA schools?</p>
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<p>In theory, an applicant should not be applying to more than one such school at a time. However, a student applying ED/SCEA may have also applied early to a rolling school, an EA school (subject to the SCEA limitations if applying SCEA), and/or to a school that just notifies early, giving the possibility (not guarantee) of being able to compare acceptances.</p>
<p>In the years when Harvard offered no early application option and was advocating for all prestigious colleges to abandon early admissions rounds, an urban myth – or that’s what I think it was – developed that Harvard would not respect other colleges’ ED agreements and would admit students who had been accepted ED elsewhere and had not turned down the ED offer. I never saw any evidence that it was true. On the other hand, if a kid “forgot” to withdraw his or her Harvard application, Harvard would have no way of knowing that there was an outstanding ED admission. </p>
<p>Unless, that is, that other great urban myth occurred – the sharing of ED acceptances by admissions departments at various colleges. That could happen, and it might make sense, but I don’t believe it does happen. And even if it does happen, if the applicant does not withdraw his or her application, I am not certain whether Harvard would/should automatically throw it out. Basically, the burden of enforcing ED agreements falls not on colleges but on guidance counselors and school principals. They know the students and their families, and most of the relevant ones are also deathly afraid of being blackballed by the entire Ivy League and Stanford/Duke. So they are in a pretty good position to make judgments that will protect the spirit of the ED program without being too harsh.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there are, indeed, lots of ways to get more than one early offer, the most obvious of which is to apply ED somewhere, but also EA to, say, Chicago and MIT, and rolling admissions to your state flagship. Among ED colleges, only Brown (as far as I know) has ever tried to restrict applicants from making nonbinding EA applications elsewhere while applying ED to Brown, and Brown abandoned that two or three years ago. (The policy may well have been costing it early applicants.)</p>
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<p>False assumption. This has been discussed many times here.</p>
<p>Much closer to the facts:</p>
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<p>IMHO, do not apply ED based on the premise that it increases one’s chances for admission.</p>
<p>I have posted the “G/F ED Rules” before. 
Here they are again:</p>
<p>Only apply ED if all of the following are true:</p>
<ol>
<li>You really, really want to go to that particular college or university.</li>
<li>You are certain (as much as possible) that the school is a good “fit.”</li>
<li>You have a pretty high to reasonable chance of being admitted.</li>
<li>You can afford to attend the school (for all four, five or six years).</li>
</ol>
<p>As always, YMMV.</p>
<p>This study clearly shows the ED admission advantage over EA and RD:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.stanford.edu/~jdlevin/Papers/EarlyAdmissions.pdf</a></p>
<p>The study controls for legacies, athletes, etc.</p>
<p>Ok, I did forget that ED is the time when colleges typically admit their special applicants. Is there any way to look at ED statistics for particular schools to find out what the admit rate is of “normal”, non-hook applicants? Are you saying it’s basically comparable to RD rates? Is that found anywhere on the 'net?</p>
<p>sbjdorlo, here’s a useful link summarizing ED/EA/RD rates for many schools for last year. <a href=“2013 College Acceptance Rates - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com”>2013 College Acceptance Rates - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com;
<p>You can also do google searches on the admissions rates for a specific school for the last application cycle.</p>
<p>Some schools DO offer a big admissions advantage for unhooked EA/ED applicants over RD, but these tend not to be the tippy-top schools.</p>
<p>JHS, ucb, of course there are plenty of ways to garner a whole bunch of early acceptances, all while playing according to the rules. Xiggi’s post seems to imply that students are garnering all those early acceptances without holding to those rules. </p>
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<p>It would be straightforward to have the Common App be another gatekeeper–I’m surprised this doesn’t already happen. Maybe we should wonder WHY this doesn’t already happen.</p>
<p>Would schools sharing admission information with each other violate FERPA?</p>