Question on Early Action/Acceptance/What if you cant afford it?

<p>Hello everyone,</p>

<p>Well in the fall I plan on applying to a school for Early Action.
The school I dream of going to is NYU but the price tag is $57,000 a year and that is really expensive for a White/Male/Middle Class person.</p>

<p>But lets say I apply for early action and they accept me, but the Financial Aid is way to little and I'm not able to afford it.</p>

<p>But I also got accepted to my second and third choice schools. </p>

<p>Do I have to attend NYU or nothing or can I attend my second or third choice school?</p>

<p>Thanks you, and any advice on what you would do would be appreciated. </p>

<p>Thanks,
Scott</p>

<p>The definition of EA is that you are NOT committed to accept their FA and attend. You can be accepted EA, apply to other schools RD, and compare FA packages. This is definitely recommended with NYU, as it is know to “gap” students.</p>

<p>If you apply ED to a school, the agreement you sign says that you will attend and will cancel all applications to other schools.</p>

<p>Early Action is non-binding, so you wouldn’t have to go anyway.
If you applied Early Decision, that is binding. But, if you can prove that you can’t afford it, you’re clear too.
You should be fine, good luck!</p>

<p>If you are accepted through binding ED, you are required to withdraw your pending applications to other colleges. That makes it tough to have a fallback school that’s more affordable, since you are unlikely to have received admissions decisions (except perhaps from a rolling admission public that you applied to very early). It’s best to do some serious financial aid predictions before you decide to apply ED. At the very least, carefully read the ED agreement before you sign it, and talk to your high school counselor about the implications of backing out.</p>

<p>I apologize, I did not know there was a difference between EA and ED, so changing my original question. What if I did ED to NYU but after being accepted and seeing my FA not being good enough for me to afford it, would I be able to go to another college?</p>

<p>If finances are an issue you simply should NOT apply to a binding, ED choice. There are no two ways about that. Don’t do it and save yourself a lot of heartache. Also be aware that NYU is notoriously ungenerous.</p>

<p>If you are applying to NYU early, the only thing you can apply for is binding Early Decision because it does not have non-binding Early Action. You will also need to submit a financial aid form to it when you apply ED and they then will give you your probable financial aid when they accept you ED. For real inability to afford reasons, they will usually release you from ED. However, that does not mean you won’t be bound simply because you don’t believe the award is enough because parents and students almost always believe that what is awarded is not enough.</p>

<p>drusba is correct. I don’t know if NYU meets 100% of financial need either. If it does, you can except the amount that either FAFSA or CSS profile says is your EFC (Estimated Family Contribution). For Duke when I applied ED they said they would meet 100% of need and they did. My parents thought it wasn’t enough, but it did match the EFC in both FAFSA and CSS, so I wouldn’t expect much better.</p>

<p>NYU doesn’t have Early Action anyway. It’s either regular decision or early decision.</p>