<p>A friend of my daughter has been turned down by her first two choices (to which she applied ED), and is now looking at a third, which offers Rolling Early Decision, a concept I had never heard of. She has already submitted an application, which she could turn into an ED app by the end of February. </p>
<p>She is now, of course, very worried, having been turned down by both her reach school and a solid target school--but she will need substantial financial aid, and the schools that are now on her list (with the exception of her safety, a SUNY) are neither need-blind nor do they guarantee to meet need. </p>
<p>I think she should just apply regular decision and compare packages, but she is afraid that if she doesn't apply ED to this third school, she might not get into any school but her safety; her high school really emphasizes the value of ED in tipping one's application. </p>
<p>My question is, by the time you reach rolling ED, how much advantage to the student is there left?</p>
<p>The school is Muhlenburg College. Their website says “Early Decision candidates should complete both the Common Application and Muhlenberg’s supplement. Our ED deadline is February 15 (same as our Regular Decision deadline), but we begin ED application review (and begin mailing ED decision letters) in late November through late February.” They send out decisions through late February, too, and “last year 322 of the 580 students that became the freshman class were admitted Early Decision.” 293 were judged to have need; of those, 270 had their full need met.</p>
<p>Muhlenberg does have a strong preference for ED apps. They will be able to give your D’s friend an early read on financial/merit aid possibilities so she can decide whether ED will work for her.</p>
<p>One has to read the college spin, however. </p>
<p>First, Muhlenberg does not meet 100% of need, which is clear from their common data set. Second, meeting “financial need” means how the college defines it. Third, the early financial aid proposal that M will provide is only one data point. It comes with a big cost to you: the opportunity to compare financial aid offers from other colleges. Thus, the offer that M makes you in the ED round is take-it-or-leave-it. If it fits in your family budget, then great. But you will never know if a competitor college might be thousands less expensive to your family (since you will have to pull any other apps).</p>
<p>IMO, not a great bargain for someone who needs a lot of financial aid.</p>
<p>Blue bayou: yeah, that’s the dilemma. I did see from some posts on another thread that Muhlenberg is pretty straight-up about aid, but I think it’s hard to judge; on the other hand, the other LACs she’s applying to seem to be less generous than Muhlenberg (Dickinson, Franklin and Marshall, and Hobart and William Smith). </p>
<p>pamom59: do you know if their preference for ED extends to the late arrivals to the ED party? One would think that the value declines as the ED rounds go on, but perhaps it’s an important enough commitment that the lateness doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>79% acceptance rate is pretty amazing, it’s true. Hmmm.</p>
<p>Marysidney: Muhlenberg comes right out and says that later ED is still ED…every year, it depends on how many applied earlier and where the stats are…if a student was borderline earlier and may have gotten accepted, they may not have if they had applied later on in the ED cycle, from what I have been told…</p>