<p>No, the student is not in a disadvantageous position just because Brown turns the ED student down. While Brown says you can’t apply other places EA and ED there, they do allow both rolling applications and RD applications which can be submitted anytime during the cycle. So the student might not have an acceptance in hand at the time of the ED denial, that doesn’t mean they’ll have no other options.</p>
<p>Now in my original response, I said I wasn’t sure whether you could apply ED at one place and EA at one or more other colleges. I thought it would be “ok”, but I also advised that an ED applicant needs to read and thoroughly understand what the ED conditions at the chosen school are.</p>
<p>Seems to me that by telling students they can’t apply EA elsewhere if they are applying ED at Brown, what Brown really accomplishes is preventing ED students from comparing Brown’s FA to other EA places FA in order to decide whether the Brown FA package is acceptable or not. [Of course, with Brown’s aid, this doesn’t seem like it would be an issue.]</p>
<p>And it is known that if a student applies ED to more than one school, the all the schools are likely to rescind the offer of admission if the student gets caught. That might well happen if Brown found out that an ED student applied elsewhere EA as well I suppose.</p>
You and I will have to agree to disagree on this one. Anything that restricts the schools that a student can apply to, as long as those schools are non-binding, puts the student in a lesser position and for, as far as I can see, no good reason. The reduced stress a student has from getting an early acceptance is quite valuable indeed, as those of us that read CC know all too well.</p>
<p>The student would be violating the agreement with Brown IF they got an acceptable package from Brown and still turned it down. That I would not agree with the student doing, but I find the scenario unlikely anyway. If Brown meets their need and that was clearly the “dream school” since it was ED, presumably another package won’t sway the student. If, on the other hand, Brown’s package doesn’t meet all need or has a fair amount of loans and the other doesn’t, then the student is perfectly within their rights to turn the package down as financially inadequate and thus within their rights to terminate the agreement. Who is Brown to force a student into debt if they don’t want to be in debt? You may well be right that Brown is trying to not let the student see more attractive financial packages. That can actually be taken as rather vile. Here is a school dictating all the terms and the student has to decide whether to give up the advantage of applying to Brown early decision or potentially be out thousands of $$ they may not have had to be? Really nice. But this may be moot anyway. As far as I know most schools don’t tell students their FA package just because they applied EA. I think in most cases they still have to wait until March, but maybe you know more about that.</p>
<p>I agree with you that applying to more than one school ED is highly unethical and risky besides. But there is no way Brown would know if a student applied EA to another school. I cannot imagine the circumstances where that would happen.</p>
<p>Read, read, read the individual school policies on ED there are minor nuances. I do believe, however, that you cancel the other applications upon acceptance of the ED offer not receipt of the offer a minor difference but potentially important. I could be wrong, but that was my interpretation.</p>
<p>ED is a bad idea for almost all cases, for reasons described above. You need to have a student passionate about a school, with ability to pay full ticket (or certainty of FA). Otherwise you loose the flexibility to compare options. </p>
<p>My thought is that is the passion has not ignited by this point, there is not enough runway to know that ED is the right path.</p>
I don’t think this is right. The one explicit “out” of an ED the schools themselves acknowledge is financial considerations. The more correct statement would be that the concept behind ED is making a commitment to attend if you can afford to attend. Just because there might be financial uncertainty is no reason to give up the advantage of ED. That would essentially be discriminating against and certainly disadvantaging those of lesser means.</p>
<p>Now I have just been commenting on the reality of the situation as it exists. I personally think that other than the stress it would cause the students, it might make more sense for every school to be on the same schedule. Perhaps the stress would even be less of a factor since everyone would be in the same boat. But that won’t happen, so…</p>