<p>Of course you can break an ED commitment. No, there will not be a bench warrent out for your arrest if you do so. What happens when you are accepted ED is that your name is circulated among the colleges on an ED acceptance list. That way, if you do not notify your RD schools that you have been accepted ED, they can find out from the list and drop your name from consideration for RD. Not every college bothers to crosscheck that list for applicants, but most of the highly selective colleges do. So, in such cases, you don’t even really have to tell the other schools that you are out of the picture, they drop you automatically.</p>
<p>Of course, mistakes are often made, and the colleges may not check the list right away, or you may not be on the RD roster if all of your materials are not in already, so this is not a big priority item to most colleges. But eventually when all the materials are checked, ED acceptees to other schools are often dropped from consideration.</p>
<p>So if you are accepted ED, you have to look at the offer, decide if it not doable, and discuss it with the school that accepted you ED. ED offers tend to come right before holiday break, so the timing is going to be tight. You also have the issue of whether or not your name is going to be purged from other college consideration since you are now on the ED list. You should let all of the other colleges know that you may not be going to your ED school and are requesting to be released from the commitment. I can tell you that this information goes over like a lead balloon at most colleges and with your high school counselor as well unless there is a drastic reason for it. </p>
<p>I knew a young lady who applied ED and had to renege on it because her father was dxed with multiple myeloma and was scheduled for a bone marrow transplant. She decided that in this difficult time, she would stay home for college and commute rather than go away as she had originally planned. So when she was accepted ED, she asked to be released from the commitment as well as from consideration from all colleges other than local one. She had what is considered a very good reason to renege as what happened was one of those things in life you cannot predict. Even so, it was a very difficult procedure for her. She was very much afraid that she would be dropped from consideration from her local school choices. The GC was on the case closely, and so was she. As it was, even though she let her other schools know she was withdrawing her applications, she was accepted to a couple of them, where communications went awry. At one school, she was accepted in April, and then her acceptance rescinded because she had been accepted to a binding ED school. All of this in error, because these mistakes do happen. </p>
<p>What I am trying to illustrate that breaking an ED commitment is not a causal thing to do. There are many schools, admission directors, counselors that take the ED commitment seriously. The system is not set up for kids to break the commitment, so if you do that, you are going to have to be ever vigilant, since you can be dropped from consideration for other schools that find out you were accepted via the ED list, and not catch that you have been released from that commitment. You are also likely to be viewed with prejudice because of breaking the commitment. Most colleges that offer ED consider ED agreements with other colleges important as it is a resource for them to control their admissions. Any breakdown of the system compromises the data.</p>
<p>So, my advice is that if you know there are mitigating factors such as financial aid that can affect your ED acceptance and you are applying to other elite schools, do not apply ED. THe big thing is that you have no idea what kind of financial aid/scholarships you can get on the college market with just one offer, and once you turn it down, you jeopardize your other applications. It is one big headache you do not need. The admissions process does not go completely smoothly even when you go by the rules because mistakes are made, and things happen. When you do something that is not by the rules,you really are asking for trouble.</p>