<p>I’m currently a junior right now and I’m looking at colleges - and Brown University is definitely my number one choice; reasons are varied and my reasons were only confirmed by attending Summer@Brown 2008.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m debating whether or not to apply for Brown Early Decision next year - the only dilemma is, of course (if I get accepted), the money issue with financial aid.</p>
<p>What do you guys think I should do? And does anyone know what the acceptance rate for ED’ers were this year?</p>
<p>Any opinions/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>You say that Brown is definitely your number one choice. If your true feelings are as emphatic as what they seem like here, apply. I’m sure something can be worked out in terms of financial aid. At least, that’s what all colleges say when you ask them. I’m a junior as well, but still not too sure where I want to go…definitely Cornell or UPENN though.</p>
<p>If you’re certain you’d accept Brown over any other offer on the table, then I’d go ED. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t.</p>
<p>My understanding was that there is a way to get out of the binding decision of ED due to financial difficulties, but I’m not really sure what the deal is with that. Growing concern about FA packages has brought this up frequently so I’m guessing that’s no longer true or not easily exercised.</p>
<p>To be honest, my four year package has been extremely generous. I have very few friends here who were disappointed with their aid, then again, if they were, they probably wouldn’t be here. This year is the first year I’ve seen people on CC complain that they had difficulty getting Brown to come in pretty close on a “match” to a peer school if their formula came back better for whatever reason.</p>
<p>I believe that the ED acceptance rate is about twice the RD one, but the applicant pool is stronger.</p>
<p>I 100% would not apply ED simply because you think it’ll bolster your chance at admissions. My observations seem to suggest that the difference is negligible.</p>
<p>22% ED versus 10.8% RD.
There’s a debate as to whether or not applying ED increases chances of acceptance–I think that the manifest difference in admit rates is probably in part due to the fact that the applicant pool is of a higher quality, but also do in part to the fact that there is some degree of an increase in chance of acceptance. Definitely not double, but maybe a 25% increase?
Either side of that argument can be debated incessantly. What can’t be debated, however, is that applying ED certainly doesn’t hurt your chances of being accepted, unless you think you think your stats are subpar and you can make them a lot more impressive given the extra 2 months. So if you’re only reservation is financial, apply, and if Brown isn’t willing to give you as much money as you think you need, then you can simply say you aren’t going to matriculate due to financial reasons, the universally accepted reason to renege on an ED agreement.
And of course, keep working on your other applications so that when Dec. 11th rolls around, or whenever your notification date will be, you aren’t scrambling to do the applications for all your other schools because you got deferred/waitlisted or because your FA didn’t pan out.</p>
<p>This is also a big concern for me; I LOVE Brown, I think it’s a really cool place and I’d have an awesome time with a great education…but I don’t know if I want to commit to ED and have a crappy aid package. I doubt I would, but at the same time I think it’d be more beneficial to wait. It’s not like I hate the other schools I’m looking at either.</p>
<p>I would go ED. You can always back out if finaid is an issue, so the biggest problem for you is having an alternative if you get accepted to brown and a bad aid package. Since you have to draw out all RD applications, this makes things difficult. What you are allowed to do (my counselor called) is to apply to schools that don’t have ‘early action’ but have some other version of it. For example, U of I does this. I’d assume your local state school would offer you a generous package should things not work out financially at Brown.</p>
<p>Applying ED and leaving yourself the “option” of backing out seems dishonest to me. Unless you have a significant change of circumstances, your ED decision is a final one. You arent even supposed to APPLY anywhere else. </p>
<p>You should only apply ED if you KNOW you are going to the school (if accepted) no matter what the financial aid package.</p>
<p>If they have an early action then apply that way, but if you don’t think you can pay full frieght or at least your entire EFC (and then some) then it would be a bad idea to go ED.</p>
<p>One reason ED acceptances are high is because they are a “sure thing” for colleges. Since ED admissions are without financial aid considerations most people who apply can afford full freight or close to it…hence they are $$ in the pockets of the college.</p>
<p>I think Brownorbust and Jamiecakes are mischaracterizing early decision.
If you apply to Brown early decision, it is understood that you will not apply anywhere else under any sort of early program (other schools, i.e. UChicago, Boston College, Georgetown), have more liberal application policies whereby you can apply to multiple schools early, although in Georgetown’s case these can only be other EA schools.
That being said, it is irresponsible for you to not prepare your regular decision applications (and maybe even send them in for schools where you don’t have to pay application fees). The understanding there is that, if you are accepted, you will withdraw all pending applications and notify all your rolling schools to which you were already accepted that you will not be attending. But if you find yourself in a situation where FA doesn’t work out, or if you don’t get in, as that is unfortunately a very real possibility, then you’ll be thankful that you were well prepared enough to have other options lined up.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the information; I really want to apply ED to Brown next year, but my gut feeling’s still telling me to just apply RD. The ultimate reason is that there’d be more options put on the table.</p>
<p>My family’s income is (I’m assuming similar to many of your household’s) right around the 100,000/year line which makes financial aid slightly unpredictable.</p>
<p>And I also agree that “pulling out” because of a financial discrepancy for ED would be extremely unrealistic and difficult…</p>
<p>“My understanding was that there is a way to get out of the binding decision of ED due to financial difficulties, but I’m not really sure what the deal is with that.”</p>
<p>For the record, Brown uses the Common Application, which says: