I think that is a choice one makes if they want a private school education but can’t afford the cost. Private institutions have decided to fund some students to add socioeconomic diversity but that is their decision so discounts are a gift to some. There are way to many posts that could potentially cause the unsuspecting to assume private and publically funded education should cost the same and be a right of every entering student. There are plenty of examples in the world where private services are not available to everyone at the same cost as publicly funded same services. Finally with the exception of public institutions that admit all who meet a specific gpa or test score most colleges pick and choose who they admit and an application is just that…an application to be one of those considered.
You can apply ED if you need aid and if the school doesn’t provide what they’ve targeted, you can decline an ED acceptance. No biggie.
@itsallabiggame:
“Colleges are businesses, pure and simple.”
Privates often act like they are. Though actually, most are more interested in strengthening their college and money is just a means to an end.
But anyway, nobody says you have to focus on private colleges.
Publics often have different incentives at least when it comes to in-state applicants.
I don’t understand this question:
If more people are applying, more qualified students have to be rejected. There are only so many seats.
@doschicos
I heartily disagree. Your family EFC and reality are often two very different numbers.
So, the school thinks you are a full pay, but you are not. And, by agreeing to the binding commitment - you lose leverage. The schools use favorable admissions status in ED to rob parents of their leverage.
Again, my point is that this is a game.
Knowing this … and knowing my own financial situation, I would never have my child apply anywhere ED.
And, a school like Lehigh rejecting 68% of the kids over 1500 on the SAT - come on man.
@garland
Why would you give the seat to a kid who has demonstrated inferior aptitude.
Assuming all those kids in the 1200 and under category are not recruited athletes.
Yield protection.
Because there are other considerations besides SAT. And because no matter what, loads of qualified students aren’t going to be accepted. there still remains too many who are applying to take most of them.
The other option is not to apply ED. My son did not apply ED to any schools (nor single action EA to his top choice) because he knew that (1) he would not qualify for need based aid (which, by the way, does not mean that money is no object, nor does it mean that he has enough for 4 years at a private school) and (2) he was going to need to look for merit scholarships. He was very thoughtful in his choices, choosing some state schools (UCs - and by the way, it has nothing to do with money but tons of qualified kids got rejected from most of the UCs - with Merced being the exception, but with 117,000 applicants to UCLA, you can do the math), some privates like Lehigh where scholarships might be in the cards and his 1 top choice (Ivy) where he knows if he is admitted he will get no aid/merit and will need to take on debt to get through. As of now, he has some great choices, including some sizeable merit scholarships. The biggest issue I see with the numbers is that (1) the common app has made it at whole lot easier to apply to lots of schools and (2) because there are so many qualified applicants, the acceptance rate is diminishing each year, making the college counselors, parents and kids panic more, making them apply to more schools…and so on…
I don’t like the ED game either, but early action worked nicely since it was non-binding and my son made the effort to get those applications in early.
What I hate more is that they only get 4 weeks to mull over their choices and if they need to get to a campus, to get there. Not so easy when they are far flung from home.
Good luck everyone. I know that the sorting hat will find a great place that works for ever kid, even if it is not their first choice. As my eldest discovered when rejected from his dream school, he was really better off where he ended up as the program and kids were more of a fit. He just had to let go of the “name”.
Any ongoing* entity has to run as a business – if it keeps making losses for too long, it may no longer be able to exist as it has been, as has been shown by college closures and other types of for-profit and non-profit businesses going bankrupt**. Public and private non-profit ones do not necessarily have to maximize profit, though earning a profit certainly does not hurt (as the endowment funds of some very wealthy colleges show).
*I.e. not the high school student’s “college admissions charity” that exists only from his/her junior year until April 1 of his/her senior year.
**Even governments are at risk, if ongoing deficits result in so much accumulated debt that investors see that government’s bonds as too risky, resulting in inability to borrow more, resulting in interest payments consuming a larger share of the budget, requiring austerity in the form of the people having to pay high taxes for low services, which can also contract the country’s economy as an anti-stimulus.
Its simple math. Too many kids - too few spaces. They are not rejecting qualified students for unqualified students. A few extra points on a standardized test does not make one student necessarily more qualified. As a parent who will be hurt by the push to ED, I understand your frustration. However, these are private institutions. They owe us nothing. They can choose to create their classes any way they wish. Its frustrating, but not necessarily nefarious for a school to rely on ED. Why wouldn’t they want some certainty about their yield? Miscalculating yield can be a big problem for a school.
On the other hand, the public schools do have a mission and a responsibility to educate kids at a reasonable cost. I think many are failing at this. 25-30k per year is simply unfair for an instate public. It is NOT affordable and so not fulfilling its purpose.
For all those who think its unfair that the poor get help attending college. The answer is easy. Be poor. Its not hard to lose your job, savings and home. My guess is that most of the poor families who are benefiting from financial aid would change places with you in a heart beat.
“The ED process is definitely imperfect but there are benefits to all parties. Many LACs will give you an early financial read from their FA department if you ask.”
There is no benefit to the student, it’s highly tilted to the colleges. Anything that limits choice is bad, really bad for the consumer. I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ll say again, here is the comparison between EA and ED:
EA - guarantee spot in upcoming freshman class, free to apply anywhere else and compare FA packages
ED - guarantee spot in upcoming freshman class, have to withdraw applications from elsewhere.
They both give the same benefit to the student, but ED handcuffs the applicant. That is why cash is the gift with the highest value, would you rather have a $100 to spend anywhere you like, or only one store.
Of course there is a benefit to the student - at many schools applying early increases your chances of acceptance. That is a benefit! EA does provide a greater benefit than ED but at the more selective schools that offer the EA option, the acceptance rates are often much lower. There is a trade-off. Such is life with most things. Who promised anyone a free lunch?
@gallentjill
Actually, I found your post to be eye-opening and I agree with you. There needs to be a much larger difference in acceptance rates based on the bands.
As for the private institution argument that owe us nothing - I strongly disagree. These “private” schools hold billions in tax free endowments (subsidized by us taxpayers!). These “private” schools get many millions in government grants and many of the tuition dollars come from taxpayer funded sources.
They owe us plenty until the day that their endowments are taxed and they stop taking government grants.
By the way - I believe in holistic admissions and helping to give the poor a hand up. It does not mean you can dump all over the vast masses who fall between the bottom 20% and the top 1%.
Sure they can. Do you want to start living in a country where all non-profits have to service ALL equally for tax exemption? That’s going to be a huge problem for religious institutions.
Plenty of aid goes to those between the 20% and top 1%. Besides, nobody should expect a private education for their child to be funded. It’s a want not a need.
“Personally, I am a fan of holistic admissions because I believe it creates a richer learning environment for all students.”
Well if colleges were actually holistic, I could agree with you, but they use that word to justify the class they select. Take athletes who get the biggest admissions preference, they are not holistic. They do one thing and they do it really well, like world-class well. Once they hit campus, they pretty much go off on their own and don’t really engage with the rest of the campus, sometimes even have their own dorm. Basketball is the most visible example of this - the players, esp freshman, who declare for the nba draft after their season ends in March, are not going to class anymore, and likely never went to class. This being said, I like athletics at schools, it’s part of the social scene at local schools like Stanford and Berkeley and it’s a good thing. But you have to know that a lot of these kids are not holistic.
Colleges can select whoever they want, but they are not really assembling a class of holistic applicants, more a class of spiky students that may or may not add up to a holistic class.
How DO you define holistic? Spiky athletes can definitely be holistic in my definition. They add perceived value to the school, although in a way I personally do not highly value. 
@doschicos
Actually, I would like to see all non profits taxed just like any other corporation. That includes schools and churches.
If higher ed is taxed, they’ll just roll up the cost to the consumer. It’s got to come from somewhere.
If I were the dean of Lehigh, I might do the same thing. Why wouldn’t I prefer to fill the school with qualified kids who are ecstatic to attend rather than kids with slightly higher stats who, if they attend at all, will do so reluctantly because they didn’t get into HYP? And they are probably not wrong. I was shocked by the number of high stat kids rejected from Lehigh. But I didn’t see many of them say that Lehigh was actually their top choice. How many of them would really have attended Lehigh if they got into Princeton?
Lehigh knows how to educate students. They know that they can expect great things from that student with a 1450 SAT and a great attitude, especially if that student is engaged and grateful to be given the chance. They have seen how their alumni go out in the world and make them proud so they know they can look beyond stats. Personally, I think this is fantastic. The high stat kids will not lack an education. Maybe, just maybe, this gives some kids the freedom to go outside and play a little or not kill themselves for getting a B.
My D’s current first choice school is one that theoretically should be a safety or low match for her. If I could apply ED there I would even though her stats are far above the average. I can’t, so we will do whatever we can to let them know they are a top choice and not a safety.