Wash U. or Ivy?

<p>And, yet again, if you actually READ the link I provided, you'd see that a student would probably have legal grounds to sue a college for interfering in his admissions at other schools over an ED dispute. </p>

<p>"All Ivy institutions will honor any required commitment to matriculate which has been made to another college under this plan."</p>

<p>Even this quote shouldn't be extrapolated to mean that students would be 'automatically rejected' from other schools for not upholding ED agreements.</p>

<p>"An applicant receiving admission and an adequate financial award under the Early Decision Plan"</p>

<p>-And 'adequate'... ANY amount of money can be seen as 'inadequate' by a family. Colleges cant force students to enter debt because of some stupid ED agreement.</p>

<p>I see from the other thread, kk19131, that you have an amateur acquaintance with the law, with emphasis on the word "amateur." I can trust onlookers to know better than to take your word for what they should do in their applications, so I see little need to reply again.</p>

<p>Just read the posts from MichaelNKat – a lawyer who weighed in on the situation.</p>

<p>"Just for the fun of it, I did a quick Westlaw search of all states and did not find a single case where a college took legal action at law or in equity based on an alleged breach of an Early Decision "agreement". Not that I expected to find any, if for no other reasons than some practical considerations. I have some very real reservations, however, about whether such agreements are enforceable by colleges. Where is the adequate consideration to make it a binding contract on a student? Also, in terms of remedy, the college has no damages and does anyone seriously think a college could obtain injunctive relief either compelling attendance at the school or prohibiting attendance at another school? I think a student who in good faith and for adequate cause withdraws from an ED acceptance would have a much better case to sue the ass off a college that then caused the student to loose acceptances elsewhere by disclosing to other schools what had occurred (and would also have a cause of action against a public school that refused to send out transcripts). This assumes that the student is not simply being dishonest by "shopping around" ED applications and had good and compelling reasons to pull out of the ED acceptance."</p>

<p>Whether MichaelNKat's post is accurate or not kk19131, it's not very wise for a student to renege on a ED acceptance if only for the benefit for future students applying from the same school.</p>

<p>"Whether MichaelNKat's post is accurate or not"</p>

<p>-If you have a legal opinion which reaches a different conclusion, then please express it; if not, I don't think you should question the accuracy of his posts. </p>

<p>"it's not very wise for a student to renege on a ED acceptance"</p>

<p>Like I always say... SHOULD applicants uphold ED agreements? Sure they should. Do applicants always HAVE to uphold said agreements? Nope, they sure don't. Situations change, and some people may need (justifiably so) to break ED agreements. What you believe that applicants should do, and what they have to do, are two (largely) different things. This is a distinction which needs to be made; students shouldn't feel trapped and obligated to go to an ED school simply because the school says they have to. This is the point.</p>

<p>NEEDING to opt out of an ED agreement is very different from saying "Oops, well, I don't like your school as much as I used to. Sorry!"</p>

<p>There are cases in which schools will be understanding- cases in which financial aid packages are insufficient fall into that category. HOWEVER, even then schools initially attempt to dissuade applicants in substantial financial need from applying early.</p>

<p>Also, what WindCloudUltra was implying (I think) was that it didn't really matter if colleges took legal action- the debate here is more about the effect on the applicant if he/she were to unscrupulously apply ED to more than one school. And I think it is universally agreed upon by everyone here except you that Ivies do in fact share names with each other of their early applicants/admits. Do you have an alternate way of them enforcing the "do not apply to another Ivy besides us" rule?</p>

<p>"the debate here is more about the effect on the applicant if he/she were to unscrupulously apply ED to more than one school."</p>

<p>-That's not at all what I'm talking about. I don't think students should apply to more than one school ED either. Nevertheless, I'm talking about the baseless claim that an applicant who doesn't uphold an ED agreement will be rejected from every other school to which he applies - and the even more absurd claim that students would actually have all their admissions offers withdrawn because of an ED dispute.</p>

<p>"Do you have an alternate way of them enforcing the "do not apply to another Ivy besides us" rule?"</p>

<p>I think saying it is good enough. Scaring people into doing what you want goes a long way.... And indeed if you read some of the ridiculous posts in this thread you can see it in action. From what I've gathered, people not upholding ED agreements is not a rampant problem, so I think this so-called 'list' is little more than a fabrication. Since nobody has provided any proof to the contrary, I shall continue to believe this. All I want is proof that a list with the names of the 23,000 applicants who applied ED to Ivy schools last year actually exists. Give me proof of this list, and I'll believe it.</p>

<p>"Nevertheless, I'm talking about the baseless claim that an applicant who doesn't uphold an ED agreement will be rejected from every other school to which he applies"</p>

<p>The reason I know that the Ivy League shares this list this is because I've been told this by several people in various admissions offices that this is the case. Can I prove it? Of course not. However, these administrators had no reason to lie since this info was not shared in the context of someone in my family applying but because I knew them personally. In fact, when the Ivies first instituted Early Decision back in the 1970s, the issue of multiple applications came up, and they decided that the best way to combat was to share the names of cross-applicants. In fact, the Ivy League was charged with collusion when it came out that ALL applicants were shared among them; when a name popped up on multiple lists, they haggled over who would get to accept the student. One result of the case was that they COULD share info of ED applicants (because of the binding nature of ED) but not RD ones. I'm sure someone with the inclination to find the "proof" that you want can dig up this court decision.</p>

<p>Of course, it makes no sense for Penn to share its ED list with, say, Albright College because those schools are unlikely to have cross-applicants, let alone for ED. That said, there may be a master list. I'd like to hear from someone like AdOfficer (unnamed top LAC) or DeanJ (UVA) or AdmissionsDaniel (JHU) to see if the non-Ivies share a list. Admissions officers are the only ones who can prove the existence (or non-existence) of a more comprehensive list of ED applicants. No one here can do that -- just as you, KK, cannot prove that it does NOT exist.</p>

<p>To get back to the idea of applying ED to multiple top schools: it seems to me that the sole reason to do so is an ego boost. Some students are afraid that applying ED will remove the jolt of being able to list acceptances into several top schools. Remember: your high school days will soon be over, and NO ONE will care next year where else you got in -- or where you could have gone instead of the college you chose.</p>

<p>"That said, there may be a master list. I'd like to hear from someone like AdOfficer (unnamed top LAC) or DeanJ (UVA) or AdmissionsDaniel (JHU) to see if the non-Ivies share a list."</p>

<p>-As would I.... But I also want to know how said list is used. It's one thing to have a list, but it's another to use it to try to sabotage an applicant's chances at other schools.</p>

<p>"Admissions officers are the only ones who can prove the existence (or non-existence) of a more comprehensive list of ED applicants."</p>

<p>-And I say let them, but until they do, don't just say stuff because it seems to make sense to you.</p>

<p>"No one here can do that -- just as you, KK, cannot prove that it does NOT exist."</p>

<p>That is a logical fallacy.... The burden is on YOU to prove why YOU believe in something; it's not my job to do that for you. </p>

<p>"and NO ONE will care next year where else you got in -- or where you could have gone instead of the college you chose."</p>

<p>-That's not exactly true either, but whatever.</p>

<p>Naive kid.</p>

<p>They don't tell you everything they do.</p>

<p>I don't know... a list with 23,000 names shared by countless numbers of admissions officers at 8 different universities.... there should be tons of info on such a thing.</p>

<p>But if I'm Na</p>

<p>Do you want proof? My cousin, who will soon be starting his first year in college at UCB, applied SCEA to Stanford and to Yale. Stanford admitted him while Yale deffered him. However, Yale told Stanford that my cuz had applied SCEA at Yale. Stanford rescinded him and he was accepted to no other Ivies (including Cornell), and he had pretty good stats (2350 SAT 4.6 GPA, #3, with really good ECs). He got into UCB Chem Engineering though, so he is reasonably happy I guess.</p>

<p>Yeah..... That's not proof of anything....</p>

<p>The Ivy League does not share RD acceptances however, they do share ED acceptances. Here is an email I received from my interviewer months back when I was accepted to Columbia ED. </p>

<p>Dear *****</p>

<p>Congratulations on your admission to Columbia! I'm thrilled to hear that you were accepted and thank you for contacting me to let me know (we don't get informed of decisions until after December 15th).
Enjoy the rest of your senior year. I wish you all the best with your future endeavors as you embark on your Columbia journey.</p>

<p>Best,</p>

<hr>

<p>IF THE BOTHER TO PUBLISH A LIST FOR THE THOUSAND OR SO INTERVIEWERS, DON"T YOU THINK THAT THEY WILL SHOW THE OTHER IVIES WHICH THE ANSWER TO IS YES, BECAUSE I"VE ASKED MULTIPLE ADMISSIONS DEANS AT HARVARD, COLUMBIA, AND PENN.The above is a result of the ivy common reply date. HY and a couple of other ones didnt release their decisions until the 15th. Look, colleges wont sue if you violate their ED agreement. But you can bet that if they find out you violated a binding ED, they will rightfully so inform the other memebers of the Ivy League. They are bound to honor each other's agreements... harvard will not accept a student bounded to Columbia's ED because Harvard doesn't want Columbia screwing Harvard over at some point later on in time. Everyone resorts to this collusion to maximize each institution's own utility. </p>

<p>But you're correct on one point--- colleges will release you from ED due to Financial considerations only. You and your school will be blacklisted if you do otherwise. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/faq/Common_Ivy_Statement.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/utilities/faq/Common_Ivy_Statement.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Okay found the "proof" you wanted.
<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/admissions/u/appl/pdf/PU_0708_checklist.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princeton.edu/pr/admissions/u/appl/pdf/PU_0708_checklist.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Princeton University application. Allow me to quote (from Page 2):</p>

<p>a. The College Board-approved Early Decision Plan, which is
offered by Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University,
Dartmouth College, and the University of Pennsylvania, requires
a prior commitment to matriculate. Financial aid awards for those
qualifying for financial assistance will normally be announced in full
detail at the same time as the admission decisions. An applicant
receiving admission and an adequate financial award under the Early
Decision Plan will be required to accept that offer of admission and
withdraw all applications to other colleges or universities.
All the Ivy institutions will honor any required commitment to
matriculate which has been made to another college under this plan.
</p>

<p>*The Ivy institutions reserve their right to rescind acceptance decisions from candidates who make commitments to and who hold confirmed places at more than one institution concurrently.
*
</p>

<p>Q.E.D. Now ****.</p>

<p>"IF THE BOTHER TO PUBLISH A LIST FOR THE THOUSAND OR SO INTERVIEWERS, DON"T YOU THINK THAT THEY WILL SHOW THE OTHER IVIES WHICH THE ANSWER TO IS YES, BECAUSE I"VE ASKED MULTIPLE ADMISSIONS DEANS AT HARVARD, COLUMBIA, AND PENN."</p>

<p>That's just the problem; what I 'think' doesn't matter, only the truth does. I want proof - a statement from a school or school official, not all of this "I've asked people" nonsense. If admissions officers are so readily willing to tell everyone that they have this list of 23,000 people, then why not make it known? That would surely scare people into upholding ED. All I want is proof it exists - that's it.</p>

<p>I know someone who graduated 07 and rescinded from Brown ED, because UCSD's 8 year med program was more prestigious. I don't think his applying to the UCs conflicted with Brown, because UC applications are also due in November...But definitely picking UCSD after being admitted to Brown ED was shady. He claimed lack of financial aid.</p>

<p>"All the Ivy institutions will honor any required commitment to
matriculate which has been made to another college under this plan."</p>

<p>I've already addressed this. Nowhere herein does it say that this is done by a massive 'list of applicants', now does it? </p>

<p>"The Ivy institutions reserve their right to rescind acceptance decisions from candidates who make commitments to and who hold confirmed places at more than one institution concurrently."</p>

<p>-Yet again, I STILL don't see any mention of this list. Everyone knows colleges can rescind offers of admission for these stated reasons; You think everything is so clear, and it's not. I want proof of this 23,000 person list, not the same tired ED statements over and over again.</p>

<p>"Q.E.D."</p>

<p>-Nope, sorry.</p>

<p>"Yeah..... That's not proof of anything...."</p>

<p>It's more proof that you are offering, KK. We've had anecdotal evidence here that multiple EDers have had their offers rescinded at top schools, but no evidence that someone has been able to get away with it.</p>

<p>There are a number of reasons why such a shared list does not and could exist, most of them having to do with possible antitrust ramifications and also logistics.</p>

<p>First, an ED list restricted to the Ivies would be largely useless. The concern is typically not an ED kid from Brown trying to apply RD to Harvard, more likely a Tufts or Middlebury ED accept applying to Dartmouth or Cornell RD. So for an ED monitoring system to be useful at finding out potential abusers you would have to include many more schools, at least the entire so-called "568 Group" of 30 or so elite schools, so named after Section 568 of the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA) of 1994 enacted by Congress to set forth in statute the terms under which institutions may cooperate in sharing student information and awarding financial aid. IASA specifically forbids the sharing of any individual financial information on candidates and more generally any individual information on candidates that may affect admission. In general, under IASA schools may share aggregate information on candidates in order to develop a common methodology for the award of need-based financial aid. (The so-called Consensus methodology). This was to avoid each institution developing its own financial aid system and obtain some uniformity in awards. 568 Group schools would therefore compete on their respective academic merit and not on the basis of their financial aid packages. It is extremely unlikely that sharing the names, addresses and social security numbers of admitted ED candidates for the purpose of tracking multiple applications would be allowed under IASA. In addition to potential privacy issues, such a system could certainly be construed as impeding students freedom of choice and restricting competition, which the IASA was specifically enacted to prevent. This is why institutions have been very careful since 1994 about what information they share and include various notices on their web sites that they comply with the Act. Some like Harvard, Stanford and Princeton even opted out of the 568 Group altogether electing to share not even aggregate information with its peers, let alone individual information. </p>

<p>Suspending for a moment disbelief that some of leading educational institutions would risk running afoul of IASA and the consent decree they entered into with the Jutsice Department and agreed to share individual information on admitted students, how would such a system work?</p>

<p>First, such a system could never be centralized because of the potential security and administrative issues. That would require downloading and maintain names and information on an external database separate from their own admissions system. In addition, they would be given secure access in read-only mode to the lists managed by every other member institution to check for multiple applicants. The corruption of a single access code from hacking, collusion or theft would make the entire database accessible to the outside, much too great a risk for the universities. So for the supposed sharing to work, each institution would need to grant access to their system to every other member institution so they could run that list against their own applicants. They would have to manage passwords and access for dozens of people not affiliated with their own institution, praying that somehow they did not give access to everything else beyond the ED list. Again, way too much risk of corruption of the entire university computer system. With universities required to disclose any potential breaches of privacy from unauthorized access, the negative consequences could be substantial. The breach of the UCLA admissions computer system in 2006 which exposed over a million UC student files to unauthorized was a major source of embarrasment to the university. </p>

<p>Finally, the downside of such a shared system would far outweigh its potential policing benefits. All the burden would be on the institutions with the ED programs. Schools such as MIT, Harvard, Princeton or Yale would not need to provide anything as they only have EA programs not ED programs. On the other hand, they would be given free access to all the lower ranked schools ED applicants, presumably some of their best applicants. Directly competing schools such as Amherst and Williams would have access to each others top applicants. What an extraordinary data-mining source! While they would not use the lists to have the ED applicants switch, the data could be used or rather misused in many ways such as analyzing the demographic profiles of their competitors' applicants. This is a real risk as was shown a few years ago, when a Princeton admissions officer was caught red-handed trying to access the Yale admissions system. Some schools with full need based financial aid may feel perfectly in their right to contact ED candidates from other schools wih smaller endowments and less likely to meet the full financial need of its applicants. The IASA would make any attempt at enforcing the ED agreement illegal in that circumstance. </p>

<p>In summary, all the bogeyman stories about collusion between universities to enforce any ED agreements are just that: bogeyman stories. The entire application process is largely based on trust as is the Federal Tax system. If you cheat, whether by inventing positions and awards or applying to multiple schools ED, you most likely won't be found out. But if you do, you may pay a heavy price. Universities simply do not have the resources to verify that everything applicants put down is correct and thruthful. They can check SAT scores and transcripts, but that is pretty much it. The entire system depends on a high level of compliance or it would fall apart. For this reason mostly, a university may feel obligated to reject a candidate accepted ED elsewhere if the issue is brought to its attention unless there is a compelling reason for the double application such as serious financial need. An applicant who cheats on his application, may also be cheating on his term papers after being admitted. Universities will never prosecute an ED applicant who defaults on his commitment to enroll because of the bad publicity as well as possible legal risks. They are just betting the applicants will be dissuaded from cheating in the first place.</p>