<p>Duke appears to have turned the Early Admissions Game findings into a marketing tool:</p>
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</p>
<p>^^Actually, Penn raised ED to a new art. Other highly selective competitors just followed along.</p>
<p>DeirdreTours – the more I see, the more I agree with you about the ED process. It is not a level playing field when you talk about a minor applying to college, on the one hand, and large, sophisticated institutions on the other. Throw in what has happened to the economy, and it’s not good.</p>
<p>I just learned yesterday that the daughter of an old friend, a high school senior, had to pull out of her ED accepted school (Hampshire), and will be going to community college for 2 years. Her parents are in that middle range (government-employed professional and elementary school teacher), and the college fund has tanked. She is a wonderful young woman (adopted from an orphanage abroad at age 2 1/2) who has done very well at a magnet program at a local public high school.</p>
<p>No, it’s not the end of the world to start out at community college. Our local CC does have a photography program, which is one of her main interests. But, I think that the whole college search, application and admissions process has become complex, and starry-eyed high school students and their sometimes unsophisticated families may not fully understand the ramifications of ED. Really, it should go, in my opinion. Its benefits are one-sided.</p>
<p>magicsmom-- it looks like there will be a substantial number of kids in that position this year. You are right, it isn’t the end of the world, but it is a huge impact on your friend’s daughter’s world and almost none on the college in question. I suspect the reason one never sees ED “enforced” by the colleges is that they know the game if fundamentally unfair and that they would look terrible in the media coverage that would surround such a suit.</p>
<p>So is the lesson to be learned from magicmom’s friend, that even if going ED, do not pull your application/acceptance at your (financial) safety?</p>
<p>Even if you are 100% certain that you want to attend your ED choice and you have the $, so much can happen in the months before school starting, it seems reasonable to have one backup that might be a step above community college, that you know you could attend if disaster struck.</p>
<p>How frowned upon would it be to apply to your close to home, state school and keep that application/acceptance active as long as possible, while pursuing your ED school? I mean, the colleges have their back up, if you choose to break ED, why can’t a student have that “in case of emergency” option, as well?</p>
<p>I don’t see why some are putting down colleges for offering ED. While my family never used ED because for us finance were a concern, I have no problems with ED’s being offered. I think the rules are very clear, and both the parents and students have to sign off on it. It’s not the colleges’ fault if students change their minds or people want to game the system.</p>
<p>ED appears to be a good deal for people with no financial concerns whose students are rock bottom sure about where they want to go to college. While that wasn’t my family, I don’t see a problem with colleges offering it.</p>
<p>I have no issues with ED being offered. It is a good deal for the colleges to improve their numbers. They know exactly who will come. This helps them tremendously.</p>
<p>My issue is that for the advantages it offers a student - supposedly a 100 point increase in SAT score boost - it also limits their options in comparing financial aid offers. We have all seen vastly different packages as parents or counselors from similar schools for the same applicant. It is mind boggling how different, at times.</p>
<p>The student that I referenced many dozens of posts ago was able to decline his ED offer due to financial reasons. He was let out of the agreement. But unfortunately, for him, he then joined the regular applicant pool at many other similar colleges. This added to many more months of worry and agonizing over his future. His story ended happily, enough for him. He did end up with a good sized aid package at a school he wanted to attend. </p>
<p>He also admits that if he had known what would happen, he would have applied Early Action to other schools on that list that were not single choice, to improve his chances of merit scholarships, in addition to need based aid. These would have been non-binding, allowing him to carefully think over his choices without being so rushed in spring. Most EA schools let students know in December or January which psychologically seems to help seniors decide their future path without the manic spring rush!</p>
<p>Some students aren’t so lucky. </p>
<p>It has to be an informed decision for the student, and as so many have explained, not a decision to be taken lightly or without understanding the consequences.</p>
<p>So what are your thoughts given the current volatile economic situation on a student, who is not applying for aid, who feels quite certain that they will attend their ED school, but as an “insurance policy” against some unforeseen disaster keeps their local, state school application active even after being accepted ED?</p>
<p>Would this be an acceptable plan or would it violate the terms of ED?</p>
<p>It violates the terms of ED. If the student has concerns about finances, the student shouldn’t apply ED. Period.</p>
<p>I don’t know why people have trouble understanding that. The cost of college was always a concern for my family (even though we are a family that doesn’t qualify for need-based aid), so we told our kids not to consider applying anywhere ED. This was a very easy decision for us to make.</p>
<p>NSM – I understand if there are “concerns” about finance not to apply ED.
But how different is it for the kid who had to back out of ED to attend the community college versus the state school. The tuition is comparable. Does having the state school or for that matter community college as a back up plan in the case of an unforeseen disaster really violate the spirit of ED?</p>
<p>It’s not like you would be comparing offers, looking at where else you could get in etc.
If you were accepted by your state school before you got your ED school acceptance, is it important to the ED school that you definitely back out of the state school acceptance?</p>
<p>If so, why? Beside being technically in compliance with the agreement, do you think they would really care about the not competitive with them state school or community college?</p>
<p>Am not trying to find a way to game the system – I am genuinely trying to understand the realities of it.</p>
<p>Most of the counselors at the local high school do not allow a student to apply to any other school before January if the student is an ED applicant, with the exception of the Cal State/Univ of California schools. The deadline for those applications is November 30th. </p>
<p>This isn’t a violation of the ED agreement, because this is the drop dead deadline for most of the schools in the California public school system. </p>
<p>However, these counselors tend to refuse a student completing an application for a private school or an EA school, if an ED app is out there, until the student is notified of admissions. This is considered a violation of the terms of the agreement by these counselors.</p>
<p>broetchen - this is what to do:</p>
<p>apply to the local and state colleges very early. Most are rolling acceptance and the acceptance can be received as early as September or October but before the ED application is due.</p>
<p>Now here is a little known secret: when you apply ED you can try and “recind” your acceptances. But, in reality, if you call these schools in May they will take you. You can even call them in July and they will take you. Recind all you want, but in their eyes they still have your records on file and if there is room they will take you.</p>
<p>The last time this topic came up on CC, I said that a student should not back out of ED, except in the case of dire circumstances, such as an illness that required the student to remain near home. I think my view was tagged as “moralistic” or worse. </p>
<p>But I have to come to the support of Northstarmom and others, again. It is not right to back out of ED (except in unusual circumstances).</p>
<p>If a student’s family had their funds tied up with Bernie Madoff (or in a similar situation), I feel tremendous sympathy, and I think that the change in finances could convert a previously affordable choice into a completely impractical choice. I can’t recall the timing of the discovery of the Madoff Ponzi scheme–I would have advised a student in this situation to withdraw the ED application, if possible. But otherwise, I see this as a valid reason to back out of ED, along with other unforeseeable changes in financial circumstances.</p>
<p>However, the OP does not seem to fit this category. I do not understand the viewpoint that the deck is stacked in favor of the colleges with ED, so it’s acceptable to back out.</p>
<p>It seems to me that a student applies ED either:
- because the student is certain that the college is <em>just right</em> for him/her, which makes backing out improbable, or
- because the student hopes to gain an edge in admissions by applying ED. </p>
<p>The OP seems to me to fall into category 2. Furthermore, this admissions edge is only available to those who do not have to wait until spring to compare financial aid offers. (Not instigating class warfare here! Just pointing out that ED often seems to benefit the “pretty good” applicant from a family that is “pretty well off.”) So, having gained an edge–and de facto denied an ED acceptance to someone else who wanted it–the OP now wants to vitiate the agreement, because he may have underestimated his chances of acceptance elsewhere?</p>
<p>“NSM – I understand if there are “concerns” about finance not to apply ED.
But how different is it for the kid who had to back out of ED to attend the community college versus the state school. The tuition is comparable. Does having the state school or for that matter community college as a back up plan in the case of an unforeseen disaster really violate the spirit of ED?”</p>
<p>What part of the ED contract do you not understand? To apply ED, a student, their parents and counselor have to sign a contract that says that if accepted, the student immediately will withdraw all other applications and won’t apply elsewhere.</p>
<p>The only exception is if a student is released from ED due to something like a family emergency such as a family emergency or the student’s family’s not being able to afford the costs of the ED college, something that can be very hard to prove.</p>
<p>If a student or their family has concerns about finances, don’t apply ED. Easy as that. Apply RD to any of the thousands of colleges that may interest you.</p>
<p>My family had such concerns, so ED was never something my kids considered. I don’t understand why other people in similar straits think they should be able to ignore the ED rules that they agreed to.</p>
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Not here in PA. not comparable at all but that is another topic.</p>
<p>
read QuanMech’s post and go to #2.</p>
<p>Northstarmom - you are right not to apply ED if there is a concern about finances - but I think this year has proven that in 6 months one’s financial picture can change markedly.</p>
<p>I think the OP was just being lazy. He figured he would just apply “somewhere” get in and be done with it.</p>
<p>I certainly don’t endorse the idea of entering into an ED agreement with the intent of possibly backing out.</p>
<p>What I do think is that the imbalance of power and sophistication between the contracting parties is so great-- one being a starry eyed high schooler the other being a multimillion dollar business operation— that no fair, meaningful contract is possible.</p>
<p>“What I do think is that the imbalance of power and sophistication between the contracting parties is so great-- one being a starry eyed high schooler the other being a multimillion dollar business operation— that no fair, meaningful contract is possible.”</p>
<p>The parents have to sign, too. And adults routinely sign contracts with multimilliondollar business operations such as mortgage banks. It’s not as if the kid is expected to go into the contract all by themselves.</p>
<p>Mortgages bear no resemblance to ED. They are regulated, largely because of those imbalances in power and sophistication between the parties. Mortgages also are fairer than ED; the buyer and seller have comparable benefit under the contract.</p>
<p>The amounts of money and the long-term financial consequences at play in ED — the financial value of the other college options and of the comparison-shopping that are nullified by the withdrawal of other applications — can be dozens or hundreds of times larger than any money the student has earned (or spent) up to that point. The product being sold is heterogeneous and also largely unknown to the student, who has not previously attended college, much less the specific college in question. This is totally different from a mortgage, where the commodities purchased (houses, credit) are familiar, and the adult signers would have earned sums of money comparable to the house price prior to signing the contract. </p>
<p>Also, the signatures other than the applicant’s are a fig leaf. The parent and guidance counselor don’t aver that the applicant understood the agreement and its possible ramifications, and their ink on the paper doesn’t necessarily raise the odds of understanding.</p>
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<p>I am curious about the reality of the situation – does anyone know of situations where colleges have not released a student? The ramifications of breaking ED (aside from the obvious having to live with not keeping one’s end of the bargain) seem to be losing admittance at other colleges one may have been accepted to, issues with the guidance counselor and the potential of “blackballing” of other students.</p>
<p>The main concern on the part of the colleges offering ED would seem to be candidates who are trying to gain an advantage in acceptance, then pulling out because another school is more attractive. The penalties for breaking ED seems to focus on that scenario.</p>
<p>I am curious if all of you really think (not being facetious here) that the ED college would care if the student left himself the option of a state school or cc, in case of an UNFORESEEN emergency?</p>
<p>Again, no plans here on gaming the system, just trying to get a clear picture of the ACTUAL practices involved in ED.</p>
<p>“What I do think is that the imbalance of power and sophistication between the contracting parties is so great-- one being a starry eyed high schooler the other being a multimillion dollar business operation— that no fair, meaningful contract is possible.”</p>
<p>Okay, I have to make one more comment. What imbalance of power are we talking about? The colleges aren’t twisting these kids’ arms.</p>