susgeek

I just reread your original post - you have to decide in December or January about NU (our ED deadline was December 31). You can't wait and see if Yale or anyone else accepts you. That is the whole thing with ED.

If you just wanted to know earlier, and wait to compare, you should have applied Early ACTION, not Early Decision. Going ED means that if they accept you, it is binding and you have to withdraw any outstanding applications.

'rentof2

Well, it's not quite true that it's binding. If you can't afford an ED school with the FA offer you get, you can certainly be released from the ED agreement.

However, I think the salient point for the OP is that NU will want a confirmation that you're attending (or not) long before you'll hear from any other colleges in the RD cycle.

If you decline NU because the aid isn't optimal, then you run the risk of finding out later in RD that it was the best offer you got... and now it's no longer an option.

Yes, you are supposed to withdraw all your other apps when you're accepted at your ED school, but I am skeptical of all the claims that the sky will fall if you don't. Problem is, that even if you leave them out there I'm not sure what good they'll do you if you've already confirmed and deposited at NU.

I don't think the surveillance network over students applying to college is that developed, but the one place where I think getting into trouble could happen is if you confirmed with NU and then dropped them to pick up an offer from another highly ranked school like Yale. There are lists of ED admits that circulate among higher ranked schools. I read an article once about them. Quite of few of the admissions officers said they just throw them away and never look at them. But others do. You just wouldn't want to be that kid who gets unlucky and has the offers then rescinding from both schools.

I think your stats are quite good for NU anyway. Maybe you should contact them and let them know you'd like to switch to the RD admissions cycle. I mean, it's a trade-off, isn't it? You're the only person who can decide.

My kid applied ED with a mountain of financial need, but in his case his ED school was his #1 choice school, plus it's a school that meets full need without loans. We figured that even if they determined an EFC that was a bit too high for us, since there were no other loans packaged he could borrow whatever modest amount was needed to fill the gap. They also have a dedicated online FA calculator we could do, and it didn't appear that there would be a gap that would require borrowing.

And our offer was virtually identical to what their calculator estimated.

Now was this the very best offer we could have gotten anywhere? It's impossible to know that, but since it was his 1st choice school, the question was whether or not it was do-able financially, not whether it was the best bargain in town.

I think that's how you need to look at ED apps when you need FA.

Toward

Wow, thanks for all the input!

Okay, so here's my exact situation.
The College Board's calculator says I have an EFC of about $3,800 to $5,000.
If NU's financial aid package is anywhere near this—maybe requiring 8 or 10K tops—I can probably find some way to figure it out. I guess I could conceivably go with even less, but that would involve lots and lots of loans.

NU claims it will meet 100% of my need. I couldn't find an exact, official reference with a quick Google search, but here's a link from Yahoo's page confirming it.

Their average percentage met is 100%. However, their average financial aid package, even for my income group, is about $27,000. This is only a little over half of the total cost.

My situation is offset by the fact that I have a large-ish family, live in a rural area, etc., which lead to our low EFC. This could conceivably move me to a lower bracket on the income scale, or whatever. But the thing is, according to their viewbook, even students with the lowest level of income ($0-$30,000) received an average aid package of about $29,000. I simply don't see how this could be consistent with their 100%-promise.

So should I believe Northwestern's statistics, or simply have faith in its promise? Is their something about those stats that I'm missing? Are they skewed in any way?

Most importantly, given all the details of my situation, is it advisable to switch to RD?
(hint: I really, really don't want to do this if I can avoid it reasonably. But if that is the most wise decision, I guess I'm prepared to...)

*sigh*
I hate money.

ttparent

It is well known that a lot of full need schools claim they meet 100% of need by counting loans, work study, and scholarships. We all cringe to hear that we were generously given the privilege to borrow a lot of money along with the privilege to pay for a lot of interest years and years after graduation. Also another big factor in the aid number is asset, income is not the determining factor.

thumper1

Someone will have to verify this...but I believe NU recently implemented a no loan program for low EFC students. If I am not mistaken...this is relatively new. Perhaps someone with more knowledge about NU's financial aid policies can tell us all.

Edit...I just checked the NU website and I could find NOTHING about their loan policies. The finaid website actually said that finaid packages could include loans. So...I'm probably wrong on the above. BUT they do say they meet full need.

'rentof2

The kid I know who was accepted there ED (this was a couple years ago) got very good aid. His award did include a certain amount in loans, but he scrounged up a few local scholarships, and a god-parent contributed a bit, and NU applied all that against the loan portion of the aid package (which wasn't that high an amount to begin with.) This kid ended up his first year without having to take out any loans at all.

He did however end up disliking the school quite a bit and left after a year. Took a gap year and is now in a top LAC. This would have been a better fit for him all along, but NU had a major program he was very interested in. Then he found he wasn't so interested in that major, and didn't like the large school/Big 10 culture at NU.

I'm not saying anything against NU, to be clear. It sounds like a pretty great place. It just wasn't right place for this kid, although the FA award he received in ED was quite good. The mis-match was not a money thing.

mom2collegekids

Could an ED expert explain something to me...

If an ED acceptance -FA offer is inadequate and turned down, then the applicant doesn't have to withdraw his other apps, right?

But, what happens if his RD offers from similarly priced or even lower-priced schools have similar FA packages (similar debt/loans offered or similar gaps)? Is the student obligated to turn down those offers, too, and only accept an offer that has less loans and/or less gap?

Toward

Should I email the admissions office and simply ask, about their aid, policies, etc., or even mention the possibility of switching to RD? ... Or would any of that reflect badly on me or my application?

Does anyone have any experience with switching from ED to RD after applying? How would it affect my chances?

all your support means a lot to me. Thank you so much!

ttparent

I am not a FA expert or a lawyer but below is the writing above our signatures. Note that there is no specific criteria or requirement that you must meet for turning down (just not offered an award that makes attendance possible) nor any stipulation of what you can accept from other schools afterwards.

Early Decision (ED) is the application process in which students make a commitment to a first-choice institution where, if admitted, they definitely will
enroll. While pursuing admission under an Early Decision plan, students may apply to other institutions, but may have only one Early Decision application pending at
any time. Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and
be released from the Early Decision commitment. The institution must notify the applicant of the decision within a reasonable and clearly stated period of time after the
Early Decision deadline. Usually, a nonrefundable deposit must be made well in advance of May 1. The institution will respond to an application for financial aid at or
near the time of an offer of admission. Institutions with Early Decision plans may restrict students from applying to other early plans. Institutions will clearly articulate
their specific policies in their Early Decision agreement.
If you are accepted under an early decision plan, you must promptly withdraw the applications submitted to other colleges and universities and make
no additional applications. If you are an early decision candidate and are seeking financial aid, you need not withdraw other applications until you have received
notification about financial aid.

'rentof2

mom2collegekids, theoretically you wouldn't even submit RD apps prior to hearing from your ED school. My kid didn't, but everything was ready for launch in RD if his ED school had rejected or deferred him.

However, many kids submit apps to rolling admissions schools or non-restrictive EA school and even sometimes RD apps to other schools for whatever reason (just want to spend more on application fees or something ).

So, yeah, if your ED school accepts you and your financial need is sufficiently met, then you're supposed to withdraw other pending applications.

Say you need to get out of your ED agreement, and you do so according the the ED school's protocol and they're okay with it, etc... after that you are free to consider any other offers you can get. Some may be better, some may be worse. Doesn't matter.

Toward

So should I just wait and see what the aid is like?

LasMa

It sounds like you can go ahead and submit apps to other schools. Decision time will come when you receive NU's offer. At that point you either accept, in which case you must immediately withdraw all other apps -- or you decline and wait to see what the other schools offer. Two things you cannot do: Accept NU's offer and then leave the other apps pending; OR go back to NU in April and tell them you want the ED offer after all.

It does kind of bite that you have to make this decision without knowing what WOULD happen if you could see all of the schools' best offers. Just the way it is. I hate money too.

ttyl8

I don't think the OP wanted to compare FA packages between schools. I think his/her main concern is that NU doesn't give him enough aid and he's just asking how hard it is to reject the ED offer.

Honestly, I think the OP should just apply ED. From an ethical point of view, I personally think that if the school doesn't meet what the EFC predicts (give or take 10%), then the applicant could choose to reject ED and without withdrawing applications to other schools.

'rentof2

Yeah, Toward, you can do that. If NU's sample aid model says a family similar to yours in income typically gets 27K in scholarships, and let's say your family can cough up 7-8K, and you can contribute 3K from summer earnings and workstudy, and say you take a 5K loan (for many students this is considered a reasonable amount) -- that still leaves you about 8K short. So I can see how you are left wondering what "meets 100% of need" means in practical terms.

So, you can certainly wait and see what the offer turns out to be. Another thing to keep in mind is to consider is how much aid you might reasonably expect from other schools whose aid is need-based only. Setting aside crapshoot schools like Yale and Harvard, it might not be a lot better elsewhere.

If you decline whatever offer you might get from NU, make sure to have some schools on your list that might award an excellent student like you some hefty merit aid.
____

Okay I just went and looked at the NU FA brochure. I assume your 27K scholarship figure came from that pie graph that gives that amount as the average scholarship for families in the 60-90K income range. That's quite a large income range! I think you can assume the scholarship amount would be higher the closer you are to 60K and lower the closer you get to 90K.

So keep that in mind, too.

garland

tty-the OP said this:

And that's where the problem is. He can't break the ED agreement over an offer he gets in April. Otherwise, we might as well call it EA. ED is a commitment; not a contingency plan.