While I don’t defend reneging at all, this particular example points to one of the reasons there’s no legal contract: price. Usually this concern is handled by the NPC, though not perfectly, but since there are some colleges that give merit to ED applicants (which I don’t understand, but that’s another topic), if the college does this, that complicates the price picture, as it did for the family in this example where the kid’s first choice required possible merit and the kid is essentially unlikely to attend by applying EA/RD due to the low acceptance rate. So in this case, while we would probably say it’s not likely to be affordable, so don’t ED, at the same time we can see that due to the disparity in acceptance rates, they took a risk - with no apparent downsides for them - that they thought was the kid’s best shot at their dream school.
Which returns us to the problem that ED isn’t a legal contract, but merely an ethical agreement with no teeth.
No, that is not even close to accurate. The firm I started (and am no longer affiliated with) was both the largest worldwide and served the most diverse student population worldwide. The payer was not the end user. Happy to explain more to you in private message if you truly want to understand. We see things differently, and that is no issue on my end. I like hearing your perspective.
This may be a side tangent (apologies) but the post you linked, and the subsequent post by that poster Tulane University Early Decision / Early Action for Fall 2025 Admission - #205 by Twinopoly were quite brazen. It’s not clear to me whether they were “requiring” $25-30K in merit or need-based aid, but regardless, they were pretty clear that because they didn’t like Tulane’s admission strategy, they felt entitled to, and planned to cheat. And were public about it! What has happened to basic integrity/scruples/ethics/morals/honesty? Short of opining on some theory that would send this thread to the political forum, what has happened to people’s belief systems that they think it’s ok to cheat just because they don’t like the rules of the game? It reminds me of this article and photo from 10 years ago Indian parents scale school wall to help students cheat on exams - CBS News
Parents facilitating their kids’ cheating? What are we teaching them? That is ok to rationalize any behavior if the end goal is to get ahead?
Most colleges have students sign an honor code when they are enrolled, and while yes that code has teeth (student can be sanctioned or expelled for a violation) what does it say when a student and their family blatantly violate an ethical agreement to get into a school, but then sign an ethical agreement saying they won’t cheat once they are at the school.
I am no fan of the recent pressure to apply ED to Tulane, but I am less of a fan of gaming the system and blatantly cheating. If you don’t like the rules of the game, don’t play.
I remember that person/thread. No idea what ever happened. I don’t recall the person ever updating on where their dear daughter ended up. It was pretty toxic.
Offtopic but that poster said “Before you cast dispersions…” and it reminds me I keep seeing posts of people waiting for their Financial Aid to be “dispersed” and I visualize the FinAid officers taking piles of paper money and throwing them up into the air to be scattered all over the place by the wind, and you have to run around picking it up here there and everywhere off the ground, and I think “Yikes, I hope they don’t `disperse’ our financial aid!”.
I completely co-sign this. One of my D26’ top choices is a school her college counselor alerted us to that we hadn’t heard of and now all love.
I also co-sign this. And will add that my D26’s counselor at her independent school expressly convinced us that she should not apply ED because she had several schools she really liked and absolutely should not sacrifice the others for the most selective one when she was equally interested in the others. And for us it was not about money. The counselors also work tirelessly to get the high achieving kids and their parents excited about schools that don’t have a sub-10% or sub-20% admissions rate. I can’t speak to what outside independent counselors are doing in terms of incentives or signals to kids, but my experience at my kid’s prestigious private school is that the counselors are not pressuring the kids to apply ED. They do pressure to apply EA, but not ED. They only seem to press in that direction when it is the right fit for the kid. I know it’s a sample of one school, but it is inconsistent with what some are asserting here about elite private high school counselors.
I don’t disagree with your points. I’m curious though, from your perspective what advantage did ED provide your daughter that all those schools being EA like yours was back in the day wouldn’t? My Alma mater was EA in my day and now is ED and RD only. I think ED is markedly worse for those students today than EA was there then. It was a top choice school for most students then as it is now, but now it forces the early birds to lock in. Just curious if you think there is an ED benefit over EA since neither me nor my kid are ED folks?
Her first choice school only had ED so that question wasn’t a question we really considered. I think she liked the finality of ED but had EA been available instead that might have been fine. She did apply EA to four schools and had already been accepted to one with their highest merit before her ED decision came a couple weeks later so that was nice. Note we are a high need family though so even $36k in merit per year wasn’t getting us where we needed to be without need some based aid as well. A school that met need was crucial for us, and most, though not all of those are ED schools. Our state school, where she didn’t want to go anyway, would have been more expensive for us than most meets need LAC so that wasn’t a reasonable backup. Add in that her ED school is need blind which was great for us - she is not first gen, and there was little on her application that would have alerted an AO that she was a high need student. Many EA schools are need aware and she might have been dinged for needing so much aid. Now if you’re talking about a world where ED doesn’t exist and EA with decisions in December does I could probably get behind that. But my daughter wasn’t really looking for choices at that point (she had done the research already and knew what she wanted), and I think too many choices would have made her unhappy (she couldn’t wait to pull her other apps as soon as the ED came in). And as a family without a lot of money had there been choices there would have been a real temptation to have her choose based on which came in lowest priced - as opposed to this way an affordable choice existed which was her first choice and she was now obligated to go there anyway. But it’s a good question.
This wasn’t posted to me, but I have a side story to share. Older s. had a school he fell in love with. It was recommended by one of the college counselors at his HS - his assigned counselor was new and didn’t know my s. This other counselor, who knew me and my s, just mentioned that we should look at that school and she was right- it was perfect for him.
At that time the college offered both ED and EA (it now only offers ED). He really wanted to apply ED (hopefully have the answer in December, not have to complete the other apps, etc). I wanted him to apply EA, but he really wanted to apply ED, so we said OK. He got the good news in December (he had also applied to what back then was his safety, Ga Tech (!!) and heard from GT the next day too). BUT here is what I still hold dear to my heart. My mother, for whom college and education was very important and meaningful, proudly knew where her older grandson was going to college. Shortly after he got his college news, my mother got sick and passed away before the EA results would have been out. The fact that she knew where he was going to college before she died is something that is powerfully meaningful to me. As they say… priceless.
Thanks for the thoughtful and thorough response. I am talking about a world with no ED. My Alma mater is one of those highly selective need blind schools that meets full need and is often cheaper than the state flagship for a lot of students with high need. My wife applied, and got in there EA back in the day. If ED were gone, I suspect they’d go back to EA and students with need like your daughter would get the same financial deal they do now without the obligation to commit. I get that some folks like being forced to commit and not having to choose. But, I do not think it is good that most of the need blind meets full need schools are now ED or RD only. So I long for a world where kids don’t have to give up choice to get that. And I was wondering if I was missing something else that ED gives students that EA doesn’t.
Thank you. I think about it every year that his school’s ED results come out. And it was a long time ago. A very cherished memory. So not all ED is bad
I love this story. My dad also died my D22’s senior year of HS and the fact that he had several months knowing where she was going to college was indeed a gift. She gave him a school sweatshirt for x-mas that year. An upside of ED I hadn’t thought of before (esp since he didn’t live to attend her HS graduation which was something he really wanted).
So, Tulane moved from 2/3 (per article) of the enrolled class admitted via ED for class of (edit) 2026 to half the class for class of 2029 (per the article).
(Adding for clarification, as discussed in following replies, the article is incorrect on half the class being accepted ED)
So?? That is extremely common, with many schools accepting well over 50% of their class ED. Kent and Levy generate a fabulous, comprehensive table every year of the ED/RD acceptances by school. Here is their table for the class of 2028 Early Decision and Regular Decision Acceptance Rates Class of 2028
