Sure! Copied from an @Mwfan1921 post upthread. Here’s the post:
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I had liked the post originally, so I obviously read it, but needed the refresher. Thanks for sharing that!
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That does not violate any rules, unless the EA school has a restriction against applying ED elsewhere.
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My s’s attended college a while ago, but even back then the college counselors emphasized that if students backed out of ED acceptances for anything other than financial reasons, the school could get blackballed by the college. So IMO this is nothing new. This year’s seniors at the HS where this occurred should be mad at that previous student who backed out, not at Tulane. As my mother used to say, don’t make a threat of a consequence if you are unwilling to enforce it.
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They should require ED applicants to pay the enrollment deposit on application, to be refunded if the ED result is not admission. If the ED result is admission, it becomes non-refundable.
They should also require a logged NPC run and acknowledgement of the resulting net price. Only if the actual FA application has the same financial inputs but the result is worse than the NPC should the ED admit be allowed to back out (with refund of the enrollment deposit in this case).
Then they do not need to penalize third parties to “enforce” the ED agreement.
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I would COMPLETELY support this - at Tulane or any University that offers ED. I do wonder how much administrative burden it would add but that could be figured out. The other piece that might not be seen as PC is for economically disadvantaged applicants if they can’t come up with the deposit - but again, think that could be figured out.
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There would be post after post complaining about it and how ED not only favors the rich but only those with cash in hand, etc….Will never happen.
The logged NPC run can be used to determine eligibility for the reduced deposit that many colleges offer to admits found to have high financial need.
I went back and read my post and realize that I DID mean refundable - meaning refundable to anyone who is not accepted ED. If an applicant is accepted, then s/he has already paid the deposit and Tulane keeps regardless of any future actions by the accepted student.
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This might actually encourage the colleges to ensure their NPCs are accurate, which would be nice (note the current thread on the very erroneous Brown NPC calculator).
This would then reduce applications from students that have parents as small business owners, international applicants that require aid, and many other non easy-to-assess applicants. Would the colleges that offer ED themselves balk at a requirement that would generate fewer ED applicants?
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That would presume that the NPC is 100% accurate for all. And clearly, for Tulane at least, it’s not, since they say they regularly release students from the ED agreement.
That would be reason for colleges to make their NPCs cover these kinds of situations.
As it is, if the NPCs are badly off in those situations, students in those situations may be less likely to apply ED due to financial aid uncertainty.
Other option is to require ED applicants to make the actual FA application early. Then the college can come back quickly and say, “your net price will be $_____; if you wish to stay in ED (versus changing to RD), you commit to attend at that price if admitted and need to send the matriculation deposit now (refunded if not admitted ED).”
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Even if net price calculators are correct, families personal situations can change after they filled out the forms and applications. Where we live, we know for families where both parents were CDC employees and both lost their jobs. And it’s not too easy to get another job in public health right now.
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Exactly. Life happens, so there have to be allowances.
Over 330 posts on a subject that across the ED spectrum doesn’t seem to be a huge issue.
All the ED schools have historical ED yields baked into their predictive analytic models, so they accept the number of students that will meet whatever proportion of the class they want to fill in ED. I don’t know if last year was an aberration in terms of renegs at Tulane, because neither the article in the OP or Tulane’s response said anything about that. There are many other problems/issues in education and college admissions that are indeed broken…many which could benefit from creative solutions.
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And that it is as long and as comprehensive as the application for FA that that school uses. Does it ask about second and third homes, rental property values (not just income from rentals), different types of retirement accounts like IRAs, Roth accounts, other children’s 529 plans, who actually controls those 529 pans…
I think people have a much different view of financial aid if this is the second child filling out the forms. We all learned a lot after the first run, that savings bonds in the child’s name do count, that timeshares do count as assets, that some schools care about the art collection while others don’t.
I don’t see attaching an NPC sheet as always helpful.