I don’t think this is true at my kids’ schools which are similar to CA. If the kid is released from the obligation that is different.
I believe that the kids at these schools get a huge advantage from the very personalized college counseling. The admissions teams put a lot of trust in the LOR’s, and the counselors help the kids apply ethically (well other than the whole ethical question of providing some kids this help when public school students don’t get it) and strategically. When a counselor violates that trust and those ethics, it seems reasonable that the advantage goes away.
If the situation is as it seems, and there isn’t some other factor, then I think CA should probably fire the counselor, and that should restore Tulane’s trust.
There are several interesting points here. First, in the article it says “So when Tulane quietly placed Colorado Academy, a private high school in Denver….” this indicates that the whistleblower was likely someone at CA. That, IMO is bad form. Additionally, with so many students from CA attending Tulane, Tulane is unlikely to want to shoot itself in the foot for no reason. So, IMO as others have said, there has to be more to the story. Maybe CA and the other 3 schools given the 1 year ED “pause” had been warned previously and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
There used to be “stories” that AO’s at some top schools would communicate with some of the other top schools’ counselors if a student reneged without good cause on an ED acceptance, especially late in the game, and “reportedly”, in some cases, the student’s other acceptance (that they chose over the ED) was rescinded if it was discovered that the student did this and violated the ethical agreement. Now, the Common App explicitly states “that if a student is accepted under an Early Decision plan, the institution may share the student’s name and early commitment with other institutions.”
Many of those schools are known for their generous FA, and if a student “wants” to compare FA offers, they shouldn’t apply ED. It’s pretty simple. No one is holding gun to their heads to apply ED. They are doing so to increase their chance of admission. There is, IMO, a big difference between what a student/family CAN pay vs. what they WANT to pay. If a student gets an ED acceptance that they can afford (even if they don’t “want” to pay that much), then they are done. If the ED FA offer differs significantly from what they got when they ran the NPC, then they can request a review or decline the ED and stick with their other completed applications where they were hoping to get more $$. Yes college is in many cases ridiculously expensive. But if you apply ED and can afford to attend with the offer they made, then it seems distasteful to claim they (the schools, Common App, SCOIR and the Higher ed Financing Consortium/COFHE) did something wrong to “deprive” them of other opportunities. I hope that suit gets tossed in summary judgment, TBH.
To add: We have seen many schools close due to cost constraints, and there are other factors (to be better discussed in the political forum) affecting schools’ funding. If wealthy students and their families feel they should sue b/c they don’t want to pay their cost to attend, well cry me a river.
My kid went to a private school, and the CCs made a huge deal about what the obligations were for an ED applicant. They also emphasized that other students at the school could be negatively impacted in future years by a bad actor. I doubt anyone was surprised, including current CA parents. Ime, schools are pretty forthcoming about expectations and responsibility to the community.
If there isn’t already another thread about that lawsuit trying to squash early decision (I was going to type “squash ED” but that looked “wrong”, LOL), maybe we should start one so as not to derail this one too much. Lots to unpack in that lawsuit, where they refer to it repeatedly as the “Early Decision conspiracy”, that the common app uses “scare quotes”, calls ED a “scheme”, and it seems they want to do away with ED, which they say violates antitrust laws.
In reading this thread, and thinking about it, I think “good for Tulane”.
I also do not know what prompted to Tulane to take this step. Like some others who have commented, I am figuring that they must have had some good reason to do this.
I am not a fan of ED. However it is supposed to be a tradeoff. The student needs to make up their mind early and commit, without even knowing whether they get in. In return they might get an improved chance to be admitted. If they want the university to live up to the university’s end of ED, then the student needs to live up to their end.
I think that Tulane’s move here helps to bring fairness back for the students who choose not to apply ED.
All 100+ seniors can’t go to Yale, but it is easy for none to go to Tulane, even for none to go to Tulane for 3-5 years in a row. I think in Denver the ‘prize’ school is Stanford and a lot of kids try to get recruited to Stanford or schools like Pepperdine as they love the sunshine.
I’ll ask at bridge this week if the former counselor has any idea of what happened.
Yes, my mistake. Pre-k is $33k per year, k-5 $37k, and middle and high school $42k.
But tuition for private schools in Denver is a lot lower than on either coast. When we moved from Denver to California, the catholic school tuition (hs) for my kids was double - and then I got to pay for sports, which were at least triple.
Read the whole thread and am struggling to see where Tulane is in the wrong. Whatever happened to “A deal’s a deal?” My assumption is that the student who backed out wasn’t as transparent as they should have been. There are in fact explicit circumstances under which one can back out of ED, and my read is that the student didn’t qualify. My between the lines is that there should have been more guidance on implications from the school itself, given that they have to sign off on the ED docs and given that they presumably have a history and relationship with Tulane. Seems a betrayal of trust.
I’m with @Mashinations. The ire should be directed at the school, not Tulane.
I see no way this is about one kid. The little info we have suggests this is also not about kids rescinding for legitimate reasons like financial or emergency change in circumstances. I agree that independent schools of this type know that unjustified bailing on ED can have consequences for future students. My kid’s school makes this crystal clear to the parents and kids. I have no issue with what Tulane did here based on the info we have. This year’s kids can still apply EA.
I wonder if it was an athlete who in the past would have signed an NLI but now NCAA rules allow students to jump schools and not require a year to sit out.. The ED contract would still be binding even if the NLI is not.
However, some of the rumored actions by colleges were of putting the high school on an auto reject list, rather than a no ED list (auto defer if someone does apply ED).
The colleges are limited in what they can do against ED back outs. Anything they do to punish the high school or counselors there would punish other students at the high school who have not done any ED wrongdoing.
What they could do is require ED applicants to pay the matriculation deposit with the application. Then refund it if the applicant is not admitted ED, or if the admitted applicant provides a “good reason” to back out. But then an ED admit who backs out without a “good reason” has already paid it and will lose it.
That would be an interesting nuance/twist to this for sure but I still believe that it would come under the heading of the straw that broke the camel’s back.. this isn’t the first issue they’ve had with CA.
I have ZERO problem with what Tulane is doing here. I have a problem with the other colleges who aren’t doing the same thing, actually. the ED expectation is known to every high school kid. and many do not withdraw their other applications after their ED acceptance, either to keep their options open or just to see where they can get in out of curiosity. I wish all the colleges would enforce the unwritten law in some way.
And yes, of course, it would be better if the whole ED thing was just abolished.
I helped a friend’s family daughter get in Tulane…. ED.. A few year’s ago and loves it there. Not the typical ED kid. There was no question was stress about finances as many of us on here know some families applies “just to see “what happens. Maybe they will be the ones getting some merit even though they know they probably won’t.
How many students on here ask questions about pulling out and many of us question the vadality of their questions?
I am not a large proponent for ED to begin with. But everyone it seems knows the rules up front. I didn’t read the article but just by reading some comments I think I get the gist. I so understand if a family truly can’t afford the school but than why apply? Just because you can afford a private high school /boarding school doesn’t automatically mean they can afford this very expensive college also.
I don’t know the back story but you would think they would put the school on some notice. Or just not accept the kids from this school quietly and not go public. Not sure which is worse?
Last cycle I heard of numerous kids who didn’t pull their other applications after they were accepted in binding ED just to “see”. If a high school is complicit in sending mid term grades and multiple transcripts they should be penalized, and this is really the only tool the university has to do so.
I get the outcry that it’s “not fair” to the next class but the reality is that universities track all kinds of things, including matriculation, that may be “not fair”. My D’s high school had a terrible track record of having no students matriculate to school and that college ended up not admitting anyone from our HS for 5 years. The GCs were quick to let applying seniors know and actually talked some kids out of using ED there because they were pretty sure they were on a naughty list.
Kudos for Tulane about being upfront about the practice.
Can’t kids still apply to other schools when they apply ED? And can’t they send those applications out as early as they want? And aren’t the high schools doing their best to send out transcripts and recommendations along with these applications that kids are filing at an early date?
Yes, AND when a student is accepted in binding ED, they are required to withdraw all their other applications. If a student is still being considered in an RD round, most schools required mid term reports. If a GC is sending mid term reports to multiple schools after an ED acceptance, they are complicit in breaking the ED contract. Same if they send multiple final transcripts.
Mid term reports are sent out before ED2 results are released.
Multiple final transcripts are not terribly unusual, as kids on waitlists might request a final transcript to the waitlist school whether they are admitted or not (my kid did). Perhaps a counselor was sloppy and didn’t notice that the student was bound to the original school.
One thing that seems clear to me is that the kid’s withdrawal from Tulane was without financial reason and there were probably multiple kids. Somewhere along the way, students/families must have gotten the message that ED isn’t really all that binding.
One other thought, it is likely that CA counselors will, at some point, read this thread, and likely Tulane AOs as well. Message to Tulane: your overly-heavy use of ED is what got you here.