I agree. I do wonder if the Tulane VP’s job could be at risk and if the trustees approved the communication he sent out to counselors (again not sure that was the only recipient group). That board does not want ‘unwelcome’ publicity. That board also really values USNWR rankings and Tulane has only been losing ground there( a separate issue of course)
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An application can be withdrawn at any point prior to decision. So you’re saying that in the week or two before an ED admittance is issued and say 2 weeks later the person losses “all their money”. Seems a little far fetched and I would guess they might look to better understand such a circumstance and the solution might be to tell them to apply for aid.
Just to clarify that we’re talking about the same thing, I am referring to Tulane feeling the need to actually punish high schools for students backing out of ED. This is common practice? (Not doubting, just wanting to be clear.)
No - sorry - should have been more clear. It’s common practice for a company to write a clarifying memo to “interested parties” to give more details of their side of the story when they feel things might have been left out - or if they feel they were unfairly represented.
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There is no “system” which is 100% perfect or accurate. I don’t think Tulane (or any other college for that matter) should be designing a protocol which works for every single family all the time. It’s enough (in my opinion) that real humans are at the end of the phone for Professional Judgement on a wonky aid award, or that a family faces a true “special circumstances” review when a hurricane destroys their house or a breadwinner loses their job which also means losing the company car and health insurance.
And if Tulane goes further with details, there’s gonna be a “breach of privacy” lawsuit lurking. Easy enough to Dox the kids involved given that they are geographically concentrated….
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Is that a fact? Anyone can withdraw an ED application prior to hearing about the decision without consequences?
I agree that the loss of money happening like that seems farfetched, but what if a full-pay family realizes late in the game that their situation has changed. People sometimes sell their house abruptly, and didn’t see it coming, till it was too late.
Gotcha. That’s not what I was trying to refer to - maybe I need to edit.
Just to stretch that idea further, couldn’t the intervening financial event have occurred in a more recent tax year than is used in the financial forms? There is that time lag. I am under the impression that the applicant would apply for aid, knowing they have this additional circumstance, and then may need to do an appeal process for the circumstance, but I’m not all that familiar.
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Unless something has changed or you’re aware of some specific school(s) where this isn’t the case, yes. As discussed it’s a “contract” (a contract without teeth but a contract none the less) and before the school fulfills their side of the contract or not - the other party would be able to withdraw their side of the contract.
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Tulane might just have opened up a can of worms, encouraging future students/parents to use their need to compare financial aid offers as excuses to abuse ED. These students/parents want to have the cake and eat it too. They want a slight bump in admission chances AND the ability to shop for merit / take shots at higher-ranked schools. Tulane’s response is telling them to boldly go ahead.
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I don’t disagree. But Tulane isn’t unique…many colleges could have written the same thing because that’s the typical practice. Those who reneg from ED suffer no consequence aside from losing their enrollment deposit. That’s why IMO it’s a bad look to ‘punish’ innocent students by barring them from applying ED, because a previous student(s) acted ‘badly’.
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Yes, and that applies to most, if not all colleges. Although it’s probably more accurate to say before decisions are loaded in the portal. Most schools allow change of application type or withdrawal via the portal until it is locked, which is typically a couple of days before the decision release date.
If there are exceptions to the “penalty,” I’m not aware of them
For example, our high school (top public high school in the state) regularly has the head of admissions from our state flagship do the college admissions parents night (it is not a particularly high-demand school however). Those relationships are pretty core to being an elite public/private school.
The counselor is EXPECTED to communicate about waitlist to T20s. Its absolutely core to their job. The university needs to know whether or not the kid has new info, is still interested, will accept. Yes, top universities understand that normal public schools don’t have these resources and work around it. Ending up with calls that people got last summer (“if we offer you a spot off the waitlist will you accept?” “yes” “check your email”) which I think are a bit unprofessional.
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The response letter from Tulane’s admissions department was interesting.
I think this is sloppy/bad reporting on the NY Times’ fault because they wanted it to look a particular way.
First, thank you ever so much, @Mwfan1921 for sharing that message to the counselors. Inquiring minds want to know “the rest of the story” and I don’t fault Tulane for responding to that particular population since they are working with students applying now. I also don’t fault Tulane for not giving more information at this point. First, since the student/family apparently gave no further information as to why they reneged on the ED, there is nothing more Tulane can or should say about that, and if they shared anything like (am making this up “several CA students have reneged on ED for unexplained reasons in the past and CA counselors were warned that any further incidents would lead to repercussions for upcoming classes”) that is (a) going to look retaliatory or like sour grapes for the story being leaked and (b) it’s just, IMO poor form, and better to say less not more.
I can think of several reasons why a family could suffer acute financial changes. What if the parents both worked for the government and both lost their jobs? That would be a sudden, acute hit. But that would be explainable, and the family would be released from ED for financial reasons.
I wonder.. @mashinations perhaps you know.. if a student decided to take a gap year (not to pad their resume for a future re-application cycle but just to take a break) would the school hold/defer their spot or the following year or would they have to release it and reapply? I am guessing they would hold it, so if a student decided to take a gap year and NOT want their ED admission held, that also seems a tad fishy (smells of the “pad the resume and reapply in a year”).
Whild I understand that people feel this year’s applicants at these 4 schools are being unduly punished, it sends a message to the schools who have allowed this to happen. Actions have consequences. I have heard for years (including at my kids’ HS) that reneging on an ED acceptance could get the school blackballed. Perhaps we thought it was an empty threat. But it apparently is not. At least not for Tulane. And really, is having to apply EA instead of ED to Tulane that huge of a penalty for some of the kids at CA?
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HS counselors have limited control over where a student enrolls. Even the private school counselors (and we only know one of the punished schools is a private.) IMO that’s why some/many HS counselors seem to be coming down on Tulane’s actions. The renegers were released from their ED commitment by Tulane, so the counselors must send the transcript to where the student enrolls.
Again, the students and parents who reneged on ED are to blame, and with no consequences of their own (beyond losing the deposit). Based on Tulane’s communications, it seems the renegers did so without a valid reason, so we are trusting Tulane on this right now…even though Tulane ‘released’ the student from ED because Tulane can’t enforce the contract. I am sure we don’t know the whole story either.
Tough to know right now because we don’t know the results of their applications.
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Maybe this is semantics, but where does it say that Tulane released them from their ED commitment? While surely Tulane is not going to force a student who isn’t attending to pay their first semester bill, but short of that, what can they do when a student says “I am not coming after all– thanks” ? So as I read it, Tulane did not release them, so a counselor theoretically should send final grades to Tulane. While in the ideal, ethical world, a counselor, especially at a private school, should tell the family they can only release a final report to the ED school, due to the signed, ethical agreement (if there is no explainable reason for their withdrawing) in reality that is not going to happen.
And while this is purely conjecture, my guess is that the other 3 schools who were paused for the year are also privates. Most families asking to be released from ED are typically (not always, but commonly) doing so for financial reasons and will likely be up front about that. Perhaps the wealthier families at the privates will play the “I won’t cancel my other apps when I get my ED and see what happens” or “I’ll see if I get an offer with better money/better scholarship” game.
My son has been very interested in this issue as he’s applying ED. He investigated the gap year issue at Duke, there students are required to sign as part of the gap year agreement that they will not apply to any other university during the gap year.
However, based on how schools treat student athletes (surprise, your sport is cut, surprise, you have a new coach) I’m not sure how two-way the ethical obligation is. If I were a student who wanted to renege, I would research the past 10 years of whether the university met its commitments to students. In many cases, I think I would have a convincing portfolio to show my secondary school that the school reneges when its convenient for them, so they shouldn’t be too upset when its convenient for me.
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Wouldn’t that be an excusable reason to withdraw an ED acceptance (if their sport is cut)?
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Exactly. Not sure how one could say Tulane didn’t release the renegers (they didn’t address the issue in any communications that I know of), as they can’t force them to enroll. The ED contract is not legally binding, we all know this. Not to mention many of the students who sign are minors when they do so, which is not a non-issue should things progress to legal action.
And the same applies to the HS counselor…what can they do? Nothing (beyond communicating again and again the ethics of ED contracts.)
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