<p>I am 18 years old and an adult.</p>
<p>My parents do not support my ED application for stupid reasons and I am wasting my time try to convince them.</p>
<p>The CommonApp has a spot for parental signature.</p>
<p>However, since I am an adult and technically a separate legal identity (I do my own health insurance, school registration, etc.), can I leave this blank and only have my own signature?</p>
<p>Prompt assistance is greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>What are the supposedly stupid reasons?</p>
<p>They are stupid. I guarantee you that. My parents have no conception of the meaning of strategy and do not have any clue about college admissions.</p>
<p>One of my parents thinks I get into Harvard RD with sub 2200 SAT score and Asian male with no other hooks. This should dispel any questions about my parents’ credibility.</p>
<p>Please stick to my question.</p>
<p>WOW, I realize times are stressful right now with apps due but you need to take a breath and not be so rude.</p>
<p>@PERFECT36MOM Sorry you interpreted that as rude. I was only being rude to my parents.</p>
<p>This is the second time they are pulling shenanigans regarding the biggest decisions of my life.</p>
<p>An answer to my question would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>Future- I feel your pain, but unfortunately I don’t have an answer to your question.</p>
<p>@Hopsin </p>
<p>I greatly appreciate your response and empathy. I will move forward without their signature. I am an emancipated, 18 year old adult and no pair of moronic parents will stay in my way.</p>
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<p>We are parents, too… that attitude isn’t going to go over too well out here. I expect “no pair of moronic parents” will pay for your education, either, if you act this way. I sure wouldn’t! And thus you will have to turn down that ED acceptance anyway because you can’t afford it even if you do manage to somehow get the form accepted without their signature. And by the way, if you turn down an ED offer when you did not even apply for FA, you run the risk of being blackballed at ALL the colleges you applied to. Word gets around.</p>
<p>By the way, your username is interesting – my D2 recently said that the college she attends gives her the best possible chance of becoming a polymath…</p>
<p>@intparent Ok, makes sense with regards to the parents. Sorry about that, parents.</p>
<p>I am applying for FA. My fundamental goal is to apply to the best college for me, period.</p>
<p>OP, props for using the word “shenanigans” in one of your posts. Really, even if you get a definitive answer here, there’s no way that you’ll be able to trust it. Send an email to the admissions office and ask them your question. Use a different email address than will appear on your application if you want to remain anonymous. Good luck.</p>
<p>I suspect that unless you can meet the federal financial aid definition of an independent student, you need a parent signature on your ED form. By the way, there are some very good reasons why parents may refuse to sign an ED form. Those include:</p>
<p>(1) financial concerns and a desire to compare financial aid packages (which you should be highly concerned about if you are truly emancipated and paying your own bills, and you should be respectful of if they are paying), and </p>
<p>(2) they may not feel your ED college is the best place for you (and again… if they are helping pay you can have all the tantrums you want, but they do get a vote on how their money is spent – you are not owed an education at any college you might want to attend).</p>
<p>@MiddKid Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll consider it.</p>
<p>@intparent </p>
<p>(1) This is where the problem lies. They think I should only apply RD everywhere to competitive colleges and bank on getting into two colleges to compare FA packages. This is the wrong strategy for me, I have proven them wrong, and they still do not agree.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your thoughts.</p>
<p>If you need to be able to compare financial aid packages, then you have no choice but to apply EA, RD, and Rolling. ED is out.</p>
<p>ED is only (and I repeat ONLY) for those students who know to the penny what their financial limits are, and who are prepared to kiss an ED acceptance with an aid package that does not meet their limits good-bye. Even when students do receive what appears to be a good enough aid package at the time of ED acceptance, all to often when the final revised offer appears in April, they discover that the revised offer is significantly lower, and the much-loved ED institution is now unaffordable.</p>
<p>Ask your parents to sit down with you and run the Net Price Calculator at your dream institution, and the NPCs at two or three of the ones that they like. Verify that they are truly ready, willing, and able to pay what those NPCs indicate the various places are likely to cost you. Then, if your potential ED institution is within their affordable range, ask them if they will reconsider allowing you to apply ED provided that you have all of the other applications ready to go if the ED institution rejects you or if you are admitted but not offered sufficient aid.</p>
<p>And go find yourself at least one dead-on admissions and financial safety that you would be willing to attend if all else goes wrong in the process, and apply there so you do indeed have a back-up in the bag.</p>
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<p>If you need to compare financial aid packages, do not apply ED anywhere. Applying non-binding EA or rolling is fine. But your parents are correct that ED is inappropriate if you need to compare financial aid packages, even if they are unrealistic about your chances at Harvard and similar schools.</p>
<p>Based on what you posted in <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1569058-release-ed-because-financial-reasons.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1569058-release-ed-because-financial-reasons.html</a> (post #6), your ED dream school would leave you with $100,000 in debt, which most here would consider far too much (and require your parents to co-sign, which they presumably are not very willing to do). If it is that unaffordable, it would not be a good idea to apply there at all, much less ED.</p>
<p>If your parent’s income is required for your financial forms, meaning that you are not eligible to file independently, then I’m pretty sure you will have to have parent signatures. Alter all, the ED is committing you to pay your portion of the tuition not covered by financial aid, and they will want to know that the parents are onboard.</p>
<p>You’re not emanicipated from your parents because of your age. To potential colleges, that can occur only via court order. </p>
<p>But that’s not an option b/c you need/want your parents’ financial support. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. On the surface, your parents are following conventional wisdom of not applying to any ED school in order to compare FA packages via RD schools.</p>
<p>Sorry but there’s nothing irrational about it. You may not like Intparent’s advice in post 11 but your parents are fully allowed to hold that stance.
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<p>They’ve managed to save some money some way some how. And they’ve decided to GIVE it to you for your education. They get to make the call.</p>
<p>Or you can wait 4 years and receive actual emancipation and start college then. BTW: I also doubt your GC will endorse your ED application w/o your parents either. I think you should give up this crusade – you seem to be rather blinded by the absoluteness correctness of your strategy – and come back to the reality of your situation.</p>
<p>And I get you’re ranting but your ease of name-calling of your parents is appalling.</p>
<p>ITA with T26E4. Every single word. Particularly the last one.</p>
<p>As others have said, you’re being short-sighted.</p>
<p>You need your parents to be on-board. You’ll need their info for FA apps, and you’ll need their contribution for college.</p>
<p>I’m really doubting whether they’ll co-sign a crazy amount of $100k for loans since that amount would really screw them if you couldn’t pay…and would really hurt you when it comes to paying back.</p>
<p>Schools don’t consider you to be “emancipated” just because you’re 18 and have your own insurance. </p>
<p>You may be very smart, and your parents may not know all the “ins and outs” about the college app process, but they probably know their financial situation…which is why they want you to compare offers.</p>
<p>*With regards to adjusting financial aid, how realistic is this? </p>
<p>My parents’ defining argument against applying early [decision] is that I will “not be able to negotiate” with the Fin Aid office, especially if its still not affordable.</p>
<p>Is this true? Must I have an offer from another competitive college to be able to leverage any amount of Fin Aid?*</p>
<p>Your parents have a point. If you only have your ED FA offer, then you won’t have an offer from another school that could be better. That said, have your parents looked at the NPC results from your dream school? If so, what did they think of it?</p>
<p>However, if your parents (and you) are thinking that if an offer isn’t good enough (but fair based on their finances), then your dream school isn’t likely going to offer you more money. </p>
<p>And, top schools won’t care if you get a better offer from a lower ranked school, so if Mid-tier B school offers you an awesome pkg (merit and FA), then Dream School won’t care.</p>