I think if you hope for a match, it needs to be an HYPS - and if you apply ED to Brown, you have zero chance to get that over from them because you will have withdrawn those apps.
So any possible leverage would be gone.
Given Brown , on their website, is stating there is really no advantage, what else is there to know?
But you can ask a counselor, not a person answering the phone. One is probably assigned to your daughter’s area.
I’d even give the quote from their website so you can say, knowing that, does ED give me better odds ?
Also note - they want you to ED - so they don’t have competition. Admissions reps are sales reps - they are marketers in many ways but without crossing the line.
But you are potentially hearing what you want to hear. And at the same time, you mentioned leverage - which you would 100% give away in ED.
I’d add - a school not affordable is not a dream but likely a nightmare. This is four years, not one or two.
We all want to fulfill our kid’s desires but you need to think for the entirety of their schooling - maybe four years or maybe they have longer plans.
If the NPC predicts that Brown will not be affordable, then I would not apply ED. If Brown is your daughter’s top choice, then I would not apply ED anywhere.
As others have pointed out, it is not clear that there is an acceptance rate advantage, and if there is then it is very small. The stats are of course very skewed due to recruited athletes needing to apply ED.
Brown and other top ranked schools are looking for students who will be a good fit for them. They get it right quite often (which for example might be one reason why their dropout rate is so small). If this comes across in your daughter’s application one way or another it might help her chances. However, Brown is still a high reach for nearly every applicant.
Since Brown does not have EA, I think that you apply RD, get the application in early, then focus on other schools for which admissions is way more likely while waiting for results.
And this is very true.
We were cautious when setting a budget for our daughters, and set a hard limit. This ruled out some schools that just did not meet budget. This cautious budget however turned out to be very helpful when they both ended up in graduate programs. Exhausting or even exceeding your budget for a bachelor’s degree has a good chance to end up being a mistake in the end, even at an excellent university such as Brown.
Yeah, people don’t always talk this way, but one of the nice things about choosing a non-binding REA/SCEA school in this round is it does NOT have to be your favorite. Again that sort of defies conventional wisdom, but it can be an appropriate “strategy” for people who feel like they should be applying to SOME highly selective college in this round, but don’t want to be bound to pull other applications.
Of course if they are restricted EA, that still may mean not applying EA to any other US privates, and that can be a potential problem if that is necessary for full merit, notably at USC . . . but at least Stanford has an exception for that (last I knew, Yale and Princeton did not, and Harvard was ambiguous).
Or maybe a Brown kid would prefer just applying early to one or more privates where it isn’t restricted at all. Like USC! Or WashU has added an early action option this year, and I know some kids who liked both Brown and WashU. Chicago has this option too, although reportedly can lean on EA kids to convert to ED. Georgetown EA I believe only restricts you from applying ED anywhere.
Anyway, point being if you really feel like you need an early application “strategy” of some kind, it doesn’t have to be a binding one, and that means it doesn’t have to be your current top choice.
No, not specific to the ED round. Brown is looking for students who have excelled in spite of a disadvantage(s). That’s for both ED and RD. Low income doesn’t always mean disadvantaged. Example being income low because parent(s) are retired but there are significant assets.
Something seems off that Brown’s FA package would be so much more than another T 15 (assuming that school is private, and you confirmed no merit aid.) I would talk with a director of FA. Tell them the expected contribution is significantly higher than what sibling pays at t15 and talk about reasons that might be. Obviously make sure you’ve put in accurate numbers into the NPC.
A few other thoughts where the differences might be:
-assuming parents are married?
-do you own real estate beyond a primary home? And or a business? We can see differences in how schools treat these situations when calculating FA.
-do you have significant home equity? If so, Brown might be hitting that equity harder than the sibling’s school. Ask this when you talk with a director.
-are the high medical expenses from 2025? If not, that’s going to be more difficult to get more $ from Brown. Not impossible but less likely, because that’s the parameter they’ve set on their appeal form.
It seems like she would apply to Brown ED if the NPC looked good, so I would do legwork to remove as much uncertainty as possible. But, you really don’t have time to do that because ED deadline is Sunday.
I would also encourage you to really consider how much more Brown will be once the sibling is out of undergrad and medical expenses not so high. Would that cost be even doable?
My son was accepted to Brown in the RD round a few years ago, and the financial aid offer was significantly lower than his other acceptances at meets need schools. This included a school that was similarly ranked. I did ask for reconsideration and sent them a couple of other FA offers received. While Brown did increase their offer, the cost was still significantly higher than other options and ended up being unaffordable.
But the sibling isn’t applying. So showing that your same household income/assets yielded a more generous package for the sibling- two years ago? isn’t quite apples to apples. Sibling school may treat home equity differently. Sibling school may have a more generous cap on other assets. Too many variables to speculate.
But unless you and your senior are confident in your ability to walk away from Brown if you can’t make the numbers work (and many people could not) then I’d apply RD with the rest of the list and kick the can down to March.
Taking the federal loans to ease the gap is one thing. They are reasonable package for a college grad to pay back if the young person understands the need for a frugal lifestyle for a few years or more until he/she gets established. But the Parent Plus loans are really a trap which even reasonable people have trouble saying no to. So run Brown’s numbers again- and figure out if the Federal loans are enough to close the gap. And if not- boy, RD looks like the better plan.
Does the financial aid from sibling’s school cover an extra year? Many schools do not cover beyond 4 years for an undergraduate degree.
As far as the financial aid picture at Brown, you seem to have a heavy dose of uncertainty mixed with some wishful thinking. Certainly not a good recipe for an ED application.