If the ED decision comes and it is not affordable, you can turn down the offer and ‘be released.’ You can also ask them to reconsider new facts about your financial situation. All that is in the ED rules.
It seems like you’d like them to give you the 6 weeks to see what other offers there will be. That’s the rub. I doubt they’ll do that. I think you’ll get an offer, maybe a review and reconsideration, and then have to make your decision without knowing if other schools will offer more.
@twoinoneanddone , yes, since I originally started this topic, I have realized there is no way that they would give 6 weeks. As I understand it, they’ll be in a rush to make sure that it’s resolved with adjustment to the financial aid or that we’re released (and the acceptance forfeited) long before regular decison notifications come. So that we’re going to be stuck having to take a financially risky leap in whatever we decide (if the financial aid is much less than we expected) because we won’t know if it will be just as insufficient, or if it will be much better, from any of the RD schools. Since we’re expecting to need to borrow some (we just don’t know how much) of the parental EFC through parental loans. When I originally posted, that was desperate wishful thinking that we might manage a 6 week extension!
I get desperate wishful thinking.
Too late for you, but for anyone else reading and planning on applying for next year: be sure to have a for sure affordable college on the list that you know you/your child will be accepted to and for sure fits in your financial budget and that your child would be happy to attend (even if it’s not their very favorite, they should be able to see lots of potential). Even better if it’s one that offers EA, so your child knows they already have that acceptance before getting the ED decision/package. That can make the whole process just a smidge less stressful overall.
OP, I truly hope your child is accepted and the FA package comes in where you are hoping and is affordable.
OP you’ve applied ED2 which binds you to accept admittance if the financial aid is acceptable. If it’s not you can either decline or appeal and ask for more aid. What you cannot do is game the system by asking for an extension to see the others offer. That goes against the entire meaning of ED. Acceptance during the ED round is given to a student who has agreed to withdraw all apps as soon as the financial aid comes out and is deemed acceptable. Your admission is contingent on that and if you were able to do what you’re suggesting, everyone would apply ED. Best of luck to you.
If you apply ED or ED2 and you’re not full pay, you run a greater risk of not getting sufficient financial assistance, by the very design of the ED system. First of all, for ED or ED2 applicants, colleges have no incentive to put their best foot forward because they don’t need to compete with other colleges in terms of financial aid. Secondly, they assume, often correctly, their colleges are a reach for the applicant, and his/her alternatives are not as attractive in other areas as theirs, so they don’t really need to compete as aggressively in terms of financial aid. Last but not least, for ED or ED2 applicants, financial aid office has to work nearly simultaneously with the admission office on the same application (for EA or RD applicants, financial aid office generally doesn’t even look at the application until the applicant is accepted). Even for colleges that are supposedly need-blind, there’s greater chance of information leakage/exchange between the two offices as their officers, who are working on the same applications concurrently, are human beings and they gossip, socialize, etc. They’re more likely to know more about you on the other aspects of your application that aren’t supposed to be in their purview.
@1NJParent I disagree. Schools that offer excellent FA (80-100%) aren’t going to offer less money in the ED round. They may offer less merit aid but the financial aid remains the same. Schools are well aware that not receiving enough FA is the only acceptable reason to back out of an offer of acceptance in the ED round. What you will be offered in ED will be the same as what you’d be offered in RD as the formula for determining FA remains the same.
Mine isn’t likely a popular opinion among people who apply ED or ED2, who obviously value the greater chance of acceptance more highly than its downsides. As more and more people apply ED and ED2, there’re more instances of applicants receiving insufficient, or at least uncompetitive, offers of financial aid. The frequency of this type of threads on CC and elsewhere will increase. I just want future ED or ED2 applicants (and their parents) to think about these issues more critically, before they decide on this path.
EDI and EDII are based on the premise that in exchange for an early decision, if admitted, you will attend. You will withdraw all current applications and not make any new ones.
If finances are a consideration, you may keep the ED application open until you get the final decision from the financial aid office. Even then the school will give you a date which you must either fish or cut bait. It is a very short and fast process between admissions and ultimately accepting the admission.
The rub is that you don’t get to know whether the package you got at the ED school is the best package because the decision is made before the RD decisions are released.
What you can’t do is hold the ED decision open until you hear from the RD schools.
Your position is also not necessarily true.
I think the real point that @1NJParent is trying to make is that there really is no incentive for the ED school to consider a financial review because you have already committed to attending.
In addition, one of the advantages of RD is for schools that allow it, you will have the “luxury” of asking for a financial review based on another school’s financial aid package. You can’t do this with an ED acceptance, which seems like what OP wants to do (they want to see what will come down the road, RD while holding on to the ED decision.
My D was accepted to every school that she applied to which were a combination of an Ivy and top LACs, which all met 100% demonstrated need. She was accepted to her top 3 choices via likely letters and early writes, so in mid February, she had “acceptances”.
There was almost a 20k gap between the “best” and the “worse” package. What we were able to do was submit the financial aid package to her first choice school from their head-to-head academic peer. The school met the package which saved us minimally $40k over the course of 4 years.
I really hate ED now that we’re experiencing this dilemma firsthand. However, the sad truth is that at the ED2 school where my kid applied, the chance of acceptance is practically non-existent for all but the strongest candidates during RD, but it is feasible during ED. Moreso than at most other colleges. So honestly, if someone wants to go to that college and doesn’t have stats that are clearly at the top of the range, they will face this dilemma. And it’s a college that is recognized to have some unique aspects/programs literally not available at any other college. If we could do it all over again, I would probably have discouraged my kid from considering this college, though; due to this dilemma. But what a shame that things are going more and more in this direction at many colleges (either apply ED or expect that there’s almost no chance to get in). Although those who have simple W2 income may be able to get reliable guestimates of their aid from the online calculators before applying, those who don’t fit that category are really at a big disadvantage when/if their kid wants to go to one of the colleges where the acceptance rates are VASTLY different between ED and RD and the RD acceptance rate is in the very low single digits while the ED acceptance rate approaches almost 1/3 of ED applicants.
SP- unless one of the “literally not available at any other college” criteria is “it’s ten minutes from home”, I find it hard to imagine that with over 3,000 colleges in America, you can’t find that program somewhere else.
I’ve just had this discussion from a kid I know in real life. Why the fixation on the unaffordable college? It has a major in “Health Care Policy”. When I pointed out ten other colleges with strong programs in all of the disciplines that go into health care policy (public health, policy, econ, health economics, statistics, demographics, political science, urban planning, sociology) she insisted that if she didn’t major in “Health Care Policy” her life would be relegated to folding sweaters at the GAP. Which is ludicrous. My pointing out that majoring in statistics and minoring in poli sci or econ would probably make her 10X more employable in health policy, she insisted that it was expensive college or bust.
So while I’m hugely sympathetic to your plight AND to the unpredictable nature of your income/financial aid picture, how can it be that only one college has the program your D wants???
@sybbie719 For those of us that have need, run the NPC and get a number that they can live with, applying ED is a great option. In our case, it wasn’t about comparing offers or using those offers to get more aid, it was about getting the number we needed. The idea that a school is going to look at you and decide to give you an FA package that is not what their formula normally yields because you applied ED, is simply not true. I have seen it happen with merit for sure but not FA. If you want to compare offers and go with the lowest one, don’t apply ED but if you just need the school to cost a certain amount, I’d encourage it.
I would like to reiterate/clarify once again, the ED app was not submitted with any intention to compare offers. Information regarding how (allegedly) bad the particular college’s finaid (supposedly) is for families who own a business , compared to the finaid that peer colleges grant for the same families/financial info, only came to light after the ED app was filed; as well as financial circumstances and outlook of the business took a dive for the worst only after the ED app was submitted. At the time the ED app was submitted, there was no expectation that financial aid was going to be such a big concern. Only after the ED app was submitted, did circumstances and new intell indicate that there might be a big issue, and only after that is when desperation regarding how to deal with that newly arising issue/concern led to wondering about ability to compare offers being potentially helpful. This was not a planned out or expected “gaming” of the system; and it has been realized since the original post that no supposed “gaming” of the system is even possible for this situation. Conversely, from our family’s vantage point/situation, it feels like it is the college and the ED system and the fact that (if true) the online financial aid calculator is likely very inaccurate for us as a family that owns a business, which might be characterized as the college “gaming” us into believing ED is a good idea (this college really pushed hard during tours and emails etc. re: anyone who wants a real chance to get accepted needs to apply ED; and that they allegedly meet 100 percent of need, so not to worry about the financial issue).
@splokey the good news is that you will be able to decline an offer that doesn’t work for your family. Many schools will work hard to work with a family that needs to be back out as they don’t want an ED applicant to walk away. Hopefully your package comes out better than expected. In our case, our ED school meets 100% of need and they did just that and then some for us. Unfortunately, for those who own a business the NPC is often not accurate and that’s typically easily researched. You should know soon enough. Best of luck!
Thank you to everyone who commented. And I apologize for anywhere that the tone of my posts/responses sounded indignant; this whole situation was surprising to me and I have reacted with anger, which is partly at myself and at my kid for getting ourselves into this predicament, and for feeling a bit cornered because if the finaid doesn’t turn out to be decent, I will feel pressure/guilt to just suck it up and go into a crazy amount of parental debt because it’s going to be hard to say no without/before being sure there will be better alternatives offered from the RD schools that were applied to, and when this ED school is far and above different and so strongly preferred by my kid (not really by me though). Yes, and maybe a miracle will happen and the online financial aid calculator will turn out to have been fairly accurate for us in the end. (I’ll update re: the results after we know! In any event, I’m trying to believe that whatever happens, happens for a reason and turns out the way it should be in the end!)
@splokey - what about contacting this college to explain that your financial situation has changed and see what they suggest your child do - move ED to RD, wait for package that is coming soon, whatever?
@OHMomof2 That doesn’t seem to be the case here. The issue is the family owns a business which often results in an inaccurate NPC result. OP hasn’t mentioned her financial situation changing.
You can only act on what you know. You seem to have learned a lot since applications went out. I’d figure out what you can pay per year (remembering you’ll get less aid with only one in college) and make sure your child knows if the ED package comes in over that you’ll have to turn it down. If the RD packages are also unaffordable, your child doesn’t have to accept those either. She can take a gap year and apply to schools that offer guaranteed merit.
Good luck, OP. I’m also curious what unique program this ED college has that "literally is not available at any other college. " But agreed that you don’t get to hold on to the ED acceptance and carry it with you throughout the RD season.
OP- hugs to you.
I am not of the “if she gets into her dream school and we can’t afford it we’ll sell plasma or a kidney to make it work” school of thought, even though as a family we put a very high premium on higher education.
I have NEVER seen a family go into deep, deep debt for college (and I know many- neighbors, friends, people at work, relatives) where there hasn’t been a cheaper alternative which in some cases is also BETTER academically and intellectually.
I know the whole "but we’re paying for him to join the right frat because networking is so important in business " school of thought- I just don’t buy it. I’ve worked in corporate America for decades, and most people completely overestimate the power of these “networks” in many, many industries and functions. I’ve also heard “Yes, XYZ college might be cheaper but you get what you pay for” which in many instances is totally false. Because some of these “more desirable” schools are colleges with tiny endowments (we’re not talking Amherst or Williams here), shaky finances as measured by Moody’s and other somewhat neutral observers, and a whole lot of snake oil. Why does the shaky financial college encourage everyone to go abroad junior year? Because they get a fee per head, but don’t need to build enough dorms to house four years worth of students, that’s why. Why does the shaky financial college offer a Master’s degree if you stay a fifth year (again, we’re not talking MIT which does this)? Because grad students are a profit center for many colleges, so they get an extra year’s tuition with a modest outlay (and the grad students don’t want to live on campus, so no amenities required).
If this is NOT your situation- and your D is looking at the “most beloved” college which has a big, healthy endowment, an exceptional academic reputation, phenomenal faculty, etc. and the next option down is your own directional state college which only offers allied health and accounting majors- then ignore me. But I’ve seen the parents who go heavily into debt for Pace and Hofstra and Adelphi and Quininipiac and High Point and Fairleigh Dickinson and Stonehill and Villanova and are turning down MUCH more rigorous colleges which in their cases, are also cheaper.
So back away from the edge- and before you sell an organ, make sure you are not buying the snake oil.
I feel your pain with the fairness issue, but if kids are a few years apart, it’s difficult to judge how to be fair. Tuition costs rise over time, generally, so what someone pays for a child graduating in 2016 vs. one who will graduate in 2022 can differ greatly. What if one child has earned merit scholarships due to hard work, good grades, and good test scores while another didn’t? Or what if one were willing to spend much more time writing essays and applying to more schools than another, thus improving merit aid chances? You have to do the best you can at the time, based on what you can afford and perhaps what loans you and/or your student might be willing to take out.