<p>wjb, because it is speculation. I don’t like to hang people based on speculation. Call somebody unethical or immoral based on speculation.</p>
<p>People who do that …I don’t know…are behaving in an immoral way.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I completely do not understand your question. I am posing a hypothetical situation. It has nothing to do with what I think the OP is doing. This is an internet forum. Basically everything is hypothetical. For all you know I could be the OP.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t understand the confusion. Again, I think I used the word “hypothetical.”</p>
<p>Let me try again. A PERSON (not the OP, okay), is accepted ED to Penn with a FA offer they say is inadequate. They also have a full ride from a state school, and are awaiting a decision from MIT. They plan to turn down Penn because the offer is inadequate. They get a rejection from MIT. Suddenly, the Penn offer is not so inadequate. THey turn down the state school and accept Penn’s FA offer (remember, the one they claimed was inadequate). I would find it hard to believe that after recieving an MIT rejection they suddenly found $200K in quarters in the couch, and now didn’t need the full ride from the state.</p>
<p>Just some ideas. And the SEAS acceptance rate is a fact. And the OP posted herself about wanting to transfer out of there right away. Do you have some other ideas to explain her statements?</p>
<p>Perhaps OP’s parents didn’t put her in her “crappy” school to stand out. I’m not saying that they did. But it is an idea.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Plenty of parents do that, Asian or otherwise. Sometimes it works and sometimes the kids get tattooed and join a street gang. Often the kids don’t get the same quality of education that they could have received because of the lack of motivated peers. On the other hand, some of these kids will grow up healthier with less stress. I’ve given it some thought myself since my younger daughter does not appear to be eager to burden herself with the most demanding schedule. She likes her school and her friends though, so it isn’t happening. I’m not even Asian!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe when she made that quip about minorities and poors, she was counting herself in that group. Maybe she’s in that most difficult group, just above the cutoff to be considered poor, but not enough money to be able to walk away from a free ride.</p>
<p>Bovertine…fine… so let’s hang the hypothetical person who is doing that. We can use an imaginary rope.</p>
<p>^^^^
I think hanging is a little excessive. But since the rope is imaginary, okay.</p>
<p>bovertine:</p>
<p>If all they do is “plan,” then it does not matter, as long as it stays in the planning stage. If they DO reject Penn because the offer is inadequate, they cannot turn around and say, “Wait, I’ve found the money and now I can attend.” I do not think Penn would allow them to change their mind.</p>
<p>But again, MIT financial offers do not come out until quite late. ED schools want an answer very soon because they want to lock in their numbers (students and finances) before knowing how many more offers (of places and money) they can afford to make. People changing their minds play havoc with the colleges’ own plans.</p>
<p>There are other EA schools that may make finaid offers at the same time as admission. Now that would be an interesting scenario.</p>
<p>We can use a rope made out of imaginary chocolate. So it snaps when used on the hypothetical person. The hypothetical person is not only not hurt, but can have some imaginary dessert.</p>
<p>
</p></li>
</ol>
<p>JHS, I agree completely with your statements. </p>
<p>However, I would like to add that while it has always been assumed that no schools would “force” a student to attend if the financial aid is not sufficient, it should be repeated that a school such as Columbia made it VERY clear that:</p>
<ol>
<li>The release of the ED commitment was entirely at the discretion of the school</li>
<li>It was RARELY granted and only if the student would be released to attend a NON-PEER school that offered substantial MERIT aid.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Fwiw, the statistics on the ED yield clearly indicate that the overwhelming majority of the students do not seek a release and DO attend their first choice schools.</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I believe that reviewing the positions of ED schools that participate in programs such as Questbridge helps debunking the myth that ED is only a rich people’s game. While ED represents a clear advantage to the full pay families, it ALSO offers something very tangible to the zero or close to zero EFC student. This is especially true at schools (such as Penn) that offer full demonstrated need coverage AND no loan. The only contribution for many ED applicants with low EFC would be the summer expectations. In this regard, I believe that the OP would find that MIT is not quite as generous as several of its peers, but that was not supposed to be THE crux of this discussion. </p>
<p>In the end, the “dangerous” zone of the ED’s financial impact hits the middle class students who are not rich enough to be able not to care and not poor enough to have very low EFC on the FAFSA and Profile. The “middle” families are also expected to have more “circumstances” to present and might very well have to rely on the need to REALLY compare packages and … negotiate with multiple schools. For such families, unfortunately the ED is not a good path to follow, as the clear benefits of using an early admission are dwarfed by the financial risks. </p>
<p>And that is something that most families DO understand.</p>
<p>“But again, MIT financial offers do not come out until quite late. ED schools want an answer very soon because they want to lock in their numbers (students and finances) before knowing how many more offers (of places and money) they can afford to make. People changing their minds play havoc with the colleges’ own plans.”</p>
<p>This is all the more reason that it’s unethical to get out of her Penn ED agreement assuming that it is possible for her to attend. She knows darn well that the likely hood of MIT’s offer will be most likely close to that of Penn and she therefore never really entered into the agreement with Penn as her first choice.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I think you are wrong about Columbia.</p>
<p>[Early</a> Decision | Columbia University Office of Undergraduate Admissions](<a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/firstyear/earlydecision]Early”>http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/admissions/applications/firstyear/earlydecision)</p>
<p>Admittedly, there can be a lot of gray area when it comes to ED … especially when deciding if a financial aid offer from an ED college is truly “affordable.”</p>
<p>So here’s how I have typically advised the students I have worked with who are interested in ED but who are also worried about college costs:</p>
<p>**1) Before applying Early Decision, sit down with your parent/s and decide how much your family can realistically pay each year</p>
<p>2) Play with one of the online EFC (Estimated Family Contribution) Calculators, to get a ballpark sense of how much colleges will expect you to contribute</p>
<p>3) If the number you came up with in #1 is reasonably congruent with the figure from #2, then you can proceed with an Early Decision application, with the understanding that the college should expect you to pay roughly what the EFC calculator proclaimed.**</p>
<p>If, however, your EFC is much higher than the number you came up with as “realistic” for your family, then ED is probably not a good bet for you.</p>
<p>If you do apply Early Decision and the college asks for approximately the same EFC you had already determined before applying (and if the financial aid offer doesn’t include an excessive amount of loan) then it is only ethical that you accept the ED bid, even if–in the meantime–another college has come through with a free ride or any other better deal.</p>
<p>I always warn prospective ED applicants that they shouldn’t necessarily expect their ED college to be their cheapest option. But, in return, they are receiving a boost in admission odds and the opportunity to attend a top-choice school. </p>
<p>But, admittedly, “affordable” is a hazy term. If the ED financial aid package does include loans in addition to the EFC that had been predicted before applying, then I feel that the student can withdraw without penalty (or without violating the binding commitment), unless the loans are minimal. As I said before, there’s certainly gray area here.</p>
<p>I do think Xiggi is right about the risks to middle class families (as opposed to full pay or potential full ride students).</p>
<p>Really dumb question. Leaving the OP out of this. How much do colleges at the elite levels of Penn and MIT “care” about what the other is offering a given student? I mean, not to be dismissive of anyone admitted to such high caliber schools – but from the standpoint of Penn and MIT, who have tons of extraordinarily high caliber students falling all over themselves to apply, how badly do they ever want any given student that they’ll “care” if they lose her to an equally competitive school? I get that they might care at the aggregate level if they lose dozens of students to Competitor A, but a given student? How much leverage does such a given student have in general to say “MIT gave me $X and you only gave me $Y”? (Let’s move this to a hypothetical RD scenario, to keep the ED stuff out of it) I mean, couldn’t Penn just say in general, “Bully for them, enjoy MIT”? How badly do these schools compete for certain students?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you really believe that? Because there’s a part of me that says - well, if I ran a university, I’d love to hook in lots of full-pay students ED, so I can cherry-pick among the people I’m going to have to subsidize in RD.</p>
<p>Xiggi…from Columbia’s student affairs…</p>
<p>" It is the family’s determination that they cannot afford to pay for a Columbia education that allows them to be released from the binding early decision admission offer"</p>
<p>“It is extremely rare for a family to ask to be released from the Early Decision commitment for financial reasons. However, on occasion possibly due to a lack of understanding of need-based aid (i.e., they were expecting merit-based aid, they did not submit complete information when using a financial aid estimator, etc) families have requested to be released from their Early Decision contract. It is the family’s determination that they cannot afford to pay for a Columbia education that allows them to be released from the binding early decision admission offer. The family must first speak with a financial aid officer, before the release is granted. Ultimately, it is the family’s decision whether or not they feel capable of accepting the need-based Columbia financial aid award. Those who do opt out of their Early Decision contract are released to pursue lower-cost school options, such as state schools and/or schools that award merit aid. The admission offer at Columbia is then cancelled. A candidate who declines Columbia’s Early Decision offer will not be allowed to reconsider Columbia’s financial aid estimate during the spring Regular Decision cycle and will not be able to reinstate the original offer of admission.”</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/answers[/url]”>http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/answers</a></p>
<p>I think if there is not much difference between two schools, UPenn may just step up, but if it’s a huge difference it would be a different story. It’s the same as when we are hiring. There maybe hundreds of qualified candidates, but once we have identified “the candidate,” we would rather close the deal.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Dtstark, how many times do we need to revisit the same issue? In previous posts, I decried the lack of clear policies by the schools. In this post, I wrote, “it should be repeated that a school such as Columbia made it VERY clear that …” Please pay attention to the difference between “made” and “makes.” Also note that I was answering directly to JHS statement “It is clear, and has been for a long time, that people can reject ED admissions because the financial aid is inadequate.” This is … in the past.</p>
<p>Over the years, we have HAD countless discussions about the possibilities of “walking” an Ed commitment, and the positions of Columbia regarding releasing students to non-peer schools has been used several times, especially since few schools had the courage to clearly spell out their policies. </p>
<p>Fwiw, Dstark, you cannot always assume that something no longer exists just because it is not SPELLED OUT in full on a web site. Perhaps, you could read the quotation you used to contradict me and think about what about what is supposed to happen during … the consultation with the financial aid officers at Columbia. If the release is automatic, why would there be a need for a consultation?</p>
<hr>
<p>EDIT: You just posted the correct text in your follow-up “**Those who do opt out of their Early Decision contract are released to pursue lower-cost school options, such as state schools and/or schools that award merit aid.” ** What do you think that means? :)</p>
<p>bovertine et al.: I think everyone here agrees that there are lots of indications that the OP (or someone hypothetical like the OP) is not acting in complete good faith. Where we differ is in our jurisprudence. Many years back, in my first year of law school, I was convinced that it was inappropriate to punish people for their thoughts alone, if their actions fell within accepted norms. </p>
<p>In your hypothetical, while it looks like the student was not having honorable thoughts, it would not be possible to reach that conclusion with certainty unless we had some kind of brain scan. From the standpoint of actions, she has stayed within the acceptable norms, questioning (as many might) Penn’s judgment about need, and ultimately accepting the offer of admission within the (pretty short) time allowed. Was she unfaithful to her agreement in her heart? Probably. What should we do about that? Short of bringing back the Inquisition to police ED agreements, nothing.</p>
<p>xiggi: And I agree with you completely. The line you cite from Columbia is exactly what I think the rule should be (maybe that’s because Columbia is the only college any of my kids applied ED to). But if push came to shove I wonder how far Columbia would go to back up its saber-rattling. Of course they would not release a student who called up and said “I would rather go to MIT.” But I think they would release a student who called up and said “I really can’t afford this; I have to opt for a state-school merit award.” And if by some chance that student had second thoughts again, and wound up at MIT, which had accepted her before she turned down Columbia . . . Would Columbia follow up enough to know that? Would it go to MIT in May and demand that the admission be withdrawn? It certainly could (and if I were the kid or her parents I would worry about that). But I’m not sure it’s likely.</p>
<p>I especially agree that this is not really an issue for $0 EFC students, but is a huge issue for most of us. Paradoxically, a really poor student would not be able to play the kind of games we are talking about here. A full-cost, no-loan financial aid award from Columbia or Penn would leave little room for backing out on the basis of inadequate financial aid. Nevertheless, I believe that the colleges want to see ED applications from middle-class students, too, not just the wealthy, athletes, and Questbridge.</p>
<p>The family gets to decide if it can afford Columbia. Xiggi. That is what I am saying.</p>