<p>Xiggi, lol.</p>
<p>It is also interesting how Columbia views when the ED agreement means.</p>
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</p>
<p>If you apply ED and we accept you, you must accept. Then we will give you a release.</p>
<p>Sybbie719, where did your examples of what you can and can’t do come from?</p>
<hr>
<p>"Early Decision Policy</p>
<p>A student may apply Early Decision to only one institution. For those applicants who have already decided that the University of Pennsylvania is their first college choice and who agree to matriculate if accepted, the Office of Admissions encourages application under the Early Decision Plan.
If you are admitted to Penn under the Early Decision Plan, you are bound to accept the offer of Admission, except in cases where the financial issues cannot be resolved.</p>
<p>Families who are concerned about the affordability of a Penn Education should work closely with Student Financial Services to see if a combination of financial aid and payment programs will enable the student to accept the Early Decision offer of admissions. Only in rare cases do students ask to be excused from the provisions of this program."</p>
<p>Sybbie:</p>
<p>Penn does make it clear that ED admits may walk away “if financial issues cannot be resolved” after discussions with a finaid officer. That sounds like negotiations (where the family can bring new information to bear on the finaid package).
Cross-posted with DStark.</p>
<p>Treemaven, what does this mean to you?</p>
<p>“If you are admitted to Penn under the Early Decision Plan, you are bound to accept the offer of Admission, except in cases where the financial issues cannot be resolved.”</p>
<p>Wow Treeman!!!</p>
<p>You said pretty much everything that I have been trying to say only better. I think I can stop posting on this thread now.</p>
<p>I too thank Sally for giving such wise advice. She basically confirmed everything that our family was told regarding the ED process. There is a valuable lesson to be learned here. Hopefully this thread will serve others well.</p>
<p>Sybbie: that’s the way I interpreted it, and knowing that you are the financial aid guru around these parts—I feel better now. :)</p>
<p>Just because someone doesn’t “walk away” from a FA package doesn’t mean they are happy with it necessarily. We weren’t thrilled with our FA package at our son’s school (RD)…but we didn’t walk away from it either–i.e. choose another school. Hopefully, people with some ethical sense would not walk away from an ED binding agreement if there is any way they can swing the COA.</p>
<p>Columbia’s statement was interesting and not the same as Penn’s:
So in this case, the applicant is not permitted to apply to peer schools, though I wonder how that is enforced.</p>
<p>But for schools (most?) that do not attach this provision to their ED release, I would think that it is of no concern where the released ED applicant then applies. The relationship between the applicant and the ED school is officially severed. And I think the applicant would then be able to attend any other school, including peers. Am I wrong?</p>
<p>My understanding of the ED list that circulates between schools is that it exists to prevent students from applying ED to more than one school at the same time. After ED acceptances and releases are complete (Jan.1 ?) does this list still exist? I can’t believe any school would bother with the actions of former ED applicants who were officially released.</p>
<p>dstark, it means exactly what it says, i.e., I am bound to accept the offer of admission and matriculate to the ED college (as I promised when submitting my application) unless I can show the ED college that the FA package offer is undo-able based upon my family’s financial abilities. All discussions should be focused solely on my family’s finances, the school’s offer of aid, and my sincere desire to follow through with my promise to attend this school if at all feasible. </p>
<p>As Sally Rubenstone pointed out, by determining that it was appropriate for me to apply ED and sign that agreement, it was my responsibility to have a working knowledge of what is/isn’t possible for my family and whether that was a realistic scenario with the FA tools that are available. If I did not due my ‘due diligence’ in determining what my family could/could not live with, that will come out and I would likely be able to carry the ‘burden of proving’ that the Release contingency is applicable to me.</p>
<p>However, simply knowing that other schools might offer me more (or have) isn’t part of the factors that would support the application of the ED agreement release contingency. By signing the ED agreement, I tacitly acknowledged that this was my first choice school where, above all others, I want and am committed to attend if at all feasibly possible and that I was not dependent or interested in what other schools could offer me if this school chose me. (idle curiosity has no place in ED)</p>
<p>If the temptation is too great, the letters from other schools should be left in their unopened envelopes until such time as the ED school’s financial aid discussions and a resolution of the admission offer is completed. 
</p>
<p>If the Release contingency is utilized and the admission offer declined, that is when all those other letters become relevant and should be opened. But, again, they have no bearing on the ED agreement, its Release contingency, or my decision to decline the sought-after offer of admission.</p>
<p>Courts won’t look for ambiguity in the language of the contract and will apply common meaning/usage to those words. The presumption is that the words mean exactly what they say. And that the parties understood the common usage of those words.</p>
<p>That’s not what it says.</p>
<p>“dstark, it means exactly what it says, i.e., I am bound to accept the offer of admission and matriculate to the ED college (as I promised when submitting my application) unless I can show the ED college that the FA package offer is undo-able based upon my family’s financial abilities.?”</p>
<p>That doesn’t equal this…</p>
<p>“If you are admitted to Penn under the Early Decision Plan, you are bound to accept the offer of Admission, except in cases where the financial issues cannot be resolved.”</p>
<p>It says I am bound except for… which tells me if I meet the exception I am not bound. Which means I am not bound.</p>
<p>No?</p>
<p>And I don’t see the ambiguity. If financial issues can’t be resolved, I am not bound. That is not ambiguous.</p>
<p>treemaven seems familiar with contract law. Applying common meaning to the words is an important point. After all, one shouldn’t have to have a lawyer review a college application for interpretation of the small print.</p>
<p>Lawyers can disagree.</p>
<p>You’re stretching. :)</p>
<p>No. I’m not.</p>
<p>anneroku:</p>
<p>No. The list does not exist before admissions offers have been made. It thus does not exist “to prevent students from applying ED to multiple schools.”
In fact, Columbia’s thorough explanation makes it clear that it cares only about the applicant not accepting offers from its peers (as opposed to merit-aid schools and state unis).</p>
<p>The fact that I fired a contractor because he was incompetent (end of contract) does not prevent me from telling all and sundry by word of mouth or on Yelp to beware of that contractor.</p>
<p>treemaven: Thanks for your posts. Your assessment of what the ED agreement means and how it operates makes complete sense.</p>
<p>What is most interesting to me is that so many people, including attorneys, reading the same documents, and most ED documents are actually different, btw, come to differing conclusions.</p>
<p>About all that seems to be agreed upon is that the ED is binding mainly because peer institutions will uphold it.</p>
<p>There is no actual case law on the subject.</p>
<p>And if you really can’t afford to attend then you don’t have to, but “define can’t afford” seems to be an issue.</p>
<p>As to the OP: we know nothing other than she asked a question and recieved some answers and then had a few posts removed, which, to me, indicated a better understanding of the “contract.”</p>
<p>
OK, so is the purpose of the list to prevent kids accepted ED from applying anywhere else? If so, it’s not clear to me that a student who was officially released from ED should remain on the list.
Agreed, but that only applies to Columbia.
But you are assuming that schools remain disgruntled after an ED release. What about in the case of Penn, which does not include the provision about peer schools? Once they agree to release the student from ED, should they be “warning” other schools about this applicant? If the FA is not accepted by the student, and the school has agreed to the release, haven’t they both fulfilled their ends of the contract and now it’s over?</p>
<p>Treemaven:</p>
<p>I think you really went off the deep end with your discussion of the legal ramifications of a possible breach of the ED agreement. Did you just take contracts in law school or are you really serious? There is NO WAY a school will take an ED agreement for enforcement in a court of law. Legal remedies are essentially non-existent and no court would waste its time on such an issue. Specific performance is obviously impossible and there are no damages. At best it is a contract of adhesion (take it or leave it) between parties of unequal bargaining power. Where is the opportunity to negotiate the terms of the agreement? The entire ED process is an ethically questionable practice at best which only serves to benefit the university. I am no litigation attorney but I would be willing to defend pro-bono anybody threatened with legal action for breach of an ED agreement. </p>
<p>In the current economy, with families losing their homes, real unemployment close to 20%, prospects for economic recovery still far away, I can’t blame parents and students for seeking to manage the cost of an education as best they can. </p>
<p>I don’t buy the argument that the student knew when applying ED what the financial deal was and therefore should not be able to challenge or negotiate the offer. Who says the EFC is an acceptable offer? There are huge differences among need blind schools in the financial aid package they offer. If Penn offers a lousy package to the OP and MIT or Harvard offered a much better one (which they would most likely do as their criteria are more generous), I would see that as a compelling financial reason to turn down the ED offer. </p>
<p>I don’t think MIT or Harvard would rescind the offer even if they learned that the applicant had repudiated the ED agreement with Penn for financial reasons reasons. These top schools have always felt ED agreements had a bad smell associated with them. If Penn is less generous, that is not MIT’s problem. There is no secret understanding between schools to enforce each other’s ED agreements, especially when the motivation for rejecting the ED offer is legitimate. Inability to pay is certainly legitimate in their book. Penn is NOT sending a list of all its ED admitted students to every peer school and if they did the list would hit the shredder. Does someone seriously believe that MIT, Princeton or Harvard admissions has people peering through dozens of lists of students from schools with ED acceptances to check that none match with their own admitted students? Come on and be serious! Is there some central repository where they run through their lists against other schools lists? Who would maintain such a repository? </p>
<p>What would Penn really do? Call up every school to try and have the kid blacklisted? That would be quite risky and could expose them to substantial liability. Penalize the high school where the kid came from for having a student renege on an ED agreement? Hardly likely! They will just fill the slot with one of the thousand wait listed applicants eager to take the spot and move on. </p>
<p>I am not suggesting that students should deliberately disregard any ED commitment, especially in the absence of a legitimate reason. But ED commitments should not be taken for more than what they are: intentions to enroll based on satisfactory (to the student not the college) resolution of financial issues. You can drive a big truck through that door and still remain within strict ethical boundaries.</p>