<p>I’d have to argue that the content of college brochures, including Penn’s, describing their financial aid is unethical – especially that part where most of them lie outright and claim they meet “100% of need”, when they really mean, that they provided financial aid based on their own internal criteria. </p>
<p>It’s pretty easy for a student have a very different view of their “need” than the college does.</p>
<p>Well, that is kind of my perspective on it. We would never recieve any finaid, though D did choose a school with a scholarship. She would have chosen that school anyway, though, as it was her favorite.</p>
<p>But, when I was 17, if you’d have told me you would “meet 100% of my financial need” I really would have seen this as meaning you would pay whatever was difficult for me to pay. (I paid my way through school back when this was still possible)…I was a very level headed 17 year old. I STILL would have been sure that if you told me you would meet full need, that would be based on my actual need. So, that is why I find it must all be really confusing for the kids, who must be hopeful beyond what we as adults would consider to be “reason.”</p>
<p>I agree with Treemaven’s post many pages ago (but probably on a few hours in CC time) on the analysis of ED and the obligations of both parties. My only point of disagreement is that I believe that Penn and other ED schools would consider the OP admission to a full-ride State U as a factor which <em>may</em> allow the OP out of the ED contract. I think Penn’s webpage and those of other ED schools that have been quoted require that the “discussions” of FA be entered into by both parties in good faith. If Penn’s offer is close to full-ride (give or take a few thousand dollars), then I believe that the OP is obligated to accept Penn’s offer and/or Penn does not have to release the OP from the ED contract. (But as a practical matter, OP can still attend State U on the full-ride offer.)</p>
<p>The problem with the OP is that while she asked how to get released from the Penn ED because she had gotten this full-ride offer at State U, she was simultaneously posting on the MIT Board (now gone) that she was really looking forward to her MIT interview today and hoping that she received her EA acceptance from MIT today. She was also posting on the Penn Board (now gone) questions regarding the possibility of transferring either from Penn SEAS to Penn M&T and on the MIT Board about the chances of transferring from Penn to MIT. To me that indicates that the issue is not between Penn and the full-ride State U, but using the full-ride State U to get out of the Penn ED and then go to MIT (whatever the cost). To me that is a breach of the obligation of good faith inherent in the ED agreement and unethical. But maybe that’s just me.</p>
<p>If Penn is unethical then every company that advertise is unethical - if you wear this outfit then you’ll look like Jessica Simpson; if you drive this car then you are cool dude (never mind that you are bald); if buy this diet meal then you are going to look like ***. And if you believe all of those advertisements then you have no one to blame but yourself. </p>
<p>I can’t believe any grown up reading any of those school’s propaganda wouldn’t be able to figure out school’s definition of “100% of need” doesn’t alway meet their own criteria. On the other hand, people hear/read what they want to hear, and when it’s not what they expect then someone lied to them. At some point we all need to take some ownership, it’s not always someone else’s reponsibility.</p>
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<p>Yes, Sure. Want and need are different things. I need to fly out to CA for an important meeting. I’d love to fly first class, but economy will get me there, too, albeit less comfortably. I NEED to fly out to CA. I DO NOT NEED to fly first-class although I WANT to. I think 17-year olds know the difference. Heck, we tell our 4-year olds the difference between “want” and “need,” don’t we?</p>
<p>Anneroku: I’m glad that you are acknowledging that colleges do provide a “financial out.” They’re not heartless. Nor do they want unhappy students. They have enough problems handling the problems of students who are happy to attend them!
I don’t think that ED applicants are unaware of the penalties. As many have said, GCs have to sign off, even if immigrant parents are not familiar with the system. If the OP was not concerned about possible repercussions, she would not have posted her query. She would just have told Penn “Thanks, but no thanks.” But I believe she was afraid of the repercussions and was looking for advice on how to get out of ED and avoid those repercussions. And frankly, that list is the only tool colleges have to try to get ED applicants to live up to their commitments.</p>
<p>"I was a very level headed 17 year old. I STILL would have been sure that if you told me you would meet full need, that would be based on my actual need. So, that is why I find it must all be really confusing for the kids, who must be hopeful beyond what we as adults would consider to be “reason.”</p>
<p>It’s confusing to me.</p>
<p>"2. However, I did print out your post and a few of dstarks and I had a chance to see the GC’s at lunch and I asked them about your question. They laughed. Loudly. They can not believe people here are trying to parse words from Penn’s website and try to assign their own meaning to them. They point out a website is not a be all and end all and those giving so much weight to it are crazy. Bottom line per our GCs is that under well understood ED guidelines that clooeges follow, Penn expects anyone applying ED to live by their agreement. The student applying, their parents and their GC have to sign off on said agreement before submitting the application. Any GC in this situation will have discussed the ramifications of said agreement and the pros / cons of applying ED. The student will have been counseled upfront and will know what they are getting into. "</p>
<p>"Any GC in this situation will have discussed the ramifications of said agreement and the pros / cons of applying ED. The student will have been counseled upfront and will know what they are getting into. "</p>
<p>Berryberry81, who is providing financial advice to the students and their families? Who is helping the families decide how much they can afford for college?</p>
<p>And what does covering 100% of financial need mean at Penn?</p>
<p>OK I’ll bite since you brought this back up the thread. I would have serious concerns if a GC “laughed loudly” when I brought information to them and asked for clarification and understanding or interpretation. I would question their inability to understand that highly intelligent parents (of supposedly highly intelligent children) would not, in fact scrutinize information regarding a potentially binding agreement. You are not agreeing to the College Board common app, you are agreeing to the individual college that you are EDing with. That is where the “relationship” lives. That seems fairly simplistic and should be within the comphrehension of a professional guidance person.</p>
<p>We are all going nuts about something that is not even clearly a problem. Apart from a handful of posts on CC every year – almost all of which seem to be kids with buyer’s remorse at having applied to, say, Cornell ED, and thinking that maybe they could have gotten into Harvard or MIT instead – I have seen no evidence that there is a widespread problem that needs fixing here. Common Data Sets show that colleges, as expected, have a 99%+ yield from ED acceptances, but lose a few kids in each class. </p>
<p>People accepted ED at colleges known for quality financial aid do not seem to have massive problems with their financial aid. They may wind up paying more than they would have if they had not applied ED, but they also may be more pleased with the college they are attending, too. Differences DO get worked out successfully between families and financial aid offices. </p>
<p>If there is confusion, I see it on the side of people being too risk-averse when it comes to applying ED with financial aid requirements. Even there, however, the confusion rests more with very low-income students, who do NOT have a lot at risk, than with middle-income students, who are right to avoid ED if they are very price sensitive.</p>
<p>By and large, people seem satisfied with the system. (Except for legitimate grousing about how it disfavors middle-income applicants.) There are not scores of diabolical, scheming Asians destroying the integrity of American universities and Western Tradition ethics. (That was sarcastic, by the way.) There is an interesting set of problems for legal and ethical analysis, but there is precious little indication that those problems actually occur in the field in a volume worth worrying about.</p>
<p>So we should all calm down a little.</p>
<p>I’m calm. I want to see who is helping families make decisions that may involve $100,000.</p>
<p>The days when your word meant something seem to have gone down the tubes like the economy…or is that the reason the economy went down the tubes? This whole thread speaks of how people are no longer honorable or trustworthy. It is also interesting how the attorneys view this whole thing. Our society needs attorneys but it is pitiful how the truth could be twisted. Hearing so many people defend their viewpoint without any regard to how others are effected is sad. After reading all of this I am glad my kids have never considered law as their career; it seems a bit too calculating to me.</p>
<p>Momma-three, so sorry you feel so disheartened by all the discourse and banter. I find it interesting with much food for personal thought. I agree with some, disagree with some, but in general love to learn all the perspectives so that I can affirm my own thoughts or learn something new or have my mind completely changed by someone else. JHS I think you are correct and thanks for the chuckle. That said, I don’t think there has ever been such a complete analysis of ED and if it benefits but one family that is a good thing…but then I’m an eternal optimist.</p>
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<p>The interview she was looking forward to was a JOB interview with a MIT grad, NOT a college-admissions interview. She was hoping that she could get a JOB and thought it might be cool if she heard from MIT the same day – probably because she thought that if she was accepted to MIT, it might help her get the JOB. (Though I suppose you ethicists would also be appalled if you interviewed a student who told you that they had applied to and been accepted to your alma mater, when in fact the student actually intended to attend a different school).</p>
<p>calmom - I could be wrong (but now can’t check), but I remembered it as a college (alumni) interview and that the interviewer had also graduated from her HS. But, so what if it was a job vs. alumni interview. The point is that she was hoping to get an EA acceptance from MIT the same day. I note that you left the rest of the comment off.</p>
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<p>I’m a grownup with a law degree, and before I had been through the wringer with child #1, I had no concept of how difficult (impossible) it is to get colleges to look at circumstances that deviate in any way from the assumptions that are built into the formulas used to calculate need – AND how cagey colleges are about disclosing information about their internal formulas.</p>
<p>My daughter has a father. I have been separated from her father since she was 6, and by the time she was 17 and applying to colleges he was close to $10K in arrears in child support – he’s self-employed, no assets, and in our state his legal obligation to pay support ends at age 18 in any case. </p>
<p>Do you think any of that matters to so-called “100% need” college? I would have thought, back when I was merely “any grownup” - that a college might be willing to look at the history and waive consideration of a non-contributing parent in circumstances such as mine. Silly me. </p>
<p>That is just one example of many where the colleges have added figures to the calculation, often without any explanations whatsoever, and sometimes actually amending the FAFSA itself to reflect the different figures. My all time favorite was when my son’s college added $38K in assets to my FAFSA. Did I win the lottery? Where did I get $38K? Well… I’m self employed. The FASFA at the time asked the value of my business – since I am a free lancer, with no place of business and no employees, I “valued” my business by totaling up the reasonable current value of my equipment (computer, printer, etc.) and my outstanding receivables – that came to about $1500 and thats what I put down. But the college decided that my self-employed self was an “asset” worth the equivalent of whatever I had earned the previous year. Since my earnings had been $38K, I therefore – according to them – had a $38K asset to add into the calculation of my EFC, which in turn bumped it all up by a couple of thousand. So that’s how that particular college went about meeting 100% need. </p>
<p>I know NOW how it works and I am VERY, VERY, VERY glad that my daughter is graduating this year and I will NEVER, EVER have to fill out another FAFSA in my life – nor go through the annual ritual of not having the slightest clue what I will have to pay to keep my daughter in school until July, when the first payment is due in August. (Her current college is rather late in issuing financial aid awards to continuing students). </p>
<p>But I certainly didn’t know when I started about all of these nuances, and I don’t see how any 17 year old kid would have a clue.</p>
<p>Hat, hoping to hear from MIT doesn’t mean that she expected or hoped to be able to actually attend. It’s an ego thing – sometimes kids like to know whether or not they are accepted, even if they aren’t going to attend schools they can’t afford. For example, it makes me feel proud that both of my children were accepted to UC Berkeley, and that my daughter was also accepted at NYU and University of Chicago - even though they didn’t attend those schools.</p>
<p>I’d add that I was VERY CLEAR with my kids that they would not be able to attend the private schools they applied to without a LOT of financial aid. My daughter really wanted to go to NYU but we knew going in that NYU generally gives sucky financial aid. Based on the aid package that we were given, there was never any chance whatsoever that my daughter would attend – and yet she still flew to New York to attend an admitted student event, knowing that it was unlikely that she would attend. That’s just the way things work in real life.</p>
<p>Colleges do not take cost of living into consideration. They do not give FA to families with income over 150 or 200. When they are figuring out EFC, they do not care if you are living in NYC where a one bedroom apartment rents for 3000 or in the middle of no where where you could get a 3 bedroom apartment for less than 1000. Yes, many families in the NYC area are not qualified for FA and most people would say, “Cry me a river.” They also do not take into consideration that you are divorced, with families you are supporting overseas, large medical bills, small business owner…But if you have a complicated financial situation, it is up to you to decide if you could AFFORD to go ED. As many people have posted, going ED is not the only way of getting into a school.</p>
<p>Calmom - what you are missing is no one expects a 17 year old kid to have a clue, but we do expect 40+year old adult to have a clue. A functional adult’s ignorance does not negate one’s liability.</p>
<p>Calmom our situation is similarly complex and it is infinitely interesting what is considered an asset. I always had the belief that an asset has no value if you can’t sell it and convert it to cash. You youself are probably worth infinitely more than $38,000 but isn’t it a hoot that the colleges “think” you can convert yourself to cash with which to write a check. If I didn’t laugh I’d cry when dealing with the financials. I always want to write a comment, “what you see if what is there, everything else is worth zip unless you want to buy it or something from me or explain to me how to convert it to cash. Believe me if I had the cash I’d fork it over.” Too funny. 17 year olds don’t have a clue they really don’t. Mine are pretty smart but still think a weekly paycheck that ends up over $100 is “a good paycheck.” That’s why I can’t put much credence to the OP’s “not horrible” appraisal of her finaid package.</p>
<p>Oldfort – so even though I didn’t understand the financial aid system at age 45, despite having spent roughly 20 years practicing law – we expect the OP’s immigrant parents to understand, I guess (from reading all the posts here) because they are Asian and Asian’s are smart and inscrutable and all of that? </p>
<p>Keep in mind these people have never filled out a FAFSA, since the FAFSA can’t be completed until January. The CSS Profile form doesn’t give any feedback - it doesn’t give you an EFC or anything similar after you fill it out. The CSS Profile form has a place that invites individuals to list any extra factors that they thing merit consideration — is it really irresponsible if the OP’s parents wrote about their debt in that section, something along the lines of “we owe $XXXXXX and our monthly payments are $XXXX” – under the mistaken belief that it might be taken into consideration?</p>
<p>Again, try not to bring racist comment into discussion. You are assuming a lot about Asians.</p>