decline an early decision acceptance offer?

Parents Forum
1081

<p>My dh owns his own business, and since our oldest son went to a state school (FAFSA) we were unsure of how private colleges would look at his business. We told S2 that he could apply ED to a state university only, as we knew we could afford that option. </p>

<p>His first-choice university doesn’t have ED, but does have EA, so he applied there. He was accepted. We had no idea of the finaid award until early April (I think the EA colleges could have given their EA acceptees an earlier idea of their finaid awards, but that isn’t done, at least for S2’s two EA colleges). That was a little uncomfortable, waiting nearly four months to see if it would be possible for him to attend that university.</p>

<p>Early April came around, and the privates sent their finaid awards within days of each other. They were not what we expected. I sent a finaid appeal to S2’s first-choice college, and they gave him more money. I could have sent that appeal to all of them, but I didn’t want to tie up their finaid officers. We only asked the top-choice school. We still didn’t feel comfortable with the amount offered by Top Choice School. </p>

<p>I never would have considered it right to do this if the school was ED. S2 simply wouldn’t have applied. According to many here, students like my son should have applied ED to gain that extra admissions advantage, and then tried to appeal the finaid award later. He was waitlisted to his favorite Ivy, and perhaps he should have simply applied ED and then done the “Waahhh…Mommy and Daddy can’t take on that kind of debt!” whine that some students apparently do, after they get their acceptance advantage and don’t like the finaid award or want to comparison shop other schools or want to see where else they get accepted. They and their parents think they are a special entitled class. </p>

<p>But we took the high road. He didn’t apply ED to his favorite Ivy, even though there is a good chance that he would have been accepted had he done so.</p>

<p>I guess some applicants simply have a different moral compass. Parents, students and GCs sign these ED agreements, and then a certain (thank goodness) small percentage make a mockery of the agreement. And many here think that is just fine.</p>

<p>So S2 didn’t end up attending his (at that time) first-choice school. The story has a happy ending, however – he’s attending a Top 20 LAC with a full-ride merit scholarship. And he’s having a wonderful experience there. </p>

<p>It feels good to have taken the moral high road.</p>

<p>I hope the students who renege on their ED agreements without extraordinary sudden changes in their personal or financial circumstances between application submission and acceptance that are well-documented are blacklisted.</p>

1082

<p>Ok, as much as we would like to believe it, I want to remind people that calmom is NOT an expert on FA. You seem very bitter, calmom. And very entitled for your children. Both of your kids just happened to have to attend high caliber schools (I know one switched to a state school for academic reasons I believe). You didn’t like the amount of money any offered to your prince/princess. Please. I can’t believe there are adults on this thread whining about how they have to pay more for their kids’ education than they want to. Dstark, you have a kid about to apply soon–poetgrl also? You haven’t gone through the process yet? Try to keep in mind that parents are out there making <em>sacrifices</em> every day to send their kids to college. If they feel their kid needs a certain kind of school then that is their choice. To read this thread you would think there are no schools outside of the top ten where the little darlings can get an education. After a while it just feels slimey reading this. My opinion only, don’t shoot me please.</p>

1083

<p>Younghoss, the RULES of ED are that if the person is dissatisfied with the financial aid award, they can back out. That is how ED WORKS. Financial aid applicants have a right to see their awards before making a final decision – if they don’t like the award, they don’t have to come. </p>

<p>OP is following the rules – she is probably turning down Penn because their aid is not enough to make it worth her while to attend. (I say “probably”, because I would hope that she would appeal the award she has before turning them down.</p>

<p>All of the people on this thread talking about “ethics” have added a new, different rule to the process – that is, they have invented a rule that says financial aid recipients have to attend the school whether they can afford it or not. But that’s not how it works – if colleges felt that way, they simply wouldn’t offer ED to financial aid applicants. (That, of course, would probably generate such bad p.r. that it would kill the program – but if they are going to invite financially needy students to apply, then the person is always going to have the option of accepting or rejecting a financial aid award. That’s just how financial aid works).</p>

1084

<p>There are only two outcomes for a family that has no clue how the institution will evaluate their assets (something very responsible posters have confirmed is possible). You either choose to participate in ED or you choose not. There is no clear cut correct answer here. There is a really basic difference in people. Some will look at ED and say there is no risk, I don’t know what the outcome might look like, but I’ll give it a shot and I can always turn it down. Then there are those who will say, I don’t know what the outcome might look like there is too much risk so I won’t participate. To eliminate all those people, those that would take the risk and those that might not, would not be in the instituion’s favor. The instituions choose to play ball with the people who are willing to take the risk and so far (since the number turning down ED is a low percentage) the institutions are willing to continue to promote the benefits of ED. I have no problem with it although I chose not to take the risk. If I knew with certainty that my CSS number would be very close to my EFC I might feel different. If I was a more risk tolerant person perhaps I would let my son participate. (My husband actually thinks he should have ‘gone for it’ but he is more risk tolerant than I and I had the final word.) My feeling is that the people who are getting their hair in a knot are those that were able to get a pretty clear idea of what their package might look like. For them the decision is far clearer and the commitment somewhat easier to make but for them to assume that everyone else is in that same position is an error. Does the risk adverse person have more integrity than the risk tolerant. I say NO. Integrity has very little to do with it.</p>

1085

<p>If a person doesn’t want to use ED for various reasons, and I think there are many good reasons not to use ED, that’s great.</p>

<p>A school says students can discuss their ED financial aid packages. The school encourages students to apply early, including students that need financial aid. Students know this. A person applies and is accepted ED. The student gets a financial package that is not to his liking, and decides to goes to the school without discussing that package with the school. That is STUPID. The school doesn’t have to change its package. But there is no harm in a student trying to get a better package. Zero.</p>

1086

<p>If they can’t estimate their financial aid (with calculators or early reads by finaid offices) before applying ED, then they don’t deserve that admissions boost. They should have to work a little and have some hard discussions and make some hard decisions before getting that ED admissions boost.</p>

<p>Sure, students can appeal finaid awards, but I would expect that only to occur if they mistakenly didn’t include relevant info the first time, the college required more information (that happens for business owners, for instance) or if their financial circumstances drastically changed. And then if the finaid award doesn’t change substantially, the student doesn’t attend and they should be blacklisted from other institutions. That’s the risk that is the payment for that beautiful admissions boost. The price for trying to game the system (in some cases).</p>

1087

<p>mummom-- since you have decided to address me in your post, I will address you back.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I have one who is already in college and we have already gone through the process, but thank you for your concern.</p></li>
<li><p>We are in an income bracket who would never be considered for aid even at the places with massive endowments like Yale or Harvard. we would be full pay no matter where our D chose to go, though she did choose to go to a school which offered her a substantial merit scholarship…this was a school she would have gone to above all others regardless of any other offers…either academic prestige or whatever. </p></li>
<li><p>I am interested in this process and interested mainly because I put myself through college back when this was still a possibility and last year I saw so many students who were so devastated because they believed they would be able to go to schools they ultimately could not afford or were committing to a debt load I just could not begin to fathom as healthy.</p></li>
<li><p>I do not believe the colleges, who lose maybe 5% of ED students, even consider this to be the kind of issue or “moral” isssue people are making it out to be. If anything, I believe the general committment schools have to admitting the less wealthy students makes them wish they had MORE to offer, frankly. I also believe, ultimately they would never consider it unethical for a student to decline an aid offer they could not afford to maintian.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Thank you for your concern, and best wishes to you and your children. I hope your sacrifices are not steep and that your kids will prosper, succeed and have the space to get the most out of thier educational experience.</p>

1088

<p>I would try to stay away from Early Decision if at all possible! It’s really hurts your chances of negotiating for more financial aid.</p>

1089

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<p>I am speechless. Just flabergasted. Oh my goodness…</p>

1090

<p>Mummom, my son graduated from a Cal State U. He has fully supported himself and lived on his own since age 20, and paid his own way through college for the last 2 years. Don’t go flinging personal insults at people when you don’t know anything about them. </p>

<p>I posted details about the financial aid system because some people seem to be under the false impression that it is easy for a person to predict how much financial aid they are likely to get from a given school. I wanted to provide specific numbers to show how variable the numbers can be from elite colleges that claim to meet “100% need” for admitted students. I think in my case most of the differential in awards is due to different ways that colleges treat home equity.</p>

1091

<p>mummom, I could have written poetgrl’s post, except she is a better writer, and she mentioned her daughter. </p>

<p>I agree there are plenty of great schools.
And I wish you the best too.</p>

1092

<p>Let me rephrase my statement that’s leaving you speechless, momofthreeboys.</p>

<p>“If they can’t estimate their financial aid (with calculators or early reads by finaid offices) before applying ED, then they don’t deserve that admissions boost. But if they go ahead and apply ED anyway, get accepted but then don’t attend, they should accept the consequence of being blacklisted from peer institutions.”</p>

1093

<p>I’m against ED, but it works for the vast majority of families because GC’s correctly advise most kids to stay away from it if they need FA. The problems I have with ED are:

  1. Schools themselves encourage ED applications from those who need FA, and the promise of a way out for financial reasons is one way they do this.
  2. Even though schools explicitly allow for legitimate release from ED for financial reasons, the rare student who needs to do this is <em>still</em> punished by forever remaining on the ED list.
  3. The use of “meeting 100% of need” is misleading to the vast majority of applicants who do not have the savvy and experience to know exactly what this phrase implies.</p>

<p>No one is saying that colleges “owe” anyone financial aid. But the schools need to be transparent about the process and careful with the language they use. Increasing the number of applicants benefits schools in the rankings as they appear to be more desirable. Marketing is getting in the way of honesty here and has repercussions for students.</p>

1094

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<p>Students who qualify for need based FA at Penn do not have loans as part of their FA package.</p>

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<p>In the OP’s situation, the financial aid package most likely did not have loans. However this does not mean that the student may need to consider taking out loans.</p>

1095

<p>“I would try to stay away from Early Decision if at all possible! It’s really hurts your chances of negotiating for more financial aid.”</p>

<p>Except that experience shows otherwise.</p>

1096

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<p>I don’t think I follow your logic here. Penn is being above board by mentioning the loans. It is assumed that families can afford the loans. If the amount of loan is above what the family can afford, then this is where discussions with the finaid officer come in.</p>

<p>We took huge loans to pay for our kids’ education. But we thought we could afford them; and I’m sure that the colleges would have thought so, too, had we asked for finaid. But could we have afforded bigger loans? I don’t think so.</p>

1097

<p>Poetgrl, I completely agree with this:
“I do not believe the colleges, who lose maybe 5% of ED students, even consider this to be the kind of issue or “moral” isssue people are making it out to be. If anything, I believe the general committment schools have to admitting the less wealthy students makes them wish they had MORE to offer, frankly. I also believe, ultimately they would never consider it unethical for a student to decline an aid offer they could not afford to maintian.”</p>

<p>Deja, I completely disagree with this:
“If they can’t estimate their financial aid (with calculators or early reads by finaid offices) before applying ED, then they don’t deserve that admissions boost. But if they go ahead and apply ED anyway, get accepted but then don’t attend, they should accept the consequence of being blacklisted from peer institutions.”
Why should students be blacklisted if the ED school granted them a release for legitimate financial reasons? I don’t automatically assume that everyone who applied ED but doesn’t attend is pulling a scam, and neither do the colleges themselves.</p>

1098

<p>“But if they go ahead and apply ED anyway, get accepted but then don’t attend, they should accept the consequence of being blacklisted from peer institutions.”</p>

<p>If they don’t attend because the FA was inadequate, it’s moot if the peer institutions would offer the same FA; the student couldn’t afford them either. But if a peer wants to offer more aid to land a student, they will.</p>

1099

<p>“Invite financially need students to apply.” So? Just because a family is “financially needy” doesn’t mean they are stupid; in fact, probably not, since their kid is applying to a top school. It doesn’t release them from the obligation to attempt to roughly calculate their expected contribution BEFORE applying ED. Actually, it’s rather insulting to these applicants to assume it does. There are tools out there to enable you to do this. I think a general rule is to add some money on to the FAFSA calc for Profile schools. If you think you can’t swing this amount, then don’t apply ED–apply RD and compare packages from many schools.</p>

<p>All this thread is about is trying to gain an advantage for one’s little darlings. Don’t turn it around on me, as if I or anyone else is denying your kid a chance at these schools.
If you’re worried about finances, apply RD like everyone else. Why are you so special? Maybe spend time making sure your kids are getting good grades, seeing that their testing is in order and writing great essays instead of bemoaning the state of affairs which doesn’t necessarily give your kid the leg up you seem to think you are entitled to.</p>

1100

<p>@marite-- there’s a typo in that quote you posted. Penn says their finaid includes NO loans. They have a no loan policy.</p>

<p>I think most of the ivies are trying for that? NO?</p>