decline an early decision acceptance offer?

Parents Forum
1101

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<p>Frankly, of all the people commenting on this thread, calmom is probably the one with the most reasoned position. A number of posters are just making up rules as they go. </p>

<p>Once and for all, the family is the SOLE party that determine if the FA package is acceptable or not. Short of a full ride, they don’t have to accept ANY offer. It is irrelevant whether a college has a FA calculator or not on its web site. The family does not have to prove that it can’t afford the school. If after discussion with the school it decides it cannot afford the school, FOR WHATEVER REASON, they should be released from any obligation.</p>

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<p>As far as the whole ED list concept, it is one of these urban myths that has been circulating for years and never been substantiated. At best, colleges, MAY send list of ED candidates to other ED schools. I have seen no evidence that it actually happens. The idea that schools would be poring over each other ED lists is ludicrous. It makes for nice speculation though!</p>

<p>Policing is generally done by the guidance office of the applicant’s HS which controls the issuance of a final transcript and maybe reluctant to do so if it knows that an applicant has applied ED and been accepted elsewhere. </p>

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<a href=“http://www.education.com/reference/article/decision-college-application-accept/[/url]”>Education.com | #1 Educational Site for Pre-K to 8th Grade;

1102

<p>Mummom-- please read the TOS for CC. Thank you.</p>

1103

<p>Mummom, my kids did not apply ED to any schools and I do not believe that ED confers any particular advantage – I think that’s just part of the marketing hype the colleges use to try to persuade students to apply ED. </p>

<p>But the fact remains that Penn’s ED agreement allows a student to withdraw if the financial aid is not satisfactory to meet their needs.</p>

1104

<p>Very little if anything on this thread has discussed getting an advantaged position. Everything on this thread has been about the process of ED relative to the finances and the obligations involved in the ED process. Contrary to your worries, if you give up an ED offer you are giving up an advantage. Mummon your post is not logical.</p>

1105

<p>calmom - do you enjoy being wrong so many times?</p>

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<p>No, no, no. A student can not just change their mind - that is not a valid reason to get out of an ED agreement</p>

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<p>Wrong again. It is rare that a student who applies ED does not enroll. What keeps the system afloat is people take their ED agreement seriously and abide by it in an ethical and moral manner</p>

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<p>yet again wrong - Loans are a legitimate part of a financial aid award - whether you like it or not</p>

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<p>Wrong once again. Colleges are NOT representing based on need in your mind or as a family deciding what they can pay - but rather need by the colleges is based on widely accepted practices and standards</p>

<p>Calmom - you are wrong on just so many levels</p>

1106

<p>“Only the OP and family can decide if it’s an acceptable package.”</p>

<p>Nonsense. The contract, believe it or not, is a CONTRACT. UPenn gave OP a loan package that covers demonstrable need. We all know that loans are considered acceptable aid per the contract.</p>

<p>DO NOT sign ED agreements if any of the following is true:

  1. You did not read, or do not understand the contract
  2. You might renege on the contract if a provision comes into play not to your liking
  3. You do not understand that a contract is binding to both parties
  4. You lack the ethical fibre required to keep your word</p>

<p>I personally would not sign an ED agreement, for many of the reasons others have mentioned. However, I have enough spine to realize that all my objections to ED are irrelevant to those who do sign up.</p>

1107

<p>Deja</p>

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<p>Congrats on taking the high road and sticking to your moral compass. It is far better to have morals and be ethical than it is to make a mockery of the process like some here advocate</p>

1108

<p>As I have pointed out many times, it is NOT an enforceable contract. You cannot have a legally enforceable contract that involves the purchase of an expensive commodity of the contract does not specify the price. That’s just pretty much a bedrock principal of contract law – to be enforceable, the contract has to specify all material terms.</p>

1109

<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>So how much more uncomfortable did you have to be to tie up finaid officers from other schools?</p>

1110

<p>mummom</p>

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<p>I must give your post a standing ovation. You really nailed it. The sense of entitlement among some of the posters you named - and their misguided sense of outrage at colleges who are freely providing huge discounts so their children can attend schools when other families struggle with paying for their children is really unbelievable.</p>

<p>What ever happened to personal responsibility? What about being happy that these colleges, through the generousity of their donors, are able to provide aid to their children. No one is entitled to any college funded aid. If people don’t like the system or what a school offers, don’t take part in it</p>

1111

<p>Berryberry61, who gives financial advice to the families at your school?</p>

1112

<p>Wandered over to the Penn forum and it was interesting to see the ED accepted kids’ responses to their financial packages. There was some shock and dismay, and not related to this thread. In other words, I don’t think folks there are positioning to negotiate for better packages, just that they are digesting their surprise. </p>

<p>My heart goes out … it’s hard for me to be so clear about what’s right or wrong about a hopeful 17 year old who has worked very hard’s motives as some folks here. I err on the side of thinking it’s ethical to have an honest and forthright discussion with an institution about how you see things if you are issued a package that is very different from what you had hoped. I imagine the OP as being an ethical young person, with a FA package that is not horrible but not what she had hoped, and with an offer from her full ride school that surprised her, and with EA so close in time to ED decision that it would be very difficult not to just know if you’d gotten into EA schools or not. I mean, ED, EA, ED1, ED2, RD, Rolling, Special invitation app’s, and I’m sure more. Back when I applied to schools in the dark ages, there was no EA just RD and ED. So there was a real difference. Seems the process has gotten muddied and no wonder there’s debate about what should be clear. And college was far less expensive a generation ago. And there were pensions. =/. Oh well, guess this all is why we didn’t encourage ED in our family. Or Ivies, for that matter. </p>

<p>The kids are pressured by peers and high schools to do ED app’s and it’s getting worse as a higher percentage of kids apply ED to top schools each year. And as schools (and villages)rank themselves based on college acceptances. It is not a simple problem.</p>

1113

<p>I must disagree with this:
“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.” calmom post 1083.
I will not speak for others here, but I am one of those who believes the Op, if she reneges on ED school has acted unethically. I believe she can afford it, but now doesn’t want to in light of a better offer. If it happens she reneges because she found a better offer, I believe that unethical and contrary to her agreement. However, I have not said(to the best of my memory) that she must attend anyway. Just as no court can make a tenant live where they don’t want to live, I can’t make her enroll. It is my opinion however that if she reneges that it was unethical and there may be consequences for her.</p>

1114

<p>anneroko, sorry so late down the post, but I don’t think a college or uni could “blacklist” in the sense that word is construed, someone who was honorably released from an agreement. That could be construed as slanderous. They could conceivably circulate a list of their ED admits but the other colleges would probably check to see if the student committed or backed out or presume all were committed or ignore the list. Most likely it would be treated like employment policies where a company might share dates of employment and job titles but little else as protection against potential lawsuits. Most business, of which colleges and universities are just that, generally take a more expansive and generous view that benefits the public rather than a narrow view. Of course there may be outliers but for the most part businesses are protecting themselves and by virtue of that protecting rather than harming people they come in contact with. At least this is my experience with HR communication and employee handbook execution. My guess is that the lists exist. They are not extensively used. If college B calls to check on applicant Z with college A all college A would do is confirm if the student sent in an enrollment deposit or confirm if student A was released from the agreement and little else. Now if admin at college B meets admin at college A for a drink at the local watering hole off campus all bets are off what gets “discussed.”</p>

1115

<p>For all in this thread who think that it’s OK for the OP to decline the Penn ED admission, even though the FA package Penn offered did not make attendance a financial impossibility because she got a better deal elsewhere which would help her and her parents financially, a little hypothetical for you: </p>

<p>Student A is admitted ED to her first choice school in mid-December and given a financial aid package worth $30,000 per year. The same thing happens to 9 other students. All pull applications from other schools as they promised. In the spring, the school discovers that there are literally hundreds of students who have applied per their January 1 RA deadline with better credentials than the 10 with hefty financial aid packages, all of whom can and are willing to pay full boat. And oh, by the way, the school, as was the case with Brandeis in the Madoff matter, suffered a serious financial hit during the year.</p>

<p>Most acceptances to colleges allow the college to rescind the offer if a student suffers a downturn in performance after acceptance. So if the school decides to pinpoint a drop in a class from an A to a B, quitting the basketball team, or any of a dozen other changes in performance/resume and label it a basis for ridding itself of $300,000 per year in financial aid packages, would this be OK? After all, economic circumstances have changed for the school, and it can get a “better deal” if it takes all the full pay kids and dumps the ones to whom it is giving substantial financial aid. And please don’t tell me that the school’s acceptance was binding–for those in this thread who believe that Penn’s ED acceptance was conditional, rather than binding, because there are situations where the student can back out, you’d have to label the college’s acceptance to be conditional as well, since there are situations where the college can back out. </p>

<p>In the end, the “difference” in the two situations is that one is a seventeen year old kid changing her mind, while the other involves adults. As the parent of three kids–one 21, and two high school students–this would ordinarily matter a great deal to me EXCEPT that in this case, the student has plainly applied ED to gain an admissions advantage, and cost other students in the process. There are threads all over this forum about kids having trouble coping because they have gotten rejected or deferred at their top choice schools in favor of other kids (and/or their parents) who have pleged to attend the school. These kids are scrambling to fill out other applications, cope and refocus on other choices. Allowing the kids who got in to now back out because they got a better deal elsewhere illustrates a really important principle–backing out on commitments is an action which can have consequences which extend beyond merely the two parties to the agreement.</p>

<p>For me, I’d like my kids to go to the best school fiscally reasonable. More importantly than that though, I’d like them to learn that actions have consequences, and their word means something. The decal on the back window of my car means less to me than the adult my child grows up to be.</p>

1116

<p>“It’s puzzling to me why certain students/posters think students are entitled to game the system.”</p>

<p>This makes me smile. How many parents here use their parental authority to have their students join/do/continue activities to make their app’s stand out? How many have hired professionals to position a kid and to work up the app? Is that gaming the system? You think the college app process is not a game? Pshhh. ED is just one play in a long game these days. Cynical? Yep, I am. Seriously. How many Ivy and top school hopefuls have simply led their young lives as they would if they weren’t pitching to top colleges?<br>
And then they’re despondent when they go to said colleges because the kids are all worried about grades and not there for the blessed intellectual stimulation. Oops.</p>

1117

<p>I cannot help but think that many people do not understand the underlying ‘understanding’ that drives ED from the colleges’ viewpoint:</p>

<ol>
<li>Lock in students</li>
<li>Less (to none) discount on Cost of attendance</li>
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<p>Carrot: Increased chance of admission</p>

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<p>The rules are clear enough; don’t play the game if you do not like the rules</p>

1118

<p>hugcheck</p>

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<p>no - keeping her EA application open is very unethical, When you apply and are accepted ED, you agree to live by certain rules and withdrawing other applications is one of them</p>

1119

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If the ones who think ED commitments don’t matter truly believe their words, then they will rush right over to that forum (and the other college forums) to inform the students that ED means nothing, and that they can simply walk away because they don’t like their financial aid package. I’m sure that they will want to spread their gospel to other places than this forum. They will make sure to tell them that the “blacklist” may not even really exist. And then tell them that it’s each applicant for themselves in the jungle, because, after all, ethics has no part in the college application process! Take the ED admissions advantage, then tell them you don’t like the offer, then consider to comparison shop among other colleges. Remember, the students are all victims against the Big Bad Colleges!!! You are entitled to act this way!</p>

1120

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