<p>Deja-- if you want, I suppose you could take it up with the moderators. :)</p>
<p>JHS I’d have to agree with you. There are been some posts that I found quite uncomfortable and yes it’s been a “long haul” and it’s still going.</p>
<p>dsmom I don’t think MIT could rescind an EA offer as the OP had not broken any rules by applying and the decisions happened almost simultaneously. I suppose if, in fact, Penn circulates lists of ED applicants that the schools receiving those lists could reject an Regular Decision applicant whose name is on that list assuming that the applicant had accepted the ED offer. In this case it would just be a simple rejection. It’s all supposition though and no one knows for certainty if the institutions use this information or not. This got discussed earlier but the thread is so long I’m not going to go back and connect you with the series of posts.</p>
<p>thank you momof3, I was just saying if the roles were reversed and MIT found out the OP had applied ED to Penn and got in, could MIT pull the OP app or decision? I was also curious what MIT’s rules were. I don’t have time to go research that. It was more of a hypothetical question anyway as many of these posts have been.</p>
<p>Oh sorry, I’m guessing probably not because I’m guessing the decision was already made since there were only a few days between the release of Penn ED and the release of MIT EA. I also doubt that Penn would release it’s ED list until it was final (after Jan 1) just for legal reasons which would have been after MIT EA announced their acceptances but it’s just supposition on my part. It’s not uncommon because of the submit due dates by the various colleges and universities and some kids do apply to an ED and an EA and a rolling or even more all around the same time because of deadline requirements by the individual schools.</p>
<p>^ I also doubt that Penn would release it’s ED list until it was final (after Jan 1) just for legal reasons which would have been after MIT EA announced their acceptances but it’s just supposition on my part.</p>
<p>That is a good point. thx</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.<a href=“calmom%201083”>/quote</a></p>
<p>Calmom, as Younghoss so accurately pointed out in Post #1113, you are putting words in others’ mouths. You insist on mischaracterizing the positions of those of us who disagree with your foundational premise that the ED agreement has no validity except that which the student/family chooses to bestow upon it.</p>
<p>Those of us who do see issues of potential unethical behavior have stated several times very clearly that the point of our would be a decision by a student/family to renege on the ED agreement based solely because a ‘better offer’ from a 3rd party has arisen and NOT based upon a ED school FA aid package offer that could not be worked out.</p>
<p>This is particularly loathsome to those of us who believe the ED agreement imposes obligations on the student/family to operate within the parameters of the document and the spirit of the agreement as it does the college.</p>
<p>As we have all noted, pretty much any student who is likely to get admitted to the college at issue or similar is also likely to get merit awards (along with need-based awards) from a State U—the specific dollars might not be known right away, but certainly the potential for those dollars is known and should be part of the student/family’s evaluation of whether seeking an ED acceptance is a reasonable course of action for the student/family. If one needs to know the actual dollars, then don’t apply ED----I think we all agree upon that.</p>
<p>But, if you do apply ED, then you should be honor bound to discuss/negotiate the Financial Aid package in good faith between with the ED college that believed you when you said you would go there, if at all financially possible if only you would be accepted— without regard to whether a better deal is on the table elsewhere. </p>
<p>The issue, in the spirit of the ED agreement between the parties, is whether the ED school can offer a sufficiently do-able package—not whether it is the best or most comfortable package the student may ever get from any educational entity. This school was told it was the student’s first choice and the student was serious about attending—not that the student was serious about attending unless another school offered a better deal. That scenario is reserved for RD applicants.</p>
<p>The actual original question was:
.</p>
<p>Grounding the ‘financial reason’ on the state school’s offer is not appropriate pursuant to the ED agreement promises. Grounding the ‘financial reason’ on a scenario where the family simply can’t come up with the difference in the aid package amounts and the COA is. The simple fact that it is financially more comfortable to go to the State U is not really the same thing as not being able to afford the ED school on some level. To say it is is to mix apples and oranges.</p>
<p>And I do get that for your position, these apples (the focus of the bargain struck between the ED college and the student/family) and these oranges (a better deal from a 3rd party) are squished together. But stripped down, the essential components of the ED agreement (which is the document within which we must look to discern the parties’ intents), there are no 3rd party elements. It is a matter of the student, the family’s finances as reflected in the various financial documents, the ED college, and the ED college’s financial aid package all aligning.</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.] (calmom Post #1108)</p>
<p>Once again, this is simple horn book law. JHS addressed the inaccuracy of this particular statement in the context of the ED agreement quite appropriately back in Post #616:</p>
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<p>Repeating, loudly, the same words and statements do not make them so, no matter how much you may wish it to be. It is also difficult to hear other viewpoints when one has one’s fingers in the ears chanting 'la-la-La-La-LA!" :)</p>
<p>I’m sorry. Have I missed something? If you are going to compare offers, that is RD, NOT ED. So you played the ED card, hoping you gained an advantage and possibly kept some other deserving student out of the game. If the other acceptance hadn’t come in, you and your family would have found the money, right? If my interpretaion is correct, then I think that you are honor bound ot pay the extra and attend the ED school. This world is going to a place I detest - a place without honor, and if we do the same by saying that others do it, we are no better, and there will be no effective change to our character.</p>
<p>Deja</p>
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<p>And lets not forget her words which mysteriously dissappeared as she somehow had her posts purged from the MIT forum. How anyone can say the OP is ethical is beyond comprehension</p>
<p>I’ve been out of the loop, but this thread has really deteriorated. </p>
<p>Way back there, dstark posted the exact specific ED policies of both Penn and Columbia. The text of these policies were carefully crafted by intelligent people to send exactly the message that they wanted to send. They were also quite different. </p>
<p>These were fascinating and educational reads, or so I thought. </p>
<p>Since then, I’ve tried to encourage one of the most sanctimonious posters to actually carefully READ the texts. I thought these texts could form a more intelligent basis for discussion. So much so, that I’ve tried to spoon feed it to them by asking the questions and see if they agreed. </p>
<p>But I guess reading the actual text is too hard. I have been laughed at and accused of “parsing words”. Well yeah duh, isn’t that what carefully reading is? We’re talking about college here you know. Are those texts be too difficult. </p>
<p>I have been told that actually READING the texts written by the colleges themselves has no actual relevance what the policies actually are. Who would have thunk it? </p>
<p>I find that position absurd, anti-intellectual and way too Sarah Palin for me. But hey, why let facts get in the way of a good argument. </p>
<p>Fortunately I have better things to do. </p>
<p>To those who have been respectful, courteous and interested in the topic, I’ve learned a lot and it was fun! Thank you.</p>
<p>Hey, I just though of something. Maybe we should make a practice SAT Critical Reading question out of those texts! That could be really fun!</p>
<p>CRD, I enjoyed your posts.</p>
<p>Likewise, dstark</p>
<p>calmom</p>
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<p>Of course that does not answer the question at hand</p>
<p>Let’s say that the applicant does not apply for financial aid, but got the full-ride at the state school, and then decided that it wouldn’t be wise financially to pay full price and wanted to take the full-ride. I would assume that the applicant could not decline the ED offer. </p>
<p>But let’s say the exact same applicant applies for aid, and the award comes back and is asked to pay full price. Presumably, the very fact that aid was applied for would allow the applicant to decline the offer? </p>
<p>In some way, then, applying for financial aid does give you an advantage.</p>
<p>But I’m not really so concerned about this problem overall. As most of the quoted passages from the college websites state, it is rare that a student backs out of ED for financial (or other) reasons.</p>
<p>The great majority of students applying ED do indeed honor it. I don’t really see a crisis in morality, ethics and/or honor here.</p>
<p>d’smom</p>
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<p>That is indeed how ED works and why it is unethical from OP to keep her MIT EA alive</p>
<p>We are one of those exceptions in which we wound up with a better number on PROFILE than using FAFSA. We have significant ongoing medical expenses and an otherwise plain vanilla financial situation. </p>
<p>I think EFC gets used interchangeably, whether it’s the FAFSA calculation, the Institutional model on most college calculators, or the number each PROFILE school determines for a family. If a college has its own calculator on its site, that is probably the most reliable estimate. However, I would not expect either of my kids to know our financial situation well enough to know what $$ amounts to put in each field, so I would be skeptical of any estimates my kids generated!</p>
<p>poetgrl: Re my post 1100, I was following in calmom’s footsteps, But I went to the Penn website and it does seem contradictory. On the one hand, it claims that no student should have to take loans, and then it has a whole section about financing one’s education that lists a variety of loans. Hmmm…</p>
<p><a href=“Submit My Documents”>http://www.sfs.upenn.edu/paying/paying-pro-payment-options.htm</a></p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad</p>
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<p>Umm, no dstark did not. What dstark posted was a very short web post that attempted to describe the policy in general terms. </p>
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<p>Again, no matter how much you want to repeat yourself and say these are the full, specific policies - they are not. I hope you would be smart enough to realize that what most colleges or companies write in their policy and procedure manual is far more specific than a quick overview they post on the web</p>
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<p>Hmmmm, this from someone who has chastised several folks here to read the TOS and talked about how hurt you were because people said that gasp - you were encouraging unethical behavior.</p>
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<p>When one starts to parse words and assign your own meaning to some very general terms and language from some website and try to argue it is gospel - it is indeed laughable</p>
<p>I do think many of the “ethicists” on this thread are inventing a rule that doesn’t exist. The colleges themselves clearly state that ED is NOT binding in the case that a financial agreement cannot be reached. While I think it’s rare (because it’s mostly full-payers who apply ED, duh!), I do think it can honestly and legitimately happen that upon seeing what the college considers 100% need, a family will realize they just can’t make it work. And the colleges have provided an officially-sanctioned way out of this situation.</p>
<p>As for the OP, too much is being made of her state of mind and unethical intentions. And likewise, there are similar negative assumptions about those who “choose to” or “must” (take your pick) back out of an ED contract. We cannot know the true intent in all cases. But when colleges are providing a legitimate way out, I wouldn’t call this “reneging.”</p>
<p>If I state publicly to customers, you have a money back guarantee if you don’t like the product, and I have a procedural book that says the money back guarantee is only for redheads who are 23 years old, and the book isn’t public…that doesn’t fly.</p>
<p>If Penn is telling the GCs at your school Berryberry, that the reasons to get out of ED are more restrictive than what the school states publicly, and that is communicated to the students…maybe Penn can hold the kids at your school to the verbal standard. Ethically.</p>
<p>But if Penn doesn’t communicate this to some other students, than I don’t see an ethical breach for the some other students.</p>
<p>Who is giving financial advice to the students at your school? Who is helping the families decide what they can and can’t afford? Who is telling the students they can’t take free rides over ED acceptances?</p>
<p>“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>No one has any sense of “entitlement.” Posters are not angry because schools aren’t giving them money, but because schools are not being transparent and honest about FA policies, are using misleading terms such as “100% of need,” and are encouraging those who need FA to apply ED. Furthermore, most recipients of FA are struggling just as much to pay for college as the full-payers. If you buy into the idea that colleges are providing “100% of need”, it follows that families not receiving any FA must have no “need”, right?</p>