<p>dstark</p>
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<p>EASY - the kid is probably unaware of his parents full financial situation. There is far more to it than just looking at income. Plus the numbers on Penn’s website are averages - every situation is different. As Penn stated to him - his letter of ineligibility in the mail would explain the reasons to him</p>
<p>GCs vary enormously in their degree of expertise on any topic, let alone, finaid.</p>
<p>Our GC was extremely knowledgeable about schools (we did not discuss finaid) that might fit S1; and the list of reach, match, safeties, tallied exactly with his results.
That same year, a parent with another GC at the same school reported to us that her D’s GC had told her in so many words: “I don’t know you enough to recommend specific colleges. You’ll have to do the research yourself.” S and the girl had attended the same k-8 and same high school for the exact same number of years.</p>
<p>The NYT ran a series of articles many years ago, profiling the GC at an inner-city school, a wealthy suburban public high school and a prep school. The case load varied from 35 to 500; the inner-city GC, with the highest case load, was familiar with scholarships, but not with top tier schools. Most of his work, however, consisted or scheduling, discipline, and counseling. The prep school GC was familiar with top tier schools (and knew the adcoms of some) but had no idea where and how to apply for scholarships.</p>
<p>Poetgrl,
I find the ED game rules quite clear, but then I read carefully the FA pages of the colleges my kids were interested in. Fwiw, neither my daughter or my wife caught on to loans being called ‘aid’ by colleges until I pointed it out a few times. Their initial ignorance stemmed from only looking at the graphics and tables, and not reading the text.</p>
<p>All in all, I think the colleges are reasonably upfront and transparent in how a FA package may be constructed, but it DOES require reading the material they publish. Just my opinion, but UPenn is straddling the line of advertising spin by publishing in big print ‘no loans’ but in small print writing that the no_loans only applies to student and not parents; that summer income is assumed in EFC; that medical insurance is mandatory but not a considered cost, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t like it, but this is America. Small print ‘helps’ the consumer consume, and it is everywhere. Whining about small print to justify unethical behavior is not a reasonable argument, although it is certainly a common one.</p>
<p>
Why, thank you for your gracious invitation. I do have some familiarity with the finaid system, as my son received acceptances to 8 places, each with differing amounts of finaid awards. Most meet 100% of demonstrated financial need. With dh’s business, we had to fill out the farm and business supplement. It was interesting to see that different places wanted the answers to different supplemental questions. All in all, filling out all that financial aid paperword (plus the paperwork to the schools he was rejected to and waitlisted at) was almost as daunting as son’s job in filling out the college applications! I also have experience in the one finaid appeal we did, and can say what specific information that finaid office requested. (As slow as they were in getting us the initial finaid award, they had the appeal done within two days.) </p>
<p>But I believe such a discussion belongs in another part of CC (Financial Aid and Scholarships), or at the very least in another thread in the Parents Forum.</p>
<p>Then dstark I am sorry my response was meaningless as it didn’t address what you were asking. I am also sorry your question wasn’t more clear. It appeared to me you were questioning deja’s actions- comparing schools and seeking a re-revaluation from her top choice as you quoted her in your post, then asked about ethics.</p>
<p>eric-- Just a question:</p>
<p>Do you consider it unethical to hide the costs in the “small print” when you are dealing with 18 year olds? Because I really do.</p>
<p>We say about the students, “You can’t have it both ways.”</p>
<p>I say the same about the schools.</p>
<p>OTOH, what if we were to simply assume that with the rare exception of a few students, all students go into the ED thing committed to attending if financially possible and all schools go into the ED thing committed to making attendance possible and occaisonally the financial issues just cannot be ‘resolved’ in a satisfactory way?</p>
<p>I think this is way more the case than the ethical bizarities we are being presented with here. FWIW</p>
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<p>If there is a line to remember from this massive thread, this must be IT! However, inasmuch as the typical level of expertise (and current knowledge) of GC must be pretty low, there are a few cases of true gems. Perhaps as the proverbial case of the bling hog and the acorn, it seems that the position of of Berry’s GCs is … right on the money. </p>
<p>Even an unapologetic and consistent critic of GCs such as myself has to recognize that a number of them do have a certain credibility with colleges, and that this credibility could be based on their efforts to preclude gamemanship at the … source. Since most schools insist on obtaining a GC report, the expectation is that GCs would not allow multiple ED applications or additional RD applications after a student obtained an ED application. </p>
<p>Obviously, the “system” also assumes that GCs actually possess a modicum of understanding of the application variables, which based on many stories shared in this forum and other sources might be quite doubtful.</p>
<p>“Do you consider it unethical to hide the costs in the “small print” when you are dealing with 18 year olds? Because I really do.”</p>
<p>So that we know what we’re talking about, can someone who has seen some of this small print post a link to it?</p>
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dstark didn’t read my post correctly. My son applied nonbinding EA to several schools. We appealed the finaid award from one of them. There was nothing unethical done.</p>
<p>Vossron, there are many posts on this thread which already link to the small print issues in the Penn finaid site. </p>
<p>I’m going to work, now. </p>
<p>If this hasn’t been resolved this evening, I’ll post links.</p>
<p>PoetGrl,
You might as well ask if I consider advertising unethical.</p>
<p>Unless I am gravely mistaken, parents are part and parcel of the vast majority of FA agreements, so your attempt to paint ED agreements or UPenn adverts as predatory behavior towards naive teenagers is a straw man.</p>
<p>So, what about kids just having second thoughts?</p>
<p>There is a poster on one of the LAC forums who was accepted ED (with a full scholarship from a third party). Now he thinks he might rather go somewhere else because he really hates cold weather and has always wanted to live in California.</p>
<p>Personally, I believe that you honor your commitments. But is it too much to ask a 17-year-old to enter into a binding agreement and not be able to change his mind?</p>
<p>Deja, I understood what you posted.</p>
<p>I want to know why…when you were talking about ethics…you posted this.</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>What does what you wrote have to do with the ethics of another person?</p>
<p>“Vossron, there are many posts on this thread which already link to the small print issues in the Penn finaid site.”</p>
<p>:) 35 pages to wade through, and I might pick a bad example. Just asking for a clarifying favor from someone who knows. :)</p>
<p>It has nothing to do with the ethics of another person, so why are trying to make it so? I was simply explaining how we appealed a financial aid offer to a nonbinding EA acceptance.</p>
<p>Dad 0 2,
Remember that the kid is receiving admission preference over his non ED peers in return for the promise to attend if accepted.</p>
<p>That is one hell of a carrot, particularly at the Ivies. Guess what ? It isn’t free.</p>
<p>Ok…</p>
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<p>While we could argue for another week about the true meaning of ethical behavior, I firmly believe that the onus is on the schools to publish EXTREMELY clear guidelines on their ED procedures. On the other hand, given that every case is different for financial aid purposes, I do believe that the RECENT efforts by many schools to disclose details should be applauded. </p>
<p>Of course, the efforts by others to keep operating in quasi secrecy should equally be condemned. For instance, when Sen. Kennedy embarked on an effort to bring added transparency to the college admission world, his first target should have been groups such as COFHE. Simply stated, there are no reasons why the terms that dictate the IM method should not be every bit as clear as the Federal Method. As we know, any person with the drive and desire to compute his or her FAFSA EFC to the penny CAN do that by accessing the detailed formula guidelines. </p>
<p>But that is for the financial aid. Regarding the ED, as I suggested a few hundred posts ago, schools should be responsible for clearly defining the COMPLETE rules of the ED and fully address what is to happen AFTER returning an acceptance. The timeframes and conditions of appeals (read negotiations_ should be clearly spelled out with terms such as “We will provide our financial offer by December 1. You have the right to accept it, decline it, or ask for a revision of our offer by December 20th. In this latter case, we will review and provide you with our best and final offer by January 10th. You will have to notify us by January 16th. In all cases, it remains your obligation to obtain a release of your ED commitment by January 16th.”</p>
<p>The publication of clear terms should go a long way to separate the families that have compelling cases from the … gamers, as the excuse of incomplete understanding would be, for all purposes, rendered ineffective.</p>
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<p>True, so true. The general concensus is that in fact colleges would release the kid. It may not be written into “the rules” by the most brilliant legal minds in the country, but the concensus is that colleges aren’t’ heartless and going to force a kid to attend if the kid’s heart is not into it. Seems an entirely reasonable course of action to me. Case by case. Sob story by sob story. No legal baloney. No “rules”. Just an admissions person and a 17 year old kid “workin it out.” These kids might be the most brilliant minds of the next couple decades, but emotionally they are 16, 17 or 18 for the most part. If I were the most hard boiled admissions officer I think I’d still recognize that part of the equation.</p>
<p>Also, it might good to point out WHY most people are attracted by ED or EA:</p>
<p>Early Stats 2014 Admit Applied Rate
Brown ED 567 2,847 19.92%
Chicago 1,676 5,855 28.63%
Columbia ED 631 2,995 21.07%
Cornell ED 1,167 3,579 32.61%
Dartmouth ED 461 1,594 28.92%
Duke 602 1,924 31.29%
Georgetown EA 1,160 6,105 19.00%
JHU 493 1,155 42.68%
MIT EA 590 5,684 10.38%
Northwestern 618 1,595 38.75%
Penn ED NA 3,842
Stanford SCEA 753 5,566 13.53%
Yale SCEA 730 5,261 13.88%</p>
<p>Comparing those numbers to the RD admit rates gives a clear reason. Of course, the 10% admission rate to MIT’s EA should give pause to a few!</p>