<p>“If you have FA concerns and / or want to shop around for the best FA deal, don’t apply ED.”</p>
<p>FWIW (perhaps little), I disagree with the first part because ED should not be just for the wealthy; everyone else will have FA concerns. But I agree completely with the second part.</p>
<p>How about if we said- If you have concerns about FA have a talk with student, family, guidance counselors, fin aid dept of prospective school, carefully read documents to get all info to make an informed logical decision before committing to ED. Then, if one chooses not to take such actions, but rather to go ahead with it anyway, by just crossing their fingers and hoping it all works out, then there may be consequences for one. To NOT look into this ED promise carefully first is either the worst plan imagineable(at best) or deliberately choosing(at worst) to be ignorant of the facts in order to permit oneself with an escape clause(I didn’t know!). Clearly to me, choosing to be unaware of the facts, signing a promise, then backing out is unethical behavior.</p>
<p>As the old expression goes- None so blind as those who will not see.</p>
<p>Did anyone quote this Questbridge website language? Sorry if this is a repeat but it seemed pertinent, since folks may be using this nice write up to decide whether or not to apply ED or SCEA:</p>
<p>[QuestBridge:</a> Applying to College](<a href=“http://www.questbridge.org/resources/applying/ea_and_ed.html]QuestBridge:”>http://www.questbridge.org/resources/applying/ea_and_ed.html)</p>
<p>Note under “Negative aspects of ED” there is the text:</p>
<p>“You cannot compare financial award letters from one college to another because you are only applying to one college.
However, if you feel the financial aid offer you receive from your ED school will place an undue burden on your family, call the college’s financial aid office and discuss your options. A financial aid package that leaves you unable to afford the college is an acceptable reason to break your ED contract, reject the admissions offer, and apply to other schools.”</p>
<p>I think many folks would take this language as a general discussion about ED and SCEA, not just applying to Questbridge scholars. This was the first site to come up when I googled SCEA college applications. It appeared to me to be language pertaining to all students.</p>
<p>Hugcheck, I don’t believe anyone posted that language, but thank you as it adds to a post they will probably be read by future EDers.</p>
<p>That Questbridge language does add to this discussion.</p>
<p>As I had mentioned many pages back, I was unable to find any similar language on the Brown website about using financial need to break the ED contract. Brown just joined Questbridge this year. Should all ED applicants to Brown expect the same conditions for their ED contract, or should there be different conditions for Questbridge participants?</p>
<p>Fireandrain – again, whether the college specifies it or not, it cannot enforce a “contract” against a person who does not have the resources to pay. They cannot make the person attend, and they can’t force a person to pay money that they do not have. This is true no matter WHAT the contract says. </p>
<p>(You might analogize this to a contract that prospective adoptive parents make with an unwed mother to adopt her baby when it is born – no matter what the contract says, the natural mother always has the right to change her mind and refuse to relinquish the baby after the birth. Some types of contractual provisions are simply considered too onerous to be legally enforceable, but that doesn’t stop people from trying to write them into their contracts.) </p>
<p>An ED applicant gives up the right to wait until May 1st to make a decision on a particular college. If they have unrealistic expectations about the cost of college and their eligibility for financial aid, that can mean a loss because they will turn down a top choice college in December only to find out in May that they do not have other, better options. Sometimes when a person has an opportunity to compare financial aid awards they revise their opinions about what is acceptable and the willingness of parents to borrow. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if the ED applicant has a good idea about what their bottom line is – and knows that they can attend an affordable school (such as their in-state public) – but would like to try to attend a more desirable school – then they may want to go ED. </p>
<p>Whether or not a student needs a so-called “release” from ED really depends on the practices of their school’s guidance office and of the other schools they will likely be applying to after they turn down an ED spot for financial reasons. As a practical matter they may have barriers when applying to other colleges – but again, that depends on what their alternatives are. The Daily Beast has just identified the entire Cal State University system as being one of the 15 “hottest” college picks for the decade – see [The</a> Decade’s 15 Hottest Colleges - The Daily Beast](<a href=“The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News”>The Daily Beast: The Latest in Politics, Media & Entertainment News) --so I think at least some ED applicants might have a good fallback position. (Then again, the CSU’s made the list because they are getting more selective - and its best to apply to them early).</p>
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<p>It’s not a good strategy if finances are really important, because there’s a good possibility MIT’s offer of financial aid is going to be significantly weaker than Penn’s. (Given the respective financial aid practices of the two schools, it is probably a likelihood).</p>
<p>It could work in practice if in fact MIT’s admission staff does not honor other college’s ED agreements and the applicant has done enough research on financial aid policies to be reasonably assured that the EA college will offer better aid than the ED college. (This could happen in a situation where, for example, one college considers home equity and the other doesn’t – that home equity figure is probably the most common barrier to affordability of private colleges. Some people are long-term residents in modest homes that have appreciated to sky-high values, but are actually already overburdened with mortgage debt, real-estate taxes, and other costs associated with home ownership.)</p>
<p>But again, as between MIT and Penn, I’d be very surprised if MIT’s policies were more generous than Penn’s in any factor that goes into financial aid calculation. </p>
<p>It would be more likely that an applicant might decide to apply to one ED school and several EA and rolling admission schools where financial aid wasn’t an issue, just to enhance choices in December. (This would be more attractive to the full-pay applicant than the one needing financial aid). ED is an anti-competitive practice whereby the college imposes an early deadline on a student who is unlikely to have acceptances to its competitors (peer institutions) as of the time that the student accepted. It is possible in limited circumstances for a student to utilize EA as way of expanding their choices even within that anti-competitive environment.</p>
<p>I’ve got a solution. Just change the name from ED (Early Decision), to EAEW (Early Acceptance Early Withdrawal). At least that would be consistent with the theme that “ED doesn’t mean anything different than EA, except that with EA you get until May 1 to withdraw.” BTW, I’d be equally happy to accept EDAEDW instead … Early Decision to Accept, Early Decision to Withdraw. “Early Decision” simply implies a constraint on the applicant that apparently isn’t there.</p>
<p>calmom, I understand all of what you wrote, which you’ve repeated and I’ve read several times in this lengthy thread. But you didn’t answer the question I asked. </p>
<p>I was asking a somewhat rhetorical question about whether Brown could have two different standards for two different “classes” of applicants, one Questbridge and the other not Questbridge. As I had written before, as a Brown alum I find it troublesome that Brown does not address this issue at all in any of its materials, at least that I could find by scouring its website. So I also find it troublesome that Questbridge applicants get this policy spelled out for them, while regular ED applicants do not.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree…if finances are the motivating factor for getting an ED release. The only proof of what the motivating factor really is will be IF OP gets into MIT and IF she gets a financial package similar or worse than Penn’s and IF she matriculates to MIT despite the MIT package.</p>
<p>In that case, it looks like bad faith to me. If she picks the full ride from State U or elsewhere or a significantly better finaid package, either now or by May 1, then looks like good faith to me.</p>
<p>NewHope you need to read the entire thread or at least the last couple pages which have been nicely summarized. Never once in 40 pages did people make a comparison of EA to ED and come to the conclusion that they were the same. ED is an agreement that requires a commitment in a relatively short amount of time. With EA you have months to compare offers etc. etc.</p>
<p>Inasmuch as OP dropped out of this conversation about 1,300 posts ago, I wonder if he/she had any idea that this post would be one of the longest in College Confidential history? :)</p>
<p>Mom - Actually I was simply echoing a post (from about twenty pages ago) where a poster insisted that ED was binding on a applicant ONLY in the sense that the student had to make a decision to accept or decline much earlier than other (i.e., EA or RD) students. Did I miss something since? Are there other constraints the group has agreed to?</p>
<p>DunninLA - Here’s another question. I wonder how the OP might have (differently) structured her question if she knew the firestorm this presentation would ignite?</p>
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That depends on who you see as the decider.</p>
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<p>Well, I think that’s something Questbridge imposes – that is, Brown has agree to offer all Questbridge applicants the “scholarship” specified at [Partner</a> School: Brown University - 2009 College Match Scholarship Package](<a href=“http://questbridge.org/cmp/schship_pkgs/brown.html]Partner”>QuestBridge) –
It looks like Brown offers the same financial aid for non-Questbridge applicants – see:
<a href=“https://financialaid.brown.edu/Cmx_Content.aspx?contentId=70&mode=0&cpid=70#fain[/url]”>https://financialaid.brown.edu/Cmx_Content.aspx?contentId=70&mode=0&cpid=70#fain</a>
(basically, with family income under $60K and assets under $100K, no contribution is expected of the family; there is a student self-help component from summer earnings and on campus job. </p>
<p>(If that doesn’t help with answering your question… then I guess I don’t understand the question).</p>
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She probably should have left out the part about Penn’s financial aid package being “not too horrible”. Apparently many people on this thread think “not horrible”=“wonderful”.</p>
<p>calmom said “She probably should have left out the part about Penn’s financial aid package being “not too horrible”. Apparently many people on this thread think “not horrible”=“wonderful”.”</p>
<p>It might have also died if she hadn’t also posted about wanting to find out if she was going to be accepted at MIT EA and other posts indicating a desire to attend MIT instead of Penn and apparently looking for an out (posts since removed).</p>
<p>“She probably should have left out the part about Penn’s financial aid package being “not too horrible”. Apparently many people on this thread think “not horrible”=“wonderful”.”</p>
<p>Based on the fact that the OP has described herself as being low income, and Penn is known for being generous to low income students, some of us have good reason to suspect that what she’s calling “not horrible” really is wonderful.</p>
<p>" some of us have good reason to suspect that what she’s calling “not horrible” really is wonderful."</p>
<p>Good reason to Suspect…means true…</p>
<p>so not horrible is wonderful…</p>
<p>and if wonderful…
It’s good enough despite the fact we don’t know the aid or the OPs situation…</p>
<p>And you can’t get out of ED if Penn’s offer is good enough…
And if you try to get out of ED when Penn’s offer is good enough… you have poor ethics…</p>
<p>And other posters get to accuse you of poor ethics without knowing the facts…
Because the other posters believe in behaving ethically…</p>
<p>Yeah…</p>
<p>And in a prior post…I left out anneroku…great poster…and garland…even though she didn’t post in this thread.</p>