<p>It’s a joint statement. It’s not Princeton’s statement.</p>
<p>Number VII.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you mean “choose not to apply ED?” Because some are considering not accepting the ED offer and are being criticized for it. As for changing the policy, surely, it’s not up to the students?</p>
<p>Fireandrain…from Penn page 10</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/forms/PennAppSupplement_2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/forms/PennAppSupplement_2010.pdf</a></p>
<p>From Yale…page4</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/application/pdf/online_instructions.pdf[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/application/pdf/online_instructions.pdf</a></p>
<p>From Cornell…page 3</p>
<p><a href=“http://admissions.cornell.edu/apply/firstyear/2008_freshman_application_instructions.pdf[/url]”>http://admissions.cornell.edu/apply/firstyear/2008_freshman_application_instructions.pdf</a></p>
<p>From Dartmouth…page 8 </p>
<p><a href=“Home | Dartmouth Admissions”>Home | Dartmouth Admissions;
<p>Brown may not have it on their website but they are mentioned as one of the group.</p>
<p>Yes, dstark, I know that. And you know that. But how many students who apply ED to Brown are going to look on Princeton’s website, or Yale’s or Cornell’s or Columbia’s or Dartmouth’s or Penn’s or Harvard’s to understand Brown’s ED policy? I want to know why it’s not on Brown’s website.</p>
<p>Clearly, from what dstark posted(1917) it appears one can get out of Brown for financial reasons. Sort of. It doesn’t say “any financial reason”. I would understand that posting to mean if the student could show the financial award Brown decided to give was not adequate, then they would not be required to accept the offer of admission.</p>
<p>I think “adequate award” is important. It doesn’t say the best offer, or an exceptional offer, or something similar. I have to think some offers are adequate but not great. Do some here disagree with that?
Knowing “adequate” can mean barely sufficient, I can see a big difference there between “great offer!” and “unworkable.”</p>
<p>Maybe Brown wants its accepted ed students to go to the school. You’ll have to ask Brown.</p>
<p>And its on Penn’s website… the school the OP applied to. :eek:.</p>
<p>thank you Marite, yes, I do mean work to change the policy or do not choose to apply ED.</p>
<p>By change the policy I think of M.A.D.D., an organization that felt so strongly about driving while impaired by alcohol that they lobbied, and rallied, until stricter laws came about. Perhaps those prospective students that feel ED by its very nature is unethical could similarly rally. Or, choose not to apply ED.</p>
<p>The leverage applicants have vis-a-vis colleges is zero. Students may have some but not applicants. But the fact remains that individual students are there for only four years, and applicants are involved with colleges for only one admission cycle.
So their only choice is resisting the siren call of colleges and not to apply ED.</p>
<p>I agree that there is a difference between barely adequate and unworkable. But I would not leave it to colleges to decide what is “barely adequate.”</p>
<p>The college offers what they think is adequate, as I see it. If a Brown offer is not adequate(as Dstarks post says) a student doesnot have to accept the offer. I interpret that to mean the student must show them why/how it is not adequate if the student wishes not to accept the offer for financial reasons.</p>
<p>Adequate implies Ok but not great and workable. I would assume most families with an ED student would take an “adequate” offer. Unworkable means the family is unable to stretch, liquidate or just plain unable to get loans to be able to write a check in August. I am amused at colleges that choose the word “adequate” as it generally means not great or barely enough.</p>
<p>Younghoss:</p>
<p>I don’t know what is meant by “show” or “prove.” What constitutes “proof?” Proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Mathematical proof? Even science does not operate on proof but evidence.
I have to assume that 99% of the students who apply ED really have the school as their first choice and would jump at the chance to attend if accepted and if the financial offer is adequate or even barely adequate. I’m sure most of them, when calling finaid offices, explain why the offer is not adequate or even barely adequate, ask if it can be increased, and if not, regretfully turn it down. During that conversation, the finaid officer may stick to the original offer, or may review the numbers with the applicant. A helpful finaid officer
would suggest ways in which the applicant and the family can make the numbers work, but that may not always meet the needs of the applicant. Finaid officers are constrained by their college’s policies and may not be able to address individual families’ needs (e.g. grandma needing 24-hour care or some other expenses that have not yet occured but that the family must budget for).
The turnaround time for applicants is very short, considering that much of the time is eaten up by holidays. Can the family know whether it will be allowed to borrow more, for instance? I do think that the system is not very favorable to applicants in need of financial assistance.</p>
<p>“I interpret that to mean the student must show them why/how it is not adequate if the student wishes not to accept the offer for financial reasons.”</p>
<p>What on schools’ web sites specifies such a “show” requirement? Has any school said there is such a requirement? What we out here interpret is irrelevant. ;)</p>
<p>The “show” presumption isn’t a condition as far as most of what has been posted from college websites. Clearly if a family is up to their eyeballs in debt that is something the colleges don’t see and I supposed somone could make copies of all their statements attach it to a letter, of if there are big time medical bills (although that is something that is covered by CSS) but other than debt the college has probably seen a good portion of the parent’s financial situation from the CSS. It’s a business transaction as much as it sometimes feels like “show me your hand and I’ll show you mine.”</p>
<p>fireandrain:
There is plenty of evidence that ED has historically favored the wealthy. Harvard’s president mentioned this issue when they ended their EA program:
We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged," Derek Bok, the interim president of Harvard, said yesterday in an interview.
Mr. Bok said students who were more affluent and sophisticated were the ones most likely to apply for early admission. More than a third of Harvards students are accepted through early admission. In addition, he said many early admissions programs require students to lock in without being able to compare financial aid offerings from various colleges.
<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/education/12harvard.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/education/12harvard.html</a></p>
<p>Yale’s President said this:
Early Decision programs help colleges more than applicants,
[Yale</a>, Stanford To End Early Decision Policy | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2002/11/7/yale-stanford-to-end-early-decision/]Yale”>Yale, Stanford To End Early Decision Policy | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>At the University of Virginia:
"One report from the University of Virginia indicates that of the 947 members of the Class of 2010 who were accepted early, fewer than 20 applied for financial aid. Therefore, early programs are good for those who are already advantaged and simply perpetuate the cycle…
[Early</a> admissions - for better or worse? - MassLive.com](<a href=“http://www.masslive.com/metroeastplus/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1163496126245800.xml&coll=1]Early”>http://www.masslive.com/metroeastplus/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1163496126245800.xml&coll=1)</p>
<p>“One of the most insidious drawbacks of the early-decision system, Fallows argued, is the fact that it favors the wealthy. It is usually only those from status-oriented families and high schools, he pointed out, who have studied up enough on the intricacies of the admissions process to know about the early-decision option and the fact that it improves chances of admission. Moreover, students in need of financial aid are usually best advised not to apply early anyway because, if accepted, they would have no competing financial aid packages to choose fromand schools know they can get away with offering comparatively modest aid packages to early applicants because, unlike regular applicants, there’s no danger of their being lured away by other schools offering more.”
[The</a> Atlantic Online | Flashbacks | “The Early-Decision Racket” Redux](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/fallowsfollowup.htm]The”>The Atlantic Online | Flashbacks | "The Early-Decision Racket" Redux)</p>
<p>Colleges won’t consider a family’s personal circumstances in determining aid – that is, they don’t look at the individual families debts or commitments. If my utility bill is $100 and another family with the same income pays $300/month for utilities – the other family doesn’t get $2400 knocked off their income to compensate for their high utility bill. Everything is done by a formula with a narrow exception as to the type of very limited and specific bills the college might consider (such as private school tuition for siblings or high medical bills).</p>
<p>So if the the colleges don’t look at the individualized picture in setting aid – why would the recipient have to prove anything to the college? Obviously two families with the same income and assets can have very different levels of “need” and ability to pay or withstand debt depending on their individual situations, so by definition the $ figure that is “adequate” for one is not necessarily “adequate” for another, even if the formula the college uses says it should be. </p>
<p>“Adequate” is what the family decides it is willing and able to spend. Clearly the student who applies ED wants to attend that school – they wouldn’t have applied otherwise. So except in very rare situations, the ED college is dealing with a highly motivated “customer”. The basic market pressures are going to mean that it is more likely than not that the family’s idea of an “adequate” award would send Suze Orman into a conniption fit. </p>
<p>Do you think colleges want to spend time seeing “proof”? I think that once they have made their best offer, they probably want the family to either sign on or go away, and not waste their administrative time with sob stories. I mean, what are they going to say to a family – “I’m sorry you think its important to send $500 every month to your ailing grandma back in the Philippines – you’ll just have to cut her off and use that money to make loan payments instead.”</p>
<p>anneroku, thanks – but the only real “proof” in that list is the one from UVa. The others were opinions or unsubstantiated statements. I’d like to see statistics like the one from UVa from other schools.</p>
<p>I can’t believe this thread is still going round and round in the same circles!</p>
<p>People on both sides talk as if there is no difference between law and what I will call culture. On one side, the anti-ED / strict constructionist crew takes a legal positivist position, and says, effectively, “You are only forbidden to do what the law strictly forbids and will enforce with sanctions. And in this case when you parse through all of the requirements the law would let you out of an ED agreement for any remotely colorable financial reason, and probably for any remotely colorable reason at all. Therefore the horrible exploitative colleges are being intentionally fraudulent when they do not spell that out clearly on their websites.” The pro-ED crew says, “A bargain is a bargain! Everyone understands the deal here and no one puts a gun to anyone’s head. When you apply ED you agree to take the college’s financial aid offer unless it’s going to force you into bankruptcy. If you don’t like it, don’t apply ED, but don’t apply and then try to wriggle out on technicalities when you get a better offer elsewhere. That’s cheating!”</p>
<p>Culture and markets are cheap, efficient, and subtle, law expensive and hamhanded. The colleges want to create a culture in which people who apply ED consider themselves bound by the deal. They do that through the language they use in their websites and presentations, and by jawboning guidance counselors (and explicitly or implicitly threatening retaliation against THEM if their students break the deal, thus enlisting them as enforcers). However, they also mean not to discriminate against financial aid applicants in the ED process (or at least not to be SEEN to be discriminating – many think they DO intend to boost their full-pay enrollment with ED). And they understand that an unbreakable deal would mean 0 financially needy ED applicants, except for the totally clueless. So they make clear that inadequate financial aid is a reason to back out. They all think their financial aid policies are fair, and they all know that their financial aid policies don’t work for every applicant. It’s impossible for them to know, in advance, which applicants will have problems, though.</p>
<p>The way the system works is that 99.9% of ED applicants really intend to go to the ED school if admitted, and really intend to do everything in their power to accept the financial aid deal offered (if one is sought). And in most cases, that works, and that’s the end of it. (If you read the threads on CC, there are plenty of kids who are pleasantly surprised by financial aid offers.) If, notwithstanding that expectation, a family really has a problem, the colleges expect the family will contact them and seek a resolution. And that resolution is often possible, especially if the family’s attitude is that it wants to move heaven and earth to honor the ED deal. But sometimes, there won’t be a resolution, and the student will back out, and that’s fine, because it doesn’t happen much.</p>
<p>That’s culture. At the law level, the party seeking to enforce a contract has the burden of proof, and the burden of proving damages or entitlement to specific performance, and there is no chance that, absent extreme circumstances, a college would get meaningful legal enforcement of an ED agreement against a family determined to break it unless there was absolutely no potential argument about financial aid at all. So if someone wants to back out of an ED deal, the colleges have no legal sanction available. And that’s OK, too, because I am perfectly happy not to spend tax dollars on enforcing ED deals.</p>
<p>Of course, the other enforcement mechanism is the colleges’ pledge to respect each other’s ED agreements. I think that’s meaningful, not to ensure that no one will back out of an ED deal, but to limit their ability to do it strategically. If people have to back out of ED deals without having another, better offer in hand . . . well, they will only do that if the deal really isn’t workable, or if they are 100% confident of getting a better deal elsewhere. </p>
<p>Generally, it won’t make sense for most people to try to game the ED system, because all that will happen is that they will burn one of a student’s top choices without getting anything in return. It is only where, as in the OP, there is a chance of knowing that there is a better option (on whatever criterion you choose) actually available at a time when it is still reasonable not to have responded to the ED offer that strategic behavior becomes theoretically likely. And it’s just not that common a situation. We don’t know what happened with the OP, but in general there’s a 90% chance MIT rejected or deferred her last week. If that happened, we will know for sure whether her original ED problem was financial (and thus good-faith) or not: already, or within the next week, she will either have accepted the ED admission (indicating that she was just waiting on MIT) or turned it down (indicating that the full-ride alternative was what was most important). And if she was accepted at MIT, and turned down the ED admission . . . well, we’ll never know for sure, and as a society I don’t think we’ll care, because the situation won’t come up a whole lot.</p>
<p>I tend to agree that colleges most likely just want to cut loose those ED candidates who need a better package to feel confident with accepting an offer. That is why I find it so fascinating that people are arguing that there is some moral obligation to carry through no matter what and why I don’t understand why being ethical has much to do with this what is clearly business transaction. The admissions officer might feel some remorse at loosing a “good candidate” but the institution of the college I don’t think care much if they have some small fade-off of financially less profitable students. How can you argue that the students and their families are “unethical” and yet not discuss the behaviors of the institutions. Probably because “ethics” have very little to do with what is clearly a business transaction.</p>
<p>Crossposted with JHS - but I like the concept of “culture” much better than “ethics”</p>
<p>Thank you, JHS, for an excellent presentation of the issue. It should be enough to break the circle, but, of course, it won’t be; post #1939 is proof.</p>
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<p>Actually not, because they do not ask for or get an expense statement. They are looking at the the income + assets end of the equation with the CSS (including nonliquid and paper assets, such as home equity) – but except for a few limited categories, they don’t know the expenses. They don’t ask about rent, utilities, child care expenses, transportation costs, and dozens of other things that you would ordinarily look at in figuring out a family budget. </p>
<p>But the point is – they aren’t going to consider those expenses anyway. So it makes no sense that all of the sudden when it is time for the college to judge whether they are going to give the family an official “release” from ED, they’ll consider all of the stuff that they refuse to look at in determining aid in the first place. And if they haven’t looked at that stuff for any other family… what kind of data would they have to know what’s “adequate” in any case? They have no idea whether other similarly situated families are spending or borrowing more or less because they never looked at the individual family situations in the first place.</p>