<p>Even if Princeton reviews his financial aid package, unless they have somehow overlooked some very important information about the family’s finances, Princeton is not going to come up with an offer as good as A&M’s.</p>
<p>If his letter basically says, “A&M made a full aid offer to me, and I want the same from Princeton because my parents don’t want to pay anything for me to go to college,” that’s not going to cause Princeton go give him a full ride.</p>
<p>Your best friend is in the hospital dying. You go to his house to pick his wife up to take her to his death bed and find her in flagrante with the next door neighbor. You get to the hospital and your friend asks, “Have you seen my wife?”</p>
<p>What do you say?</p>
<p>Yes truth and honesty and fullfilling you commitments are really important values. And yes we do have too many Ken Lays in the world and seem to be getting more. But of all the processes I have gone through raising a kid everything surrounding the entire college admissions process has been the one most fraught with mandacity on all sides. I am just look at this board here or any of a dozen just like it. They are filled with people trying to game the system to find some edge in the process. If kids and parents and institutions don’t emerge from that cynical and jaded then they must be morally insensate.</p>
<p>As of 2001: "Princeton University will no longer require undergraduates on financial aid to obtain loans to help pay for their education. Beginning next fall, Princeton will eliminate its loan requirement, and replace it with additional scholarship support. The plan is one of several initiatives designed to ease the financial burden on students and their families, and builds on other significant improvements made in recent years.</p>
<p>In eliminating required loans, Princeton is acting against a national trend in which loans make up an increasing portion of student aid packages. Nationally, loans now account for 60 percent of all student aid. Princeton is the first of its peer institutions – and, except for the service academies, possibly the first American university – to announce that aid recipients will not be required to borrow to pay for college…</p>
<p>“The new policy means that incoming Princeton undergraduates who stay within a reasonable yearly budget and meet work obligations can graduate without any debt.”
<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q1/0127-aid.htm[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/01/q1/0127-aid.htm</a></p>
<p>It’s a good day for the following quote:</p>
<p>"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. "
`–Martin Luther King Jr.</p>
<p>There are lots of people who game every system and each of us gets to choose whether we want to game. An easy choice for me as I’ve never seen anyone win by gaming any system. I’ve also seen it all where college admissions is concerned. The wealthy who believe they can throw money at getting their kids into top colleges. URMs who think they’ll get into Harvard with a mediocre or poor high school effort, stars of the local high school football team that are sure that football alone will take them ivy. I must say, in general, the kids I know that have made it into the best colleges have deserved it and worked hard and ernestly for it. Those who want schools that stretch a family are the ones working all the hours they can during breaks. So what I see here is a kid that doesn’t hunger for Princeton. He’s planning how to use the free ride plus money instead of figuring out how to earn enough to take some pressure off the parents. Fair enough. Just not a kid who really wants or values it.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, you have to meet certain income levels. If you use the calculator, you might not get any student loans, but you will get a parent’s contribution that in Vs case is around $19,000.</p>
<p>Look princton got something north of 15,000 applicants last year for about 1,500 openings. I’d venture to guess that 90% or more of those applicants wre qualified and that half of them were unbelievably qualified. Princeton had to pick and choose among them - a task I wouldn’t envy them. But in the end a very small or even totally arbitrary difference can be the deciding factor. After taking the SATs three or four times and the prep courses and hiring the outside editor for the essays and choosing oh so carefully the ECa to list and the order to list them and the recommendations to include and exclude - kirmum do you honestly think there is no gaming there and it doesn’t work?</p>
<p>This thread reminds me of Evil Robot! Yale has EA?–not ED? I don’t remember a ‘morality’ bash in that case but emotions were high! </p>
<p>In the end, after a lot of gaming–albeit adolescent gaming which is a notch (or ten) down the ladder IMHO–ER chose Vandy and the money. </p>
<p>Clever as some of these students are, they are still seventeen, eighteen. Is your eighteen, nearly nineteen year old as mature as most of the adult CC posters? Mine isn’t…:)</p>
<p>patuxent, I work with somr very wealthy, connected, well educated folks. Boy do they all wish they could pay someone to successfully game their children’s way onto top schools. Even as legacies, many of their top prep school, SAT prepared kids are simply not getting in. Choate, 10 years of piano lessons and the best summer programs money can buy no longer seems to be the ticket it once was. Is the system perfect? Hardly. But I can assure you it is the rich that most believe the world has become unfair in the past 20 years! I was explaining to my sister yesterday why my son is hardly a Harvard shoo in. After all I’m an alum and he’s a URM. Yep, 20 years ago that would have probably done it. Not today.</p>
<p>dstark, my better judgement is not to answer your posts but I can’t help myself. Yes, schools do believe you should pay your EFC. Some parents really have a hard time thinking this is fair. They have homes to furnish and retirements to fund. Each to his own, just tell your kids early. What a need blind school such as Princeton determines you can figure out yourself and this school has even eliminated loans! This family was totally aware of what their nut would be. Somehow, the thought of many is that the Government or schools should fund their chidren while they enjoy their large home with lots of equity and cush lifestyle. It just doesn’t work that way. Read the financial aid board here-----"My parents just can’t figure out how a college expects this much money when the mortgage on our large home is so high…</p>
<p>Cheers, I totally understand the kid having trouble knowing what the right thing to do is, it’s the adult advice I take issue with here.</p>
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<p>Actually, fear of being hit by the feds again is why they won’t agree to drop ED all together, because it might violate the antitrust laws.</p>
<p>Evil Robot applied EA to Yale which left his options open. Chinaman’s son also applied EA to Yale, because he wanted to leave his options open and financial aid could figure greatly in his decision. My son applied EA to Yale because he realized that he was in no frame of mind to make a binding decision to any school despite the temptation of the increased odds of getting in and getting this whole business over by Christmas. There are times kids who apply ED come from schools and families that do not quite understand the situation with financial aid and ED, but this is not the case from the facts given. I can see now why colleges give certain schools some preference. In my sons’ school, the counselors are super sensitive to things like the binding ED agreement and are right on top of the admissions etiquette. They make it very clear to both the student and parent how serious the ED contract is. For that it really what it is, a contract that you sign. Don’t know who else has to sign the thing for Princeton, but it is a contract that has to be signed. There are people who do look at the value of a contract in terms of what it costs to break it , I guess, but those people pretty much factor in that the value of their word is nothing when they look at things that way.</p>
<p>J, You understand the difference between EA and ED but, perhaps, others don’t. Thousands of cntracts are broken or revised every day. Yes, a contract is meant to be binding, but sometimes the terms are misunderstood and one or both of the parties wants to be released. Think Real Estate, Marriage, Owner-General Contractor contracts etc…</p>
<p>Contracts are not commandments…they are malleable in many circumstances.</p>
<p>Hopefully, your children didn’t avoid ED schools for financial reasons. I have read that caution many times on CC though. It’s a pity V and family didn’t think through the ED contract they signed. Are his parents well-educated? American-born?</p>
<p>Looking at the broader issue…suppose V fell in love with Princeton. Princeton doesn’t offer EA. Why not? Does that make Yale a better choice for V? </p>
<p>Does ED put that much more pressure on lower income students? It seems like it does.</p>
<p>ER fell in love with Yale last year. LOVED it. Or THOUGHT he loved it until he got in EA. Oh, the drama… (supposedly) waiting for snail mail to find out. He gamed it to the best of his ability and he won.</p>
<p>Then he wasn’t sure. As articulate and feisty as he was, the way he handled that uncertainty made him seem every bit the teenager. V too. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t let my eighteen year old represent us on a $200,000 real estate contract–he wouldn’t look at the details carefully–but he did make the major decisions on his college education. </p>
<p>There’s folly in the system. That’s all I’m saying.</p>
<p>You’ve got this one covered Jamimom. Just a note. If someone shakes my hand and says they’ll give me $500 for a plow and they’ll bring the money saturday morning, the fact that they found a plow almost as good for free doesn’t release them from their obligation to buy my plow. It is a matter of honor and any 18 year old darn well better know that, college-bound or not. I’ve taught mine better than that, and I was under the obviously incorrect assumption that we all had.</p>
<p>Cur- What if you had three other buyers lined up to buy your plow? Does that change the picture at all?<br>
V- watch those bonfires!</p>
<p>Hmmm…I have to contend with contracts every day and have had to do so for the last 18 years. I don’t have a Evil/Good, black and white view. I’d be out of business if I did.</p>
<p>I have to cajole clients to meet their financial obligations and I don’t know an architect who doesn’t. In fact, the ability to successfully cajole a client probably determines the success of the practice. I’ve seen some world famous architects cajoling governments to meet the terms of their contracts.</p>
<p>AS for the plow. If the person who bought the plow returned it to you un-used, Cur, you’d absolutely be obliged to let him out of the contract. That’s standard retail policy.</p>
<p>kirmum, you misinterpreted my last post. I never said parent’s shouldn’t pay their fair share. Never.</p>
<p>In case anyone is interested Princeton’s overall acceptance rate is 12% however if money is not a factor for you and you can apply early decision the acceptance rate is about 29%. <a href=“http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/college/ivy_league_table.asp[/url]”>http://www.admissionsconsultants.com/college/ivy_league_table.asp</a> and will make up about a third of the entering class of 2009. My guess is a significant chunk of the regular admissions (and in some cases late admissions) acceptees will be recruited atheletes. Yes the Ivy’s do not give atheletic scholarships but they do have enormous recruiting budgets.</p>
<p>Where all that leaves the regular decision applicant is pretty clear I think. Better chance with a lotto ticket.</p>
<p>I don’t see how Patux’s scenarios and ‘evil school’ mongerings are relevent here; Valdez clearly understood the conditions of ED. He also knew what he would be expected to pay. There was no “extortion” or anything even close. There was not even any misunderstanding. Valdez understood the terms, but Valdez got a merit offer (as nearly all Princetonians could) and now, to his credit, is feeling discomfort in accepting that offer. Why? Because he has a conscience. Even though his parents think he should go for the money, he is not sure. As Curmudg said, there is that mirror to look into every day. As Jamimom pointed out, if there was an unexpected circumstance that necessitated the voiding of an ED contract, that’s a different matter. But here, nothing has changed but that a better financial offer appeared on the table. The issue is whether Valdez should break a promise, a committment, an agreement–call it what you will. Call it anything but “right.” Excuses can be made for youth, but they are still excuses.</p>
<p>Most of the recruited athletes are in that ED group.</p>