<p>I know someone who backed out of ED at Wake Forest for a much better financial aid package and scholarship offer at Northwestern. She also just liked it better when she visited, which was after she applied to Wake.</p>
<p>I backed out of my ED contract with Cornell this year. It was because I didn’t get enough (or any) financial aid. My family didn’t expect to get enough financial aid from cornell though, but we thought it was worth a shot for me to apply ed and see what happens, since regular decision wouldn’t be any different.
These are just two of the posts on this thread. These do not sound like hardship cases. More like people trying to game the system. As the OP stated, more and more people are doing this. I find it unethical. If you find that upfront, we can part with differing opinions.</p>
<p>Nothing about financial catastrophes or hardship. (and mhmm, you really should specify when you’re quoting from someone else’s posts. it sounds like you yourself backed out of an ED app to Cornell, and that you are calling yourself unethical.)</p>
<p>The backing out from ED at Wake Forest sounds decidedly slimy. If she’d already accepted Wake, I’m surprised that Northwestern, a common app school, didn’t bounce the young woman.</p>
<p>Nope, it is not; not even close. (Source, to support your point, prove me incorrect?)</p>
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<p>Hmmm, accepted to Wake ED but did not pull her apps awaiting NW’s decision in the spring? Or ED to both at the same time?</p>
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<p>In today’s world of federal and state privacy laws, I really wonder if another school can finds out. I realize that Sally said that colleges shared lists years ago, but I wonder if it happens today.</p>
<p>Although the Common App language gives an “out clause” everyone here is focusing on one phrase in the paragraph. We should look at the whole form.
First at the top of the commitment paragraph it states the language is:
From the National Association for Admission Counseling Statement of Principles and Good Practices</p>
<p>I take that to mean that’s the industry standard BUT schools can have a different (read stricter) standard which is where I think some of the overall disagreement comes from. Some schools DO (Wake Forest and William and Mary for example) have a higher expectation and their web pages on ED are explicit with “if you get in you must attend” language with no out clause. The fact that some schools might have different standards is covered at the very top of the form:
Before completing this form, please consult the instructions for ED applicants on the member’s insitutional website.</p>
<p>My guess is a lot of people blow past that statement and don’t bother to check what their ED school expects.</p>
<p>Thanks for pointing out the different policies for some schools, 9194Mom. </p>
<p>And, with regard to privacy regulations, bluebayou: I wondered about that as well. If you look at the Common App’s ED agreement, you’ll see that people have to acknowledge their understanding that the school reserves the right to share an applicant’s name with other schools. Whether schools do that occasionally, rarely or not at all, who knows? But I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be able to do it after a student and his or her parents signed that statement.</p>
<p>9194Mom, thanks, adding to my list of schools with uncommon ED arrangements. I wonder how many other Common App ED schools use a different, more restrictive ED agreement? William and Mary actually uses the Common App ED form, even though their website says you’re bound to attend there. I think that’s pretty slimy and also foolish on W&M’s part. Applicants sign a form, not a website. </p>
<p>It doesn’t look like there’s an ED admissions bump at Wake Forest (based on USNWR’s numbers), so at least those who don’t want to gamble don’t take a hit on admissions.</p>
<p>blue, I’ve wondered why the “exchanging of lists” of students who’ve put down an ED deposit isn’t handled automagically via the Common App.</p>
<p>“Some schools DO (Wake Forest and William and Mary for example) have a higher expectation and their web pages on ED are explicit with “if you get in you must attend” language with no out clause.”</p>
<p>So what do these schools do when the bill can’t be paid, in the case of the FA award in fact not being enough for the family (that can’t qualify for loans) to afford, and the offer would have been declined if it had been possible? Do they give the student the missing money, or expel? (I think the schools really would release the student, despite their statements.)</p>
<p>**"The most acceptable excuse officials cite for backing out of an early decision commitment is a financial aid package that a family considers too low. The financial aid letter is often the first time a family sees all the costs lined up, says Eric Maguire, director of admission at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. ‘Some families are finding their aid packages are not aligned with their expectations. If so, we certainly enable them to break their commitment.’</p>
<p>Officials occasionally bend rules for other reasons, too. If he senses a student has applied under parental pressure and doesnt really want to attend, ‘we back off,’ says John F. Latting, director of undergraduate admissions at Johns Hopkins. Barbara Hall, associate provost at New York University, will also set unhappy students free. ‘They are, after all, 17 years old,’ she says. ‘This is not a legal agreement they have signed. If a student says to us, This is really where I thought I wanted to be, but I cant see myself there now, we release the student. It doesnt make sense to have students who dont want to be here.’"**</p>
<p>Conveniently, Marvin didn’t quote the next part of the article, and failed to note that it is from 2007 - the year Harvard and some others eliminated ED:
</p>
<p>Key word to me: HONOR system. As a parent, I teach my kid to honor their word, and not to make commitments they’re not sure they want to keep. If I had even a hint that my daughter wasn’t 100% sure on her college, that it wasn’t a good fit for her, if we weren’t sure we could afford it, and if we weren’t convinced it was the best school for her (after we had done extensive online researched and visited multiple colleges), my daughter would not have signed an ED agreement.</p>
<p>In fact, I tried to talk her out of it. “It’s too far away.” “What if you get into Other Univ - I know it’s a reach but it could happen.” She replied, “If I get into ED Univ, I’m going there. Doesn’t matter what the other colleges say.” So she applied ED.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone disagree with your facts. But what I disagree with is the ability to pick and choose ethics.</p>
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<p>IMO, it is ALL about principle. Allowing say, someone an out just bcos they have different personal beliefs (for example, lying, cheating, stealing from the bureaucracy is acceptable as long as one doesn’t get caught), is incorrect.</p>
<p>And I think most of the great philosophers in the history of the world, of all countries, would also disagree with you.</p>
<p>I’m not going to battle about that. It’s not really what this thread is about. I believe there are many ethical reasons to back out of ED, and the NYTimes reveals many colleges agree. I’ve already said I’m against backing out just because you got in somewhere better–there are usually other, more compelling reasons (including those mentioned above in the NYTimes quote from admissions directors).</p>
<p>(I’ll also say that you’re mischaracterizing my view of ethics: just because I don’t want to talk ethics because people’s values vary widely doesn’t mean I believe “anything goes.” That’s the sort of slippery-slope fallacy the political right uses to impugn “relativism” as some sort of anarcho-hippy free-for-all. And I can name dozens of important philosophers who agree with me, from Deleuze to Wittgenstein to Heidegger to Nietzsche…)</p>
<p>We know NYU has notoriously bad FA. Hopkins claims to meet 99% of need but they report that less than than half of enrolled students applied for need-based aid, kind of surprisingly low for a school with a COA of $57000. Maybe they are gapping a lot of kids to the extent they can’t afford to attend.</p>
<p>^^ this was 2007; Syracuse no longer binds ED applicants who are not accepted to their first choice program; if they are accepted to their second choice, their acceptance becomes RD and not subject to ED…that’s where the 10% comes from…</p>
<p>And it states that in the article; kids who don’t get in to the program they applied to…</p>
<p>I can only characterize what you post. And your post that I quoted (from post 53) above exactly how you wrote it: “The moral/ethical element is going to rely on individuals’ personal beliefs.”</p>
<p>Your next line then concludes, (since the quote is ‘accurate’, according to you), only legality of ED is important…and yes, you have made several posts pointing out the legality or lack thereof of ED. </p>
<p>Not sure anyone disagrees with you that ED is not legally binding in any stretch of the imagination. And that IS the point, or at least my point. It’s all about ethics and morals, (and not legality).</p>
<p>But I disagree with the line that you quoted. If the quoted line doesn’t mean what it appears to mean, what do you mean it to mean? :)</p>
<p>I did not write “only legality of ED is important”–what I’m saying is that I’m only interested in discussing that part of the issue, since ethics/morality is a far, far murkier bucket of gravy. Many earlier were claiming ED is legally binding. Many were claiming that people backing out of it were doing something wrong. I was judging by colleges’ own statements, policies, and practices, and the NYTimes article verifies my claims (which were based on knowing many students over the past decade who have turned down ED admissions for varying reasons–some of which I’ve explained as clearly as I can in this thread).</p>
<p>As for what the quote means: it means what it says. What it does NOT mean is an arbitrary extension of what it says. Let me try one more time: People have different values and beliefs (yes, even those who would NEVER turn down an ED acceptance), so discussing “ethics” in the abstract isn’t something I find useful in this thread, other than to explain my own, which I’ve done.</p>
<p>I was one of the people who assumed the ED agreement was legally binding. Having listened to people on this thread and done a bit of “research” (i.e., Google searches!), I now see that it is unlikely an ED agreement would ever be held up in court as such. But, more to the point, the legal force of the agreement is moot, as it is hard to imagine how it could be cost-effective or any other kind of effective for a college to pursue someone who reneges on the agreement. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean colleges don’t consider the ED agreement a contract (which it is) or that it doesn’t matter to them if people back out of the agreement. The evidence they think ED agreements are a “big deal” is the language on their sites and on the ED agreements, all of which adds up to colleges not wanting people to apply ED casually. The fact that colleges do not make a stink when people back out for nonfinancial reasons says only that they understand they have little to gain from being sticklers.</p>
<p>Maybe, but the quotes from admissions directors in the NYTimes article linked in the previous page make pretty clear that there are plenty of nonfinancial reasons that colleges consider perfectly valid:</p>
<p>The relevant quote:</p>
<p>**"The most acceptable excuse officials cite for backing out of an early decision commitment is a financial aid package that a family considers too low. The financial aid letter is often the first time a family sees all the costs lined up, says Eric Maguire, director of admission at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa. ‘Some families are finding their aid packages are not aligned with their expectations. If so, we certainly enable them to break their commitment.’</p>
<p>Officials occasionally bend rules for other reasons, too. If he senses a student has applied under parental pressure and doesnt really want to attend, ‘we back off,’ says John F. Latting, director of undergraduate admissions at Johns Hopkins. Barbara Hall, associate provost at New York University, will also set unhappy students free. ‘They are, after all, 17 years old,’ she says. ‘This is not a legal agreement they have signed. If a student says to us, This is really where I thought I wanted to be, but I cant see myself there now, we release the student. It doesnt make sense to have students who dont want to be here.’"**</p>
I wonder how many other Common App ED schools use a different, more restrictive ED agreement? William and Mary actually uses the Common App ED form, even though their website says you’re bound to attend there. I think that’s pretty slimy and also foolish on W&M’s part. Applicants sign a form, not a website. </p>