<p>“I didn’t want to (obviously), but it was a private institution and I was not offered financial aid.”</p>
<p>Do you mean that you applied for FA and needed it? If yes, there’s nothing unethical about declining the ED admission offer; that’s why the ED agreement is worded as it is.</p>
<p>205mom, Yale’s used SCEA for a while, so the issue can’t be students reneging on ED acceptances. If anything, it sounds more like a yield management thing.</p>
<p>Oh, I hope so, SlitheryTove. Hard to think of any ‘collective punishement’ this day and age.</p>
<p>^^ Or an “urban legend”. Or got lost in translation. Yale may have accepted the students SCEA after GC fought for them, but they bailed in favor of Harvard RD. “Hard to think of any ‘collective punishement’ this day and age.” - its done.</p>
<p>I have a close friend who is a college counselor at a hs. She is married to an admissions officer at a well-known college. She has ongoing professional relationships with many college admissions folks at many different colleges, and knows the names of the adcoms assigned to her school. When one of “her” kids gets an unexpected result - a denial or waitlist that she expected to be an accept, for example - she gets on the phone to ask why, and in the case of a waitlist, what in particular the student should do to improve his/her chances. (Once it turned out Notre Dame had the wrong ACT scores, and a denial became an admission). She would be mortified if she had to talk to an adcom about a student who withdrew from ED for a non-financial-aid reason. </p>
<p>The college counseling/admissions world is smaller than you think.</p>
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<p>…And, this is why parents are asked to sign the ED agreement.</p>
<p>Edited to add: Just because an ED agreement is not enforceable, does not mean it is not unethical.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why one shouldn’t apply ED if one was a needy top student. Students with my scores are applying to colleges that usually give only need-based aid. So I couldn’t compare aid offers, but since the colleges were grant-only, and state that there would be no difference in aid between ED and regular, how would applying early make a difference in aid?</p>
<p>blubbermonkey:
For the sake of discussion, let’s assume the schools are truthful when they state that “there would be no difference in aid between ED and regular” (some of us have doubts). </p>
<p>Here’s one problem: With ED, you lose that ability to compare offers. Different schools assess and meet need differently, and you need to decide on the ED offer before you see the other offers. What if your dream school doesn’t offer as much as you anticipated, you turn it down, and you then find that their offer was very solid in comparison to the others?</p>
<p>^ In theory she turned it down because she just couldn’t afford it, so then it turns out she didn’t have a financial safety, and may have to attend community college. Only in theory! :)</p>
<p>I applied ED and got in . i got pretty good financial aid except im left with 7000 in loans and 10000 to pay myself. and my efc is $20. but im not backing out because I love this school:)</p>
<p>blubbermonkey, top students are offered better aid by lesser schools. You might even get a full ride. If you apply ED and get in, and are offered a decent package you have only that. </p>
<p>If you do not have the opportunity to apply RD to other schools to compare FA, you will never know if you could have gone to college for less. And not to a community college but a regular college. This is important if you plan to go to grad school and want to save money for later.</p>
<p>@adababy845 So your EFC is $20 a year, yet you somehow feel comfortable spending $17,000 a year that you’ll later have to pay back?</p>
<p>Wondering if $20 is a typo and adababy845 really meant EFC of $20K???</p>
<p>Either way, I read it that adababy845 was comfortable with $7K in loans (presumably for a year, so $28K altogether) and $10K per year out of pocket (not a loan for pay back later).</p>
<p>I don’t know how a student with an EFC of 20 could GET loans of $17K. They would need a cosigner and it’s doubtful a family with that little income could qualify.</p>
<p>What we got going here, Erin’s Dad, is the CC equivalent of a game of telephone. Adababy845 mentioned a loan of $7K in post #231. Born2dance94 turned that into a loan of $17K in post #232. Who knows where that other $10K is coming from, but adababy845 didn’t call it a loan.</p>
<p>Oh my bad, I guess I misunderstood her. However, how can a person with an EFC of $20 hope to contribute $10,000 a year? Also, with such a low EFC, with decent stats she probably could’ve gotten a full ride or close to it somewhere (whether by merit or no loan aid). When you can only contribute $20 a year comfortably, you’d benefit from being able to compare packages. Clearly if she had such a low EFC yet received a package requiring they contribute $10k per year out of pocket, this is not a school that meets anywhere close to 100% need, with or without loans. For a family with such a low EFC, it doesn’t sound like applying to this particular school ED was a logical or $-savvy choice. At the age of 17 and 18, kids should think less fantastically and more realistically. Sometimes college decisions should be made with the wallet and the brain, rather than with the heart.</p>
<p>Perhaps adababy845 is an “unreliable narrator.” I don’t think we can know anything for sure, other than that adababy845 loves GWU :). Hope it works out for him or her.</p>
<p>^^we do know that George Washington does not meet full need, however.</p>
<p>It’s not all that difficult to calculate your FAFSA EFC. That is the lowest amount someone could be expected to pay at a meets need school. If a family can’t afford it’s federal EFC then ED is most likely not the way to go and it’s much better to apply broadly so offers can be compared. That is really a pretty well known fact on these threads. What I would find morally reprehensible is a family who knows they can’t afford their EFC applies ED, see’s the offer and then says “well we can’t afford it.” Perhaps the ED agreement should contain a statement that says “You agree that you understand what your federal EFC index is and you understand this will be the very minimum you will be required to pay.” If would also be perfectly acceptable for college applications to contain a statement “Have you applied ED (or SCEA) to any college.” There are minor speed bumps that could be put in place that could cut down on any system gaming if that in fact is going on. I do like the idea of the deposit…held and not redeemed until the acceptance. You’re going to pay alot of money for college so what difference it $500 - $750 dollars 10 months early if that’s the college you are going to attend anyway. If you back out you get the money refunded, if you aren’t accepted the check is returned or the credit card is never charged. Personally I think it is silly for families to apply ED knowing they probably can’t afford to attend, but then people play the lottery so perhaps throwing away an app fee thinking lighting will strike is normal thinking for some people. </p>
<p>The system works fine. The people that are going to weasel around are always going to exist. I also agree that kids that game the system along side their parents probably aren’t the type of kids the ED schools hope to attract so being “released” probably isn’t that big of a deal to the college. But sitting around waiting for a $750 deposit to be credited much make a few of them think twice. The only people hurt by gaming the system are the kids and families that did the gaming…not the colleges.</p>
<p>interesting, but it makes perfect sense. You are asking these kids at 17/18 to make a life decision when many of them haven’t really ever lived life, so while it’s cool to say in December hey I got into HYPS types schools, it’s not until April that State U comes with the bomb financial aid/scholarship package. My D didn’t apply EA/ED at any school and she is an athlete to boot, now she was turned down on a few early read schools who now seem more than interested in talking now her full status grades/scores/parent contribution is known and it would be nice to have all of this wrapped up, but I rather put in a place where she can make a choice based off all the available data. Personally I think the whole ED process is more about stroking egos of schools as well as the individual, when the bottomline is what are they offering in exchange for the opportunity.</p>