Early Decision and Financial Aid

Northstarmom
Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:20:49 +0000

“In some cases even if you are low income and would like to compare
packages it still makes sense to apply ED. If your scores are say 1250 to
1350, GPA around 3.5, you’re probably not getting in to the elite lacs
RD.”

Still doesn’t make sense for a low income person to apply ED.It’s basically wasting their time and their GC’s goodwill since the GC would be doing a lot of work to try to get them into their first choice.

The ED tip isn’t likely to help anyone who has scores of 1250-1350, gpa 3.5 applying to places like Ivies, Amherst. Those colleges have such an overabundance of high stat applicants, they’ve no reason to select people ED who are low for their pool.

Even for low income students, there certainly are students with higher gpas whom those colleges could admit. It can be understandable for low income people to have relatively low SATs for the pool since they’re likely to go to weak schools where a 1250-1350 SAT is extraordinarily high. However, a 3.5 gpa would still be low for the pools of the most competitive colleges, and such a person would be unlikely to get in unless there were extenuating circumstance such as having been homeless, being a recruited athlete or having a major disability.

For those who are wondering, it’s unlikely that such a person for whom English is a second language would get in because there are many 4.0 very high SAT such students who apply to the elites.

And, as has been explained here a lot, the financial risk also isn’t worth it.