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yikes … unless you left out a lof of qualifiers I would not trust the advice of these counselors very much. </p>
<p>I am not of the school that one shouldn’t apply ED if they need FA … at a lot of schools you can get a prety good idea of what your financial aid will look like with a little research. It is true you can not compare offers and can not search for the best merit aid offer if you apply ED … however you can have a pretty good idea of what you might get. That said there is variance in offers from schools so you should assume the worse case on student contribution, parent contribution, and loans.</p>
<p>If you are accepted ED and the school meets 100% of the need as defined by FAFSA/CSS Profile and you want to back out because you don’t like the FA offer you’re in a bit of a bind. From everything I’ve read over the last 3-4 years school let you out of your ED commitment to attend a cheaper alternative like yoru local state U … however other top schools in the area will likely honor the ED commitment. So, for example, turning down a ED offer from an IVY to go to UMass would likely work for one of my kids … but if they tried to back out a ED offer to go to another IVY it likely would not work. Remember … the school decides what they believe your family can contirbute not your family … and that is fairly predictable in advance.</p>