<p>The problem with asking for financial aid at ED time is that you get a number and you have to take it or leave it without being able to compare offers from other schools; you don’t know if a school you like just as much would give you more aid. But then ED is meant for your number one top choice, your dream school, where your only question might be “Can we afford it?” With some possible exceptions, ED is widely believed to confer at least some amount of admission advantage; many schools love applicants who love them.</p>
<p>So if you have that one dream school and don’t care about comparing FA offers, ED may be the way to go. But if the FA calculators strongly suggest that it’s not going to work, it doesn’t matter if you apply ED or RD; the result is the same.</p>