<p>For my kids we weren’t slaves to the rankings. They help inform about how a school is preceived and mainly served thwhittle down the possibilities (there are a lot of schools out there). We do not get any needs based aid so we focused on schools where the kids would likely qualify for merit aid.</p>
<p>ED makes no sense in our situation. Kids applied to 4 (D) and 12 (S) schools. Some real surprises with merit. D had great results all around. S got zero from some where we expected big $s and larger than expected $s from other. They chose their schools from the group that had reasonably close net costs.</p>
<p>ED scares the heck out of me. Merit results were $60 - $80k over 4 years…huge dollars in our world.</p>
<p>“The problem, Vonlost, is that financial packages among what one can consider peer schools can vary to the tune of $10,000 per year.”</p>
<p>Exactly! There is no way to tell what the FA package is going to be. Some FA calculators are pretty close, some are WAY off and you have no way of knowing which is which until you get the actual FA package, by then it is too late.</p>
<p>Well, I have mixed feelings on this one. On one hand, yeah, they committed and maybe got a boost in acceptance by doing so, now got in and THEN want to talk price? On the other hand, it’s a BIG deal and lots of money so maybe can’t condemn for having buyers remorse.</p>
<p>Now, what i will say is that IF they ran the college’s NPC before applying ED, then the acceptance came back with far less aid (scholarships, grants, need based, merit, whatever) THEN I’d say you’d have a legit case to back out. If their estimator led you to believe aid would be yours if accepted, then, yeah, a renig isn’t wrong, IMO. Hoeever, if it was just the HS GC who said “they give good aid” … then not so much.</p>
<p>Rundmc, I think it’s a lot harder to make that argument when you applied ED without applying for need-based aid. If you don’t apply for need-based aid, you ought to assume that your EFC will be the sticker price, and then be pleasantly surprised if merit aid brings that down.</p>
<p>But, seriously, applying ED and expecting the university to “sweeten the pot” with merit aid was sadly naive.</p>
<p>“Kei-o-lei, the thing is that this OP promised to pay full price by signing the ED agreement, and then not applying for merit aid. So… there are good ways to accomplish this for other posters. But applying ED is NOT one of them.”</p>
<p>Yep! Was providing info for other posters and countering the OP’s "woe is me I am trapped " theme</p>
<p>I would agree with this. If the financial calculator was run before applying and it gave and estimate of X dollars in some kind of aid and then when accepted they were offered zero dollars they have a beef. However, I would think in this case the financial aid office would be open to negotiation or at least honest discussion.</p>
<p>At my son’s dream school we were set on doing ED for a brief moment, but the financial calculator said our estimated family contribution would be up ~75k a year. Beads of sweat immediately formed on my forehead. </p>
<p>After a few sleepless nights we decided on doing regular decision and early admission at a basket of colleges and will pick the best match vs. price offered. The gamble of crushing our retirement savings, lifestyle, and well being just were not worth it for us. And when we are broke in our late 70s I don’t see my son taking us into his house or buying us a nice condo and caring for us just because we spent our life savings to send him to a “dream school”. It will be off to the old age home until medicaid kicks in :o</p>
<p>Still… going to the dream school’s CC forum and viewing the ED thread, I am very jealous of all those privileged kids that say “ACCEPTED!!!” while we are stuck waiting until April to make a final college decision.</p>
<p>“But a middle class family can get an ED financial aid offer from the dream school that is affordable, perhaps even generous in their view,”</p>
<p>Yes, they can. But they also can get a very “stringent” finaid offer that is doable but very hard on family finances.</p>
<p>That’s why I maintain that if you do not care about $10,000 per year differences, go ahead and apply ED. If you do care about $10,000 per year, it is better to send multiple RD applications.</p>
<p>Well, I guess that’s so. But that’s why I’ve been railing recently on CC against the idea of a “dream school” in the first place. I know that sometimes a high-school kid does fall in love with a college or university. It’ll happen. But to listen to the chatter on CC, you’d think that if you don’t have a “dream school,” you’re doing it wrong.</p>
<p>Falling in love is not the best way to buy a car, and I don’t think it’s the best way to select a college, either.</p>
<p>And I think I acknowledged that. My point, however, is that the CC zeitgeist seems to encourage it, to hold it up as some kind of ideal. College love is no more based in reality than Medieval courtly love was, IMO, and both of them are potentially harmful for people who have to live in the real world.</p>
<p>I said something kind of similar to my daughter a couple of years ago in April, when the university where she is now a student was offering her a scholarship and reaching out to her with calls and letters, while the university she’d long been planning to attend if admitted hadn’t even told her when admitted-students weekend would be. I said, “It’s really your choice, but you probably ought to realize that wherever you go, they’re never going to be nicer to you than they are right now, when they’ve made you an offer of admission and they want you to show up in the fall with your parents’ money.”</p>
<p>Or EA. Or rolling. I’m a huge fan of EA. Gets the college app season over 4 months instead of extending the entire ordeal over the entire senior year.</p>
<p>When it comes down to it, most end up loving their school. At first one might settle but they soon fall in love and then can’t imagine being anywhere else. </p>
<p>Of course, there will always be a percentage that will be unhappy no matter where they end up.</p>
<p>Not sure if I’m remembering correctly, but I thought parents AND student were required to sign the ED agreement. At least, that’s what I thought we did last year. There was absolutely no question that this was a commitment to attend if accepted. It was clearly not optional, and not based upon whether or not WE thought we could afford it. It’s very simple to determine the COA and the Estimated family contribution after filling out the FAFSA or the Profile. Almost every college has online calculators for FA. I find it hard to believe that a family could jump through all of the ED hoops and not understand the obligation to attend and pay. I remember the exact moment pen was poised to sign-the heart beats loudly in the chest! postscript: S was NOT accepted ED and never looked back.</p>
<p>“It was clearly not optional, and not based upon whether or not WE thought we could afford it.”</p>
<p>It is indeed completely up to the family to determine if the actual ED FA offer is sufficient. If not, the ED offer is declined, and you move on to RD (or ED2 or EA).</p>
<p>^^Several years ago there was an epic thread about turning down ED for financial reasons. At that time, some colleges had that language in their ED information telling families they could back out if the finances didn’t work out and others did not have that question. Bottom line in my opinion is that educated parents ought to be able to run financial aid calculators and get a reasonable idea of what the college might cost them so there is really no excuse for an ED surprise. They also should be able to articulate the the college when turning down the offer why. On the other hand there are families where several thousand dollars is the difference between being able to send a student or not and for them, no college is going to hold the families feet to the proverbial fire. But remember, the colleges have ‘seen’ the family financials and if there is some circumstance not reflected in the financial paperwork it’s possible the school would might be open to review. Reneging could potentially be back lash at the student’s school during the next application cycle and the concept is that you can back out of an ED agreement you do so to attend a less expensive college - not a competitor - that can backfire if it’s a college that support’s their competitors ED cycle…some care, some don’t. Bottom line, it is an agreement…and there is honor in honoring your agreements.</p>