<p>I am afraid I may have fanned a lot of flames by interpreting your original phrase, “won’t qualify for financial aid,” to mean that you did not apply for financial aid, rather than that you applied but did not receive it. I apologize for that, higgins.</p>
<p>The matter is quite different if you sought need-based aid but received none. And if some other university that your kid likes offered you significant merit aid, then all other things being equal, I think you should follow the money. Princeton might be worth paying retail for when the alternative is half-tuition elsewhere; or, depending on your family’s circumstances, it might not be. But I don’t know of an institution that’s ranked between 50 and 80 in USNWR that I think it’s worth mortgaging the family’s future for.</p>
<p>I would start by talking to admissions and FA and the ED school. You can’t legitimately negotiate with competing aid offers since the nature of ED is that you don’t have that option, but you can ask for reconsideration of your cost just based on your sense of affordability. This isn’t the time for price shopping though. That’s why people apply RD.</p>
<p>So just to be clear, you haven’t even found out the FA situation yet? Then why are you concerned yet?</p>
<p>“I surprised by the amount of vitriol based on a short post.”</p>
<p>I think it’s because of our collective misinterpretation in your original post that “We’re a household that won’t qualify for financial aid” and “If you’ve a “full pay” student” meant you didn’t check the Applying for Financial Aid box. Since you did and no aid was offered, you’re entitled to decline the offer.</p>
<p>They don’t know what financial aid might be awarded. OP just said in post #79 that FA is pending from the FA office. So all this discussion is about a hypothetical situation. Once the FA award is known, it seems to me that there are 2 honorable alternatives based on the FA award:</p>
<p>1) The FA award is about as predicted by the NPC. In this case the applicant should abide by the ED agreement.
2) The FA award is significantly lower than predicted by the NPC. In this case the ED agreement should alow the applicant to withdraw.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that the NPC calculation becomes relevant here. But I have to say… the OP indicated in their initial post that it was the missing merit aid that was a problem (I believe it was referred to as a “merit money sweetner” that they were hoping for). That does not imply “can’t make it work” to me. That implies “I want my ED acceptance AND the right to compare prices”. Still think it stinks, actually.</p>
<p>It is unreasonable to expect a commitment on the ED offer without knowing the applied-for FA package. Call the FA office to get them to send the FA offer.</p>
<p>However, if the FA package approximates what the NPC said or better, then the ethical thing for the student to do is to attend the ED school.</p>
<p>OP, re-reading your original post did not come up with the information that you have since added. Whatever your situation is with the ED agreement is something that your family, the high school and the ED school have to work out. </p>
<p>One of the drawbacks with ED is that if someone is trying to compare offers, a full slate is not available. A lot of schools do not award all of their Merit Awards until the spring when they have ALL of the accepted students listed, and then decide who they most want. There are some schools that do have early awards and some with automatic awards, and if that is what your student has restricted himself in applying, then go to it with what is in front of you. I can tell you that with my kids, the juiciest fruit came at the end, some of it quite unexpected. </p>
<p>As far as NPCs go, they are not binding, even the ones that ask some indepth questions, and you cannot be 100% sure that is what your student is going to get, especially in terms of merit aid. Other factors can come into play in scholarship awards and sometimes the school itself won’t know till towards the end of the year who will be offered what. You don’t know for sure what the cut offs for test scores or what is on the university wish list for a particular year. For schools that do not meet 100% of need, even the need awards are difficult to predict. You are talking averaages, when you are looking at NPCs and unless a school runs the same criteria through a computer to give out the money, you are not going to get the same results.</p>
<p>Probably most would not consider it unethical to back out of an ED admission if the actual FA offer is significantly worse than the NPC estimate on the same financial parameters, although one should make sure that the ED agreement at the particular school allows backing out for “insufficient financial aid” reasons before applying ED.</p>
<p>Reading the original post and even some further posts, it seems to me that higgins is able to pay “full cost” of the ED school, but now that he saw the “half tuition” from other institution he/she is rethinking the whole thing.</p>
<p>In particular, given that the original NPC calculation said that student would get “no major discount”, it is hard to see how the school offer will be “significantly worse” than the projected NPC price. Backing out of ED at this point would be questionable.</p>
<p>Methinks higgins experience highlights why ED is a bad idea, unless someone is really from a wealthy family and will have no regrets to pay (potentially) more to go to the dream school.</p>
<p>Agree that if the actual FA offer were similar to the previously seen NPC estimate or better, then the ethical thing to do would be to matriculate to the ED school.</p>