<p>I’m planning on applying to NYU Stern so it’s really competetive and I’m pretty sure I won’t even get in, but I hope it could at least increase my chances by applying early decision. My parents aren’t sure if they would want me going there, but applying early can increase my chances by a littttle bit since there is a smaller pool of people. </p>
<pre><code> I know that early decision is binding. However, I read that if you get accepted by the college from an early decision application, you don’t have to go there if you can’t afford it. (most colleges at least, and they don’t want students to know that either).
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<p>So how do you know if you can afford the college or not? What is it based on?</p>
<p>The first thing you should do is check out NYU’s financial aid office website before deciding whether or not you can “afford” a college. Colleges in general usually make it fairly clear the average amount of financial aid awarded to each student.</p>
<p>Remember, early decision doesn’t necessarily mean an easier admittance just b/c the applicant pool happens to be smaller. You’ll most likely be going up against hard-core NYU applicants (after all, early decision IS binding if you’re able to afford it). Don’t apply ED just for an easier chance-only apply if NYU really is your first choice. Chances are if you aren’t a strong applicant in RD, you won’t get accepted in ED.</p>
<p>I’m guessing (pure guess) that if they meet your demonstrated financial need with grants/loans/work study, they you can “afford” it. Again, just guessing.</p>
<p>I looked at the freshmen profiles at NYU and I’m in the middle ranges for test scores and GPA but I still don’t feel confident about getting in since you just can’t tell anymore these days. </p>
<p>NYU IS my first choice, but my parents don’t like the idea of it so yeah.</p>
<p>How do you know if you can’t afford a college? That’s easy…ask your parents what they can and will pay for your college education each year. If the cost of the college is more than your parent contribution plus any guaranteed financial aid, you cannot afford it.</p>
<p>Colleges that meet full need will come up with a package of scholarships, loans, and work-study money to cover the difference between their estimated Cost of Attendance (COA) and your family’s EFC. How your family comes up with the EFC is entirely up to you. Usually it is a mix of current income, savings, and parent or private student loans.</p>
<p>Each college/university decides what your family’s EFC is based on the FAFSA, CSS Profile, and/or other information. You can ask that they reconsider, but you have very little control over their determination. Each college/university designs its own financial aid plan - some give more scholarship money out, some give out more money in loans. Again, you can ask for a reconsideration, but you don’t have a lot of control. This is why the general recommendation is that students who need aid shouldn’t apply Early Decision. All too often families determine that the ED school is un-affordable and then the student has to get out of the commitment to that school before they can be considered anywhere else.</p>
<p>Unless your parents are completely behind your decision to apply to NYU, and you have the money on hand to meet your EFC, do yourself (and them) a big favor, and don’t apply ED.</p>
<p>In the case of NYU, a school which does not meet need and is known to give aid only to top students, you can not afford it unless your parents are willing to pay the full cost less any Pell or state grants (these go to low income) and your loans and work study. </p>
<p>So if you’re very low income and get the full Pell Grant of about $5K, and you get the typical Stafford loan and work study, they need to be prepared to still pay over $40,000 per year unless you’re from an unusually generous state.</p>
<p>Given that NYU is sometimes the most popular (by number of applications) school in the country, I doubt that applying ED to NYU increases one’s chances of acceptance. Does anyone have evidence that it helps?</p>
<p>Here is what I have concluded regarding whether applying early decision to a school increases an applicant’s chances of being admitted or not. It varies between schools, I guess that is sort of obvious. What isn’t obvious is how to determine what the statistics are at the particular school you are interested in. In my opinion, the schools don’t make this information readily available.</p>
<p>Go to the Princetion Guide for Colleges, we were able to determine from there that my daughter could have significantly increased her chances for being accepted to her first choice school if she had applied early decision instead of regular decision. (Ultimately it didn’t matter because since we needed financial aid, early decision was not an option anywhere.) Like I said, the information was not available on the school’s website but we did feret it out from the Princeton Guide.</p>
<p>Most schools will tell you honestly whether ED helps or not.</p>
<p>I would think it would help at NYU for 2 reasons. First, because it’s a backup for many applying to top schools and this is where they can snag some strong students and up the yield number. Second, because a large percentage of their RD admits decline after seeing the aid package, so again, this locks in full payers and good yield numbers.</p>
<p>I found it very difficult to get concrete information about exactly what constitutes being able to “afford” a school with regards to ED. Being offered an aid package that includes $20K/year in loans is not “affordable” in my book, the school may not agree. The school may say I can afford $50K/year, when I know this is either impossible or would be financially crippling. Then what?</p>
<p>While you will read a lot about the “binding” nature of ED, and may face a lot of pressure from your guidance counselor to adhere to it, and you will sign some forms about what you “must” do if accepted ED - keep in mind ED is <em>not</em> a legally binding contract in any way.</p>
<p>You’ll see a lot of articles on the internet about the consequences of turning down an ED - you’ll be blacklisted, no school in the country will take you, etc. It all smacks of scare tactics to me, with little actual evidence to back it up, and many of the articles suspiciously use the exact same wording.</p>
<p>There are articles that say that many (maybe most) of the time you can be released from ED just by asking. The schools don’t really want you if you don’t really want to be there.</p>
<p>Here’s a quote from article from an “Ask the Dean” article on this site:</p>
<p>So IMO, bottom line, figure out what you can afford, add a little to increase the pain point, and if the school requires you to pay more than this or take out more than a small amount in loans (use the unsubsidized Stafford amounts as a guideline, maybe), you have legitimate reason to turn down the ED for financial reasons.</p>
<p>My high-need son applied ED to his college. My definition of “can’t afford” was if, after paying the bills, I didn’t have enough to pay the tuition bill, then we couldn’t afford it. Parent loans or home equity loans were not an option for us because we didn’t have enough income to make the payments on them.</p>
<p>I know our situation is very simple, but in general I think most people, if they’re honest, can tell the difference between “I don’t want to pay that much” and “I can’t afford it.” Since your parents are not enthusiastic about this, though, and you are talking about NYU (known for poor FA), I wouldn’t apply ED.</p>
<p>I know that’s disappointing, but it’s what I would advise my own kid in the same situation. And I am not one (obviously) who thinks it’s never a good idea to apply ED if you need FA, but I do think the cases where it makes sense are fairly limited.</p>