The typical reasons not to apply ED are:
- Their most desired colleges do not offer ED, and they are unwilling to use ED tactically at lower choice colleges.
- They need to compare financial aid and scholarship offers between colleges.
I wonder if low income students will get deposit waivers then? Just seems unfair. There are some very talented students that just don’t have the funds to waste till they know what financial aid will do. Hmmm.
Now enrolment deposits are often at least partially refundable if you notify the college early on. That will change.
@ucbalumnus sure re 1, but the problem with 2 effectively falls away under the new rules.
@Knowsstuff, I imagine low income students at many private schools get deposit waivers. State schools, probably not. Amherst definitely provides waivers.
Actually I think this will have virtually no effect on admission/recruiting practices. If you read beyond the sensationalism, the actual story is this:
In 2017, the organization proposed 3 guidelines:
- no incentives for ED
- no poaching committed students
- no luring students into transferring.
All pretty reasonable IMO. But faced with an anti-trust lawsuit, in Sept the organization decided to abandon those provisions because they couldn’t afford a legal fight with the Govt.
So we are simply back to the 2017 state of things.
I believe those three changes were an attempt to head off a trend that was building steam. Because of the drop in enrollment that is predicted the common wisdom is that schools will be feeling a lot of pressure to keep their own enrollment up.
I read twice recently about students being offered guaranteed transfer to schools they had previously been accepted into last fall. If they were interested or perhaps not happy at the current school and only had to show first semester grades.
Boston University offers guaranteed sophomore transfers to some students they reject for freshman admission. Those who do not transfer as sophmores are then offered guaranteed junior transfer.
@TomSrOfBoston : That’s really interesting and puzzling. Why do you think they do that? Seems it would be a bit of a slap for a kid to be rejected for Freshman but “we’ll take you in a year.” Why wouldn’t the university simply take a few more freshman? Is it a way to game the retention stats?
I’m not sure I follow…up until this past October, those 3 points above were not allowed per NACAC’s CEPP (although some bad actors did engage in that behavior).
Then, NACAC settled with the DOJ…where we are right now, today, is that your 3 points above are exactly what is now allowed.
To whit, a number of schools offered ED incentives this year (early course registration, preferred housing, etc.).
And right now, there are a number of schools reaching out to previously accepted freshman who matriculated elsewhere…offering them transfer admission for spring or fall 2020…similar to the BU example above.
@pickpocket Stats for USNews rankings. Transfer students’ stats don’t count.
I suspect that these rulings are going to affect a small percentage of students. Very small, like maybe the very most desirable ones. I do think though, that colleges are going to start offering more perks to ED applicants and that deposits are going to get bigger. I’m not sure they will force all to abide by that though. I’m guessing a full pay kid won’t have an option for a smaller deposit, but a kid with more FA will.
FWIW, Dickinson College wanted an $800 deposit a few years ago when my D was considering it.
@Mwfan1921 Correct. My understanding is that the 3 practices were NOT allowed by NACAC beginning 2017 until a couple months ago. There was no prohibition against them before 2017 and once again there is no prohibition against them today.
Was there any great change to ED perks, poaching, and transfer offers over the past 3 years? Perhaps, but I have not sensed it. This is why I am skeptical that there is some monumental shift, like “the end of ED!!”
Thanks @TomSrOfBoston . That makes sense, though still a mean-spirited practice IMO.
@Lindagaf I agree this will affect only a small number of students, yet it may cause deposits to rise. I frankly think the deposits are surprisingly low as is.
Of course, generosity in financial aid would be the surest way to retain all the acceptees. Though that’s more expensive than preferred housing, etc.
@TomSrOfBoston
Georgia Tech does a version of this also. They give a type of delayed admission where the student must go to another school for FR year, then has auto-transfer to GA Tech for sophomore year (maybe assuming some GPA probably 3.0).
It’s also an issue of having to cap the freshman class at some point. But then a few will drop out or transfer, so they’ll have some openings for sophomores. It could also be a housing issue - freshman are often required to live on campus but sophomores usually aren’t.
@Johnny523 Neither is the case for Boston University. They cut the size of the freshman class from 4100 to 3300 over the past 5 years. Their acceptance rate fell from 42% to 19% in the same period.
If this is now allowed, can’t ED students be poached?
I think most GC’s are going to be non-cooperative in helping with any apps after an ED acceptance. It still reflects poorly on them and future applicants to the jilted school.
I guess if you already have your apps out for RD and leave them in maybe you can get away with it, as long as the RD schools already have everything they need and don’t want mid-year grade reports. And there are no younger siblings that need help from the GC in the future.
Our GC’s have very few kids apply ED and only a few apply to selective schools at all. However, when S19 applied ED they went over the committment with him face to face, and sent me an email that I had to acknowledge basically ensuring that if he was accepted ED that he was done, period. They wouldn’t process his ED app until those 2 things happened. This is in addition to the form we already signed agreeing that ED is binding. I have to think that if our GC’s take it that seriously, very few GC’s would be willing to be part of this.
So while personally I would be thrilled if this was the death of ED, I don’t think it will be. As stated above, the changes are a plus to full pay students and a detriment to everyone else. The rich get richer.
I guess one thing that could happen is that schools could still review the RD apps after they are technically pulled and still offer admission. But I doubt that puts any serious dent into the ED system.