It’s certainly collusion if schools are sharing names of ED renegers, as common app states is possible. Perhaps that will come out in this Tulane situation too.
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Collusion would indicate school X and school Y are discussing policies and strategies around what to do with the applicants. I’m not suggesting that’s NOT happening but just sharing a list/name is not collusion.
If School X publishes “hey, Jimmy reneged on his ED acceptance” - unless there is discussion and agreement between school X and Y about how school Y should treat Jimmy - it’s not collusion.
Otherwise it would be collusion by banks when/if someone defaults on their loan and it hits their credit report and then another bank won’t lend them money.
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It’s not about comparing offers. It’s about ensuring affordability before a student and family commits to ED.
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I just don’t understand the fuss. If the NPC indicates the school is unaffordable, how on earth does “knowing” that ahead of time (vs. just learning it from the NPC) help this family?
Unaffordable is unaffordable. If the numbers come back too high (do it in July, do it in August, doesn’t matter) then scratch the school from your ED list. You don’t need a pre-read to learn that you can’t afford it!
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Gosh, is my family the only donut hole family in the US? I guess so, based on these replies… Need-based NPC only shows favorable numbers for us at the wealthiest schools, but there’s a whole tier of schools where a bit of merit could make the school affordable (even if a stretch) and therefore possible to commit ED.
Here’s an example of a school that offers a merit pre read: Early Financial Aid Assessment - Macalester College
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You aren’t the only donut holes- but surely you’ve heard enough “almost but not quite” stories about merit packages to know that even a pre-read is no guarantee. I know families banking on the merit who have discovered that once first semester grades are in, the expected A in BC Calc turned out to be a B which dropped them down a category in the merit chart (i.e. from affordable to not affordable). So I still maintain that if the NPC says that a school is not affordable, applying to it ED and hoping that the numbers come in better than expected (either a “skootch” of merit or something more substantial) is a sub-optimal strategy. Why take that risk?
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Well, not every anticompetitive practice is unlawful. Small town stores agree to not stock certain items because they know that another store across town depends on selling that item. Happens all the time, so-called-, “gentlemen’s agreements“ that “I won’t come after your customers, if you don’t come after mine.“ I don’t think that’s unlawful.
Also, the plaintiff class is so nebulous. Who is really paying more and for what? If every applicant (including those from so-called, “full-pay“ families) is competing for a discounted price, how do you ever come up with a precise calculation of their “loss“?
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Great post.
And sometimes what might appear to be collusion turns out to be something else. A “waxing and threading studio” opened in my town. All of a sudden, the two closest nail salons stopped offering waxing and threading. Some women were up in arms- collusion, anti-competitive, blah blah blah.
Turns out the owners of the nail salons admitted that they hadn’t made money on waxing since Covid. The heightened hygiene concerns meant a huge increase in their costs for sanitizing, constant cleaning of the private rooms, etc. Every time they tried to raise their prices to reflect their increased costs customers complained. They were thrilled to get out of the business and leave it to someone else. One salon downsized- the space that was the private waxing rooms is now a yoga studio.
So it might look like collusion when it’s just an ordinary business decision.
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Of course a pre-read is not a 100% guarantee. A merit pre-read would simply give a family depending on merit the same options as a family depending on need-based aid. If the offer matches the pre-read, the family is bound by the ED agreement. If the offer doesn’t match and it turns out to be unaffordable, the family has a legitimate case to back out of the ED agreement… just like a need-based aid family that used the NPC to gauge affordability for their ED school.
I agree that it would be helpful if more schools included merit in their NPC. Some do - I want to say 20% on my daughter’s list that offer merit, included it in the NPC - definitely University of Denver, a lot of the schools have auto merit which makes it easy.
The real tough part is a lot of the big merit offers are very competitive and you’re just not going to know based on a pre-read. We knew my daughter was a Top Scholar invite at University of Richmond which guaranteed 1/3 tuition - but it could have been a full ride - that’s a pretty big swing at $70K COA (when she was applying), but she wouldn’t hear until after interviews which were past the ED date - same with the Wash U and Vanderbilt scholarships. Students going for the big, big scholarships really can’t ED if they want to see how they play out.
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There is an inverse relationship between merit aid and number of ED applications.
Don’t know the financial aid process with ED, I’ve never even considered it, so you are likely right.
I think you are also right that the actual incidences of “deception” are rare. A lot of people on here report accuracy from the NPCs.
What I would question is how many people are aware that NPCs exist? Maybe a higher percentage at the top schools, but I’d bet money that far less than half of potential students. That is why I think the NPC has to be part of the ED process, so that there can be no valid complaints about the cost.
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