@proudNVdad post 837 doesn’t even mention Quaker values. Ironic twist to parse and twist a post to make it fit your own assumption that my D wants to break her ED agreement.
@Grinnellhopeful I guess I am confused. Your exhubrance for Earlam throws me for a loop. Probably not best to be so excited about a school that’s not the ED school. I do think your D will get into StO. Plus, you were talking about comparing packages. If I’m understanding correctly, you even called StO to ask questions about comparing packages. That’s why you’ve had posters saying you cannot compare if StO’s offer ends up being fair, then you are done.
Maybe you never said directly that you would break an ED contract but you DID throw it out there that you’re not sure who determines what a “fair” offer is. That made me think you wanted the option to say StO’s offer isn’t fair if that works for you.
I think it would be helpful if you posted a simple declarative statement:
“If my daughter is accepted to St. Olaf with an offer that matches the NPC I will insist she honor the ED agreement regardless of offers from other schools.”
She can’t just go to Knox if she gets into St. O. I assume by now she knows that. One reason you are getting a strong response is because you keep throwing out options like that with no caveat saying “Assuming she does not get into St. O”.
@intparent - she did provide that context.
@Grinnellhopeful I think you have gotten a lot of good advice here. And posters are rooting for your D. But sometimes it seems when you get advice you like, you are grateful, but when you get advice you don’t agree with, you get defensive, even a bit snarky. I think you feel people don’t think your D is deserving, but that is not the case. Obviously, your D has done very well and most posters predicted acceptances at Earlham and with the 30 score, at StO too. It was only the application to Grinnell with the 26 score that people cast much warranted doubt.
And when a school is generous with financial aid, remember that in part that generosity stems from the families that are full pay who partly fund that aid.
You also have to remember that many posters have been on this board a long time and seen it all. I’m not saying this is you, but in years past we see people ‘playing’ the ED game, people falsifying fafsa, not reporting the generous grandma who is paying a big chunk of tuition, not truthfully reporting assets or No custodial income. So while those people see nothing wrong with what they are doing, because tuition is after all way too expensive, they are really hindering the process and the system for others. That may be why you are getting some of those responses.
The ED topic has been brought up a lot, and much earlier in the thread I too issued a polite caution to the OP about ED. However, her posts since then have made it clear that she does absolutely understand the ED policy and has been in communication with not only St. Olaf but some of the other schools as well.
Put simply, I have always taken the OP’s excitement for other schools’ acceptances as a sign that she’s thrilled to have options if her daughter is not accepted to St. Olaf or if the FA package does not meet full need (though it should, of course, since St. Olaf is a meets-full-need school). I am not a moderator and am not trying to silence anyone, but maybe we should move on? Or maybe the OP should follow Sue22’s excellent advice in post #862?
BEFORE the ED2 app was submitted, she said that in post #857.
Honestly WE ALL GET IT. OP’s D needs to honor the St O acceptance if it comes with an affordable FA package. That’s the agreement she made.
Mom is still going to get excited about other schools and possibilities. There’s two more weeks (maybe more for the FA tocome) and she’s blowing off steam here.
Does she need a lecture from the peanut gallery every time?
Yes I’m talking about all the schools that she has been accepted to and their FA packages, along with my fear that some of the expenses that need to be covered in August, which prompted a conversation with my D several days ago that possibly she just needs to stay home.
I guess I don’t feel like it’s necessary to preface every post with if she is not accepted with a FA package that is workable…
@homerdog the key words to your post above “ YOUR exuberance for Earlham…”
I don’t even know how many times I have to say that my daughter and I haven’t even discussed any of this, I simply congratulated her on her acceptance, talked a little bit about the Bonnor scholar program, and the many wonderful things about Earlham.
If there’s anything that I’ve learned in this process, and let’s go way back to the time when we only had one application in, it is crucial for me to get through to her that there’s a possibility she won’t get in to StO. That possibility has the factor and everything I do right now. That concept drives me to advocate for a FA package that will work at a school that fits for her.
So at our house we say “you cannot count on acceptance at StO” often, daily…
I am trying very hard to make sure she is well prepared and has options that she will feel good about and she can afford.
That has to be our frame of mind. So of course I was relieved when this acceptance came through because I believe that they will probably meet most of her need and it’s a good place for her to be.
Again I have to make sure she isn’t so vested that she makes a rash decision at another school. Because this seems very familiar to feeling like she was probably getting in somewhere else and she didn’t and she didn’t have any options. So I’m not prefacing everything with if she doesn’t, I’m prefacing everything with you cannot count on it…And feel really good about another school where she has already been accepted. Which just so happens to be my favorite school on the list.
Honestly, this post today makes it sound like she talked to them yesterday.
Here is the hair splitting that I think St. O may have meant – IF you get that package before we send out our acceptance, and IF you change your St. O app to RD BEFORE we send out a decision, then you can consider it. But you can’t just say, “Hey, I raced to get a better package from an EA and state school, so therefore I get to take the better deal instead of the ED deal”. That is simply not true. I mean… St. O doesn’t want a kid who doesn’t want to be there. But this endless parsing and chasing a better offer (and trying to get it under the wire of the ED offer), and discussion of comparing them is really not in the spirit or letter of ED agreements.
It is a great idea to manage expectations…I bet many of us are doing that with our own at the moment. But I do think she has an excellent shot at St Olaf. And the other options if it doesn’t come through are great as well. Keep us posted!
Yep. ED is for “love it, it’s perfect, I’ll go there for sure!!”
I disagree. I think that she can turn down StO if she feels she cannot afford it, even if the offer is more than the NPC days. Things change. I remember looking at some of the posted COAs of colleges my kids were looking at and thinking “oh, I can swing that” but when the offers came and I sharpened the pencil, things weren’t quite so clear. Tuition went up $2000 for the next year (NPC are often 2 years prior for tuition and costs).
It’s sort of ridiculous for schools to think people are going to make an ED decision without consideration of other offers that have been received in the meantime. People are human. Of course they are going to want to save some money or take the best offer. If StO wants to ‘win’, it will make a good offer. If it didn’t want other schools to get in the mix, it wouldn’t offer ED2, or the rules would be no other applications allowed while this one was pending. The schools know that not everyone can accept the ED offer, so they allow a week or two to think it over. Not to compare (although that’s certainly going to happen if there are other offers) but to decide if you can accept the ED offer.
It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the one the schools have set up.
intparent,
But is it true that the OP cannot accept a substantially better FA offer from another school if it comes in before St. Olaf sends out its financial aid package? True, I highly doubt that this would happen, but let’s say that Earlham or Knox gives the OP’s daughter their highest scholarship, the presidential scholarship (again, this is fantasy, since these awards are not decided until the spring once all application decisions have been made). If the OP receives a full-tuition scholarship, wouldn’t that justify breaking the ED agreement because for a family with an EFC of zero, the difference in FA packages is substantial (for any family, actually)? Or what if Earlham puts together a package with zero loans?
Again, I admit that I am operating in fantasy-land, but I don’t believe that the ED agreement is that binding, which OHMomof2 raised in an earlier post (where she too admitted that such a situation is highly unlikely). I guess I am asking a question of theory, not reality, and I think that OHMomof2’s new thread asks about these questions too, no?
No. You are supposed to sharpen the pencil BEFORE applying ED. It is quite disingenuous to take the ED admissions bump, but then waffle on whether the school is affordable if they match what their NPC says. I understand if the family has had a change in circumstance since the application was submitted – job loss, health issue, etc. That is very understandable. But people should not sign agreements that they don’t intend to keep.
Again – people sign an agreement saying this is what they are going to do. Is their word good or not? What kind of example does it set for your kid if your word is only good until a more advantageous offer (that breaks that word) comes along?
Clearly you are shopping for the lowest price:
Post #778
But let’s say that one school offered a package that required zero loans or 2500 in loans, and St Olaf required the full 5500 in loans (again, purely hypothetical), at our income level if feel certain if she choose the school with less loans, it’s not violating the ED agreement or spirit of the ED agreement if she chose the school with less loans.
This is certainly violating the ED agreement and spirit of the ED agreement. The ED agreement refers to not being affordable, not being the lowest price. If the NPC had $5,500 in it you have already agreed it is affordable.
You are also acting as though it is only up to your daughter. Didn’t you also sign an ED agreement?
Yikes! I encouraged people to move on past the ED topic, and yet here I am commenting on it! But I do think that this discussion is more general and thus important. Here is St. Olaf’s wording, which I do think offers wiggle room, not because someone is trying to “game” the system, but because for a family with an EFC of zero, several thousands of dollars in difference would make a school unaffordable:
“[…] you make a commitment to St. Olaf that if you are offered admission and AN AFFORDABLE [emphasis mine] financial aid award, you will withdraw all pending applications to other schools and you will not initiate any new applications.”
Again, for a family with an EFC of zero, 2K or 5K in loans is huge. True, I think St. Olaf would have to match, and they do say on the ED page that they try to limit loans:
“Last year, 90% of the students who applied Early Decision and also applied for financial aid were able to enroll. When we say we meet the demonstrated need of ALL [emphasis St. Olaf’s] admitted students, we mean it. We share families’ concerns about student loans. To help students graduate with manageable debt, we have increased grants and reduced the loans used to meet demonstrated need.”
I am fine with the theoretical discussion, and in theory, I would hope that St. Olaf would either match another school’s lower loan rate or allow the ED contract to be broken. I seriously doubt that this would reach a point where an applicant would face very real penalties. One way or the other, things would work out.
EDITED NOTE: I believe that the OP even spoke to St. Olaf about this very issue, though perhaps I am misremembering.
You know…at this point…this student doesn’t yet have an acceptance or aid offer from St. O.
The student doesn’t have the need based offer from Earlham.
Not sure this discussion needs to go on…at. All.
How do falsify a FASFA? I read that post and was genuinely perplexed. Sorry to focus in on it…but they use the irs retrieval tool.
I’m not sure how many of you quite understand where we are with our income and I don’t really need to go through it all again but there’s a lot of checks and balances in place because we qualify for reduced and free lunch and I could go on and on and it doesn’t make me feel good about myself to talk about those things.
But it’s not just the FASFA, my income is verified often and by more than one agency, and it has nothing to do with FA packages from schools.
Again, my perspective and experience is different from others and it didn’t even occur to me that anybody would think we were trying to do something we shouldn’t until just recently, mostly during this constant ED talk.
My mother did leave a little bit of money when she died that was specifically used for my kids. They got a car, they each got a trip, and the girls went on some choir and band trips. And it wasn’t that much money…I have 3 kids it was used for. It felt like a lot to me and my kids got to do things that they never would’ve been able to do. But adventure to guess it’s less than a lot of you make in a year.
But whatever…I’m grateful they had those opportunities. Both of my parents are dead so nobody and I mean nobody is helping me.
I don’t give all the details here although it seems like I do…however, if I I was trying to hide support of a NCP…You can be sure that the waiver wouldn’t have gone through without even the need to fill it out…I just sent two documents… those documents spoke for themselves very loudly.
I do understand that maybe other people have seen those kind of situations. And maybe people are taking it personally because they feel like they’re paying my daughter’s tuition billl?
Lastly I have been ever so grateful for the advise and direction given here. I think I’ve expressed that over and over. Without the help and guidance I wouldn’t have the list of schools that I presented to my daughter, along with acceptance letters.
Thank you all very much for that. And I apologize if I got snarky, that’s not typically how people would describe me. But it’s possible I did. I probably won’t continue to update because I must not be doing the best job articulating I don’t wanna run the risk of my daughter being penalized for something that I said, or for expressing my own thoughts and opinions.
Please just know that I give credit to the collective effort of this community, without many of you I don’t know what we would have done. We were not prepared. But we have been learning and value the lessons, even trying to forward those lessons to our GC so he can help other kids.
Please do let us know when you daughter hears from St. Olaf and what her college destination will be.