@austinmshauri,
There is an opt-out clause in the ED agreement, but it’s meant for kids who find the FA offer really is not enough for the student to attend the school, not (as I’ve seen in recent threads) an easy out for kids who didn’t apply for FA or who want to shop around for the best deal with an offer in hand. In other words, once the student has the FA offer from their ED school in hand it should be a binary decision-yes or no- based on finances, not “Well, let me see if another school will give me more money” or “I’m not so sure this is my first choice anymore. Let’s see what other acceptances come in” or “I applied to all the Ivies. Wouldn’t it be fun to see where I’ll get in?” Someone (GMTplus7?) suggested requiring students to run the NPC to get an estimate of the FA offer they’d receive so they couldn’t claim ignorance of what they’d pay if an ED offer came through. If a student’s circumstances change, e.g. if a parent loses a job or becomes disabled, that’s also a perfectly reasonable reason to back out of the agreement, although some schools will adjust the FA package under those circumstances.
The only complication in my mind comes when the ED school doesn’t expeditiously deliver the FA offer to a student who really will have to stretch hard to afford the school. I’m not sure I can really blame a kid who, waiting for the FA offer to come in and getting EA or rolling acceptances with good financial packages decides that the 5 or 10 thousand a year in better FA being offered by competing schools makes a significant difference to the family’s finances. I’m sure ED schools lose a few such kids every year.
I am not going to argue about this since it has been done on another thread, but I have to speak up here in case this thread is read by students in future years. People who are relying on merit aid or find the net cost to be too high after ED acceptance ABSOLUTELY CAN DECLINE. There is NOTHING unethical about declining for financial reasons of any kind (except in the opinion of some on the college confidential forums) and they will absolutely not be placed on some mythical “black list.” I am quite tired of seeing kids or parents berated by people who think they know what is right for others. ED is NOT merely for the upper income families or those who know they will receive large need-based awards.
ED is for students who have a clear cut first choice school that they will absolutely attend IF they can afford it after seeing the financial and merit award package. Whether they can afford it or not is solely a decision the student and parent can make…AFTER they receive the awards. NPCs can be off for a variety of reasons. Merit aid is considered financial aid by the Financial Aid administrators professional organizations.
Admissions counselors to whom I spoke said that if a student has a clear cut first choice, they should apply Early Decision. Period. That’s the guidance given for who should apply ED at least at some institutions. (I am sure that other schools may give different direction, but there is no ONE answer.) If the aid offered is enough, wonderful! If it isn’t, the student declines and the school fills the slot with another student in Regular Decision. Everyone moves on. No drama. No lawsuit. No black list.
That being said, it does seem that higher merit aid is given in Regular Decision rounds. So if that is the type of financial aid a student is seeking, it may be prudent to apply RD. However, merit aid is also given in ED rounds by some schools.
Many schools specifically exclude merit…read carefully folks.
I think it is more of a:
“Wow, I did ED to Emory, and got accepted? I’ll bet I sold myself short and can get into something better” syndrome. The opposite of getting “rejected ED so obviously I will get accepted nowhere” syndrome.
When my D applied to Virginia Tech last year the ED button was very clear that if financial aid was a requirement to attend you should apply RD, not ED. At least at VT not getting a financial aid package (or enough) was not a valid reason. ED is for those kids and parents 100% committed. We did not get the FA package that we wanted, but VT was the right school for her. That’s why she applied ED and at THAT point we as a family committed to pay for it and make it work. I see many parents who view ED as a way to apply early and that’s not what it is for. Apply to SCEA and EA schools if that’s what you want.
Good point, @NCmom14 . Some schools may explicitly state that you should not apply ED if ability to attend is dependent on a financial award of some type. But in the normal common app ED agreement, if a financial award is not offered that makes it feasible for a student to attend, he/she is released from the ED agreement.
Spot on ! The only thing I would add, is that most schools will will offer the minimum aid/merit to ED students due to their eagerness to attend the school. Admissions will never admit this publically, but it is a known fact inside the admissions offices.
I think we can all agree that it is not a problem or unethical to decline an ED offer if there is a true financial disconnect between the NPC and the aid offered or if the situation has changed (job loss).
I hope we can all agree that someone who accepts the ED but has no qualms about accepting an RD offer later is unethical. I also hope we can all agree that declining just because the student changed their mind is unethical (though I’m not sure how people stand on that–maybe someone thinks that is okay).
I think the fuzzy area is in between…whether it’s okay to decline if it’s not quite the FA package they were hoping for (more merit or simply hoping it was better than what the NPC showed).
Personally, I think this is technically acceptable (declining due to FA package) however, I do find it questionable. I think if the offer is anywhere close to the NPC one should honor their ED commitment. As for merit, I don’t think one should be counting on that in the ED round (unless, perhaps, they make this clear to the school that merit money is the only way they would commit).
I think most of the people here have an issue with the increase of people taking the whole thing so lightly and wanting out because they’ve changed their minds or because they were hoping for some FA miracle.
I haven’t seen anyone say that families can’t back out of ED agreements when the FA comes back and they can’t afford to pay the balance. In general, those posters decline the offer and move on. It’s the ones who sit on the offer and choose to wait and see if any of their other apps are accepted, or if they get a better offer. Many of those cases have applicants who haven’t even requested any FA… they just want to get a perceived “bump” in the ED round, but also want to see if any of those high reaches end up accepting them. That, I believe, is unethical. And that seems to be what’s been going on in many of these cases.
As for a college enforcing the ED agreement to the point where a kid “has” to show up in the Fall? I’m guessing that they won’t ever do this. Who would want a kid on their campus who desperately wants to be elsewhere? And one who shows little to no integrity? My guess is that they would rather pass on that applicant.
“Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment.”
I interpret this to mean that those who did not apply for FA and were instead hoping for merit offers, are not allowed to decline on the grounds of “insufficient” aid.
However, those full-paying applicants could always apply for FA anyway and then use that “zero FA” offer as an excuse.
According to the national association of financial aid administrators, merit aid is considered a form of financial aid. There are two types of financial aid: need-based and merit-based.
While this is your interpretation, @goldenbear2020 , it is not the definition of financial aid.
Of course, in early fall, we see lots of threads about “what college should I apply ED to?”, indicating that the posters do not actually have a clear first choice, but are being tempted to apply ED somewhere for the perceived advantage in admission chances.
@txserenity Thanks for the clarification. However, in the case of schools that don’t offer any merit aid (including most top 25 universities and LACs), would you agree that applicants who don’t apply for FA are not allowed to decline ED under any circumstances (other than job loss, etc.)?
@goldenbear2020 Absolutely…If a school states up front that they they do not offer merit aid and the student does not apply for need-based financial aid, they should not decline under any circumstance (other than job loss, etc.).
Agree absolutely with @txserenity – although I also would note that many of the more selective schools do have some merit scholarships – they are just very few and very competitive (e.g., Morehead at UNC, Ingram at Vandy, etc.). They don’t tend to have the “we’ll knock off $10,000 because you’re so special” merit aid that some schools distribute broadly. But, merit scholarships are absolutely, positively considered financial aid and admissions offices have no problem with a kid whose parents can’t/won’t pay the EFC cancelling because they didn’t get the merit scholarship for which they applied. The ones that do have a problem include the language quoted above advising kids who need aid not to apply ED.
I agree that the real ethical issues rest with the kids/parents (while we criticize the kids, they wouldn’t be able to back out with the parents’ cooperation) who are trying to “game” the system by applying ED to give themselves a (in some cases only perceived) advantage, but then decide that they might get in someplace “better.” Those parents shouldn’t be surprised when their kid ends up with an honor code violation (after all, the rules don’t apply to them and their signature on the honor code is pretty much meaningless).
Northwestern has been taking half of their class ED, which is a bummer for my S17, who is interested, but nowhere near ready to commit.
Who is gaming the system? the students trying to improve their chance of admissions at a particular school or the schools trying to accept the highest payers?
In my mind ED has specific purposes for both the student and the schools. For the student it is a way to improve opportunities for admission to a school they are certain they want to attend. Since finances are always an issue the caveat of meeting financial need is necessary. For the schools themselves it is a means of securing a partial class of highly dedicated students. I don’t think it is in their interest to low ball financial aid awards since students applying RD will more likely be price shopping and have less of an emotional interest in specific schools.
The disadvantages of ED are that it can preclude getting better financial aid offers from other schools, though this should be mitigated by the fact that you are attending the school you want to attend, and if you were not really sure you are in “binding” agreement. I don’t see too many disadvantages for the school other than that many students utilize the ED contract for the wrong reason.
I believe what most people on CC get upset about is there seems to be an increase in students using ED just to up their chances of getting into a selective school and they haven’t really considered the economic ramifications. Since they don’t really care about the school specifically, only that it is prestigious, they are not as interested in making the financing work and often haven’t done their due diligence. This possibly makes it more difficult for students who are sure where they want to attend and understand the finances involved to make it happen.
I also think it is disingenuous to apply to ED to schools that only have a couple large scholarships that the kid would have to win to attend. If the kid is not at the top of the heap academically or hooked, they realistically aren’t getting those scholarships, and the odds of it being awarded to an ED student are slim anyway.
@intparent That is where I think you probably take it further than most non-CCers and even a lot of CCers. Is the scholarship likely? No. But is it impossible? No. When you start saying not only must the agreement be ethically binding if the financials work but it must work without certain offered scholarships, you are putting things in the agreement that are not there. These schools consistently say there is more to it than stats. No 18 year old can guess his chances at admission let alone the scholarships based on what the schools put out there. You are looking at this through the lens of someone with 20,000+ posts on CC not a kid and his parents who have been in this process for less than a year. Some people are more realistic than others. That does not mean those who are unrealistic are unethical.
I don’t have a problem with a student applying ED to a school they really want to attend with the understanding that financial aid/scholarship money must be enough for them to attend. However, there are a number of schools which have early action or scholarships dates in which the decisions will come out about the same time as the ED decisions. If the student gets a financial aid package from the ED school which is expected and reasonable but then decides they would rather hold out for more money then the purpose of ED becomes irrelevant.