I don’t understand the logic behind this set of actions at all.
Is this a recreational participation trophy team where everybody makes the team and everybody plays equal time, or is it a competitive high school sports team?
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Had our college check in with D26. She is now incredibly torn about her top three schools, and likes each of them a lot for different reasons. She is now unsure whether she will apply to one early decision or not. She has a reach, a target, and a very likely admit all tied at the top. The rub is, applying ED gives her the best chance to get into the reach and would make the target closer to a likely. She’s not sure she’s ready to give up on any of them yet, but also anxious about not applying ED may effectively be giving up on the reach or in the end leave her with the very likely school being the only one of the three she gets into. I don’t envy the stress she feels about the decision. That said, all three are great schools for her, and we’d be thrilled if she ended up at any of them. Thankfully, the very likely school has early action at least, so she will do that for sure. She is setting a meeting with her college counselor to talk it all through.
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What’s the app deadline for the ED school? Your D26 probably has a little bit of time to decide still. 
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November 15. She does have some time thankfully.
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I feel like if she’s that torn among three schools, then probably she shouldn’t ED to any of them, right? ED should be used (IMHO) if she is 100% sure about a top choice, plus you know that choice is affordable.
I don’t love ED because it prevents students from comparing merit aid offers. And because it takes away options – it irritates me that colleges dangle this carrot of “easier” earlier admission as long as you sign your soul away.
I know that’s the game, but I don’t have to like it, LOL. In any case, she does have some time to decide.
My D22 did not ED to any of her 10 schools. Five of those were elite schools, including an Ivy. None of those five had early action, so she applied regular decision to all. She got into two, was waitlisted at two and rejected from one (the Ivy). But her decision came down to those two schools (of the top five) she got into, and she was very glad to have that choice.
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Thanks for the response. I don’t like the game either, but like it or not, she’s forced to play. Whether she EDs or not, that choice is part of the game.
I am also not a fan of ED, it advantages students at the two ends of the wealth spectrum, who are more likely to feel like they can apply ED. It also adds another stressful choice for kids who are very interested in ED schools that are a reach.
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Financial aid (or the lack of it) is one of the very few legitimate reasons a student can decline an ED offer.
After the admission offer -and- the financial aid package are released, if the aid is not enough to make it possible to attend, the candidate would contact the financial aid offer and ask them to review the FA package to reconsider. There is likely to be some level of interpretation as to 'what is affordable?" and how FA awards for merit etc which wipe away cost versus FA that is a loan package will be viewed by both parties.
If it is still out of reach after this effort, then a letter to decline the offer based on insufficient aid is generally acceptable - and the student can look at their other offers.
- You can not be trapped into being bound by an ED without the financial information available to know if you can even afford to attend.
For a student who doesn’t qualify for need-based aid but is hoping to get merit aid, is it possible or acceptable to get out of an ED commitment if the preferred amount of merit aid is not offered?
I don’t dispute that what you say about financial aid as a means to get out of an ED is true. Nevertheless, I’m guessing most middle income folks don’t know this and are reluctant to apply ED because of affordability concern (to their credit, at our information session at Pitzer, they said explicitly to the whole group that you could decline ED if financial package is insufficient). In addition, even if one knows this, it is a big ask for most people to be willing or able to negotiate with a college or university on aid effectively. Even that process is a significant barrier to applying ED. For this and other reasons, I’d expect the ED applicant pool to have an overrepresentation of those who are willing and able to be full pay and those whose financial status guarantee significant aid (like families who earn under $100k at a school where that income means the school is free or no tuition).
And to be transparent on this, the aid piece is not a factor for my daughter’s decision. We will not qualify for financial aid anywhere. Two of her top 3 offer no or minimal merit aid that we don’t anticipate her getting. The third school offers everyone aid and as a result would be on the order of $50k cheaper a year. So, we are in the pool of families that I feel are advantaged by ED. But, I still don’t like it in part because it puts another weight on the scale in favor of the affluent.
I believe they will largely base it on the NPC. If the NPC ends up being noticeably different from the final aid package, you can decline. My understanding is that only some schools include merit in the NPC. Also, a lot of ED schools typically don’t offer much in the way of merit, but as with anything else here that’s not true across the board.
As a reminder, the student, the parent and the school counselor all sign that they understand what the ED commitment is. If you’re hunting merit, the general rule of thumb is that ED is not appropriate.
One should run the NPC first. If the amount of estimated aid ends up where the expected family contribution is more than the family is able to pay, then the student should not apply ED to that school. A lot of colleges will now include a merit aid amount in their NPC. Keep in mind, though, that at highly rejective schools, they usually don’t give out any merit aid…there’s only need-based aid.
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So the votes are all in and D26’s senior class opted to have the senior trip go to Magic Mountain in southern CA instead of Disneyland.
Boo.
D26 will not be going. Has no desire to go to Magic Mountain. She’s really frustrated.
However, our immediate family has tentative plans to go to Disneyland next August for 3 days before we move both kids into their respective colleges (D24 for junior yr, D26 for freshman yr). We’re going to tack on a visit to the Reagan Presidential Library on the front end of the trip since D26 is really into US history.
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This may be an unpopular opinion here - but this falls on the shoulders of the Candidate, the Parents and whomever is providing the guidance (to them) on college admissions and financial aid. There are non-profit as well as school resources which provide insight and guidance on FA packages and what to do to try to maximize your choices.
If someone who wants to go to college but doesn’t have their own resources to pay for it…will not or can not do what I would consider simple Due Diligence and research financial aid or ED, EA and RD combined with financial aid - especially given how readily available AI research has made it for the compilation of data and interpretation - then that sounds like a ‘skill issue’ (as the youngins say).
Further, if one is asking others to contribute funding to one’s own individual education, and won’t review the FA package offer and ask questions or request a review if the package won’t meet the needs versus simply declining to go - I don’t know what else to say other than life goes on and some will miss out.
If the legal challenges going after ED happen to succeed, then this likely becomes a moot point - shifting more towards a EA offer with perhaps a much earlier decision date for individual highly selective schools with a HEFTY deposit.
So I take it you will not let your daughter apply ED because it would be the morally correct things to do?
I jest, a little bit at your expense here, because this is an example of the frequent hand wringing I see from parents who point out the indelicacies of the system yet still go ahead and take the advantages for their children because… they are my children. I will take every advantage I can possibly find or make for my children, I have no qualms about that, nor do I fault others for doing the same for theirs - and I don’t lose sleep over it. “Starving children in Africa” and all that - I’m not going to fix the “world’s problems” through my own children.
That sucks about the senior trip!!
Was this an overnight trip or just a day trip?
I am with you Daughter- I am not a rollercoaster kind of person (I swear those things hurt more than they are fun!?)
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On your first point about it being on the parents to do due diligence about college. I don’t disagree that every parent should do that. But, we know that they won’t and that many are not in the position to do so for any number of reasons. And I am talking about systems, not individual choices or skills. There will certainly be folks who do just what you say. But, on aggregate, far more wealthy folks will. My point is that at scale, the system exacerbates advantages of certain groups.
On your point in jest quoted above. I do not see it as a moral issue for any individual to take part in the college system that exists in the best interest of their child (absent cheating, lying or stealing type of plainly unethical participation). And, I have no personal qualms with having my daughter apply ED if that is what turns out to be best for her. I lose zero sleep over that issue. But that does not mean I have to like that this is the system we have. I can point out problems with things that advantage me without handwringing about them or feeling somehow morally bad or whatever your jest intends to suggest. Me opting out changes nothing. That said if there were some magical world where I got to vote on whether ED stays or goes, I’d be inclined to vote against. But that world doesn’t exist, so I will participate, and I will point out how it advantages affluent people like me. It does, that’s a fact. And it doesn’t make me feel bad about myself to acknowledge the system’s bias toward me.
Edit: and for the record, I think the lawsuit against ED that I am aware of is garbage and they should lose. I don’t have any basis to think ED is illegal and must be banned.
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3-day trip. D26 likes roller coasters, but not the intense ones like Magic Mountain has.
I am not that deep into it (yet), but I think I agree. However, In the past 20 years or so I have been mystified by many legal decisions which I thought should be obvious but went the other way - and then half of those get overturned on appeals. So I won’t bet heavily against it.
And that’s the part I jest over - you feel bad about it, but not bad enough to abstain from using it.
ED serves a purpose, and non-affluent families can still use it - and if they are unable to “afford” it, can decline the offer in favor of something they can afford later. Sure, there’s questionable definitions as to what is and is not ‘affordable’ or whether the availability of massive student loans is a way to ‘afford’ it but thats getting a bit into the micro view for the individual versus the school, I think.
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We’ll have to agree to disagree about what I feel bad about. With all due respect though, I think I know better than you what I personally feel bad about or not. I think our worldviews are different enough that your read on my emotional impulses are off.
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Yeah I misspoke there and realized it after I posted it but didn’t edit it - more accurately I could have said you recognize what you perceive as a bias or maybe an advantage in your favor but that doesn’t change your approach. Using “bad” as a descriptor can be inappropriate because there’s such a range that can be ascribed to it. Fair enough points.
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I appreciate your response and agree your revised statement is more accurate. Thanks for following up.