Sr. Parents: Question about ED

jmmom
Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:44:26 +0000

I hesitate to post this because it brings up regrets that we wanted to put behind us. But I post as this is the whole point of cc - to share info which may be useful to others.
S was, in retrospect, not a good candidate for ED, but did apply ED. There were signs at the time that he shouldn’t and we thought we addressed them carefully. We were also light years less knowledgeable than we are now, as we only discovered cc after we entered our “ED Dilemma.”

S applied ED to one school and simultaneously EA and rolling to two others. Why do I say he was not a good candidate? Because after all of our visits, meetings with his (excellent) GC, he announced that he wanted to apply ED to “A”. We discussed the why’s, knew he loved it, his reasons were sound. Settled. After a day or two passed, he announced he wanted to go ED to “B.” Whoa! We discussed that maybe he was not a good candidate for ED. His reasons were that “B” is ranked higher than A and that he felt he should go to the better school, rather than the one he liked best. We asked him to discuss this with his GC and follow her advice. He did discuss with a different, less experienced GC than his regular one, and decided to go forward with ED to “B.”

After submitting the ED and EA and rolling (his ED school allowed one to apply early to other schools but not to any binding; he followed that rule), he began to receive frequent personal recruiting contacts (academically based, not athletic) from school A. It took a while for us to see the effect, but by the time the acceptances came (accepted at all), we think the further contact, further marketing, etc. had had some effect on him. Nevertheless, he did not appear conflicted and we sent in his deposit to the ED school.

The very day we sent in the ED deposit,and we were about to send the withdrawals to the other two, a very large merit award, which we had been too naive to ever expect he would receive (now, through CC we know better - hence my thread on schools who are generous with merit), came from A. It was then that S real preference for A became clear - separate from the pocketbook issue, but catalyzed by it.

It still being school vacation, we had no GC to consult and I discovered cc.
Received many informative, varied, strongly-felt and valuable opinions. When our GC returned, we had a full discussion with her. She believed clearly that S had the option to accept A, cancel the ED, based on the “adequate financial aid” exception to the binding nature of ED. She also felt that the ED school would be understanding and cooperative, as they still had EDII available and could use the slot. H and GC had discussions with school A’s Director of Admissions and release was allowed (we did not ask for the deposit back ). Settled, but we, at least, can never be totally comfortable with not fully following the “rules.”

I post all these details so that junior parents will see what the complications can be. We were fortunate that all has worked out well, and relations between our hs and school A are not damaged, a critical concern of ours as well as, of course, the critical concern of what is right for our son.

What we learned: [ul][]the pressure to go ED is strong in some environments, ours included []it really is being used too much for kids who clearly do not have a true “one and only” choice but who think they would be foolish not to take advantage of it (our school, like many others, has 45-55% going EA/ED - mostly ED because few of the higher tier schools have the EA. Clearly, not all these kids have a one-and-only[]families need to consider not just whether need-based aid is a factor, but whether merit-based aid could be a factor (this is where our naivete came in][]I am a strong advocate of EA/rolling, but think ED should ratchet WAY down[]I wish more schools would eliminate ED in favor of EA; the colleges have this all figured out; too many of us families are not as informed as the typical cc-er and we think we know what we’re doing, but we don’t[]We had no idea that colleges would keep “recruiting” our S after the apps were in; we thought we had all the info about each by the time the apps went in; Deans writing and alums writing and students calling during the app period had a real effect[]it is a rare17-year old who truly knows the one and only place for him/her; cc veterans and their kids are the likely exceptions, but we had never seen cc[]the two colleges in our case were not in a consortium who have ED “agreements”, but some schools do, meaning a student could lose both acceptances []some colleges will let you out of an ED if you want to go to a “lesser” school, but not an equal or higher tier - this was not our case, but is to me one more evidence of the undesirability of some colleges’ use of ED[] if one does go ED, all of this would be avoided by NOT applying to any EA/rolling schools, even if allowed. However, if you are deferred or rejected ED, you will miss out on those comfortable early safeties[/ul]

Carolyn, I doubt this has relevance to your case, but hope it is useful to others.