@TheGreyKing This is very subjective and even a $1000/yr could be justification for not meeting a particular families FN. Like your moniker, this is a very grey area, although I’m not sure anyone who applied ED would really want to back out unless it was truly unaffordable.
However in my example of going to UCB there could be a cost difference of $25K (or more if my child lives at home) between full pay at Columbia vs full pay at UCB, and who is to say that I simply don’t want to pay the difference even if I can afford to. UCB isn’t going to rescind your acceptance if you say that its not affordable to attend Columbia. If I need a new sports car that is a personal decision which affects my finances which btw isn’t going to be included on any FAFSA docs.
Finally, it seems that the NPC’s aren’t exactly perfectly accurate, and if I used one and it said I was getting $15K in FA and it turns out I actually got $5K, that in itself is reason to reject an ED acceptance. Of course all this is predicated on the fact that you were accepted somewhere else (at less cost) in an early round.
First off, when you get accepted ED, you are supposed to pull any other apps that you submit. So, how would you know if you got merit aid elsewhere. Remember, both parents and college counselor (representing the high school) sign off on the ED application as well. The high school controls sending out transcripts and such.
@doschicos this is all predicated on being accepted somewhere else EA. Otherwise its kind of a mute point as ED requires accepting or rejecting offers of admittance before RD acceptances come out.
@doschicos@cu123 It’s been a while but I think one of my kids heard back from UMich EA before or near the ED decisions came out. So, theoretically a Mich kid could get accepted, have Columbia or some other ED school offer admissions and then offer need aid nowhere close to the in-state for Mich or other early-action state school.
I would be surprised if top ED admissions got too worked up about that unless it happened often enough to be a recurring problem for a HS or GC. I guess if a school’s top grads tended to “take a flier” on ED at presitigious schools to “admit collect,” but knew they’d go to UMich or UCB or UICI all along, it would become clear to adcoms relatively quickly and affect the relationship, but if there was a real difference between the in-state tution and the ED EFC, I would hope most ED schools would hold a one-off against anyone. (and again, I’m pretty sure Columbia mentioned specifically that you could rescind an ED acceptance for a state school - maybe assuming the finances would not be competitive? Or maybe I misheard.)
Interesting thread on whether ED is fair to low or middle income applicants. I think part of the problem is that we’re really discussing multiple issues here. It makes considerable difference whether ED is compared to SCEA, EA or RD. The issue is further confused by failing to define and simultaneously conflating “fair” and “advantageous” and how either or both are, or should be, judged when applied to FA and/or admissions.
ED is certainly “fair” to full pay and low income (those that can expect there full cost of attending to be covered ~ less than 60K of yearly income), however those in between are in a bit of a conundrum since they are committing to a university without knowing exactly how much FA they will get.
**If/b ED is fair to full pay and low income applicants, can it be said to be actually fair, since that’s a subset of all applicants, and even of all qualified applicants?
It would seem like it would be more “fair” if it there were a more accurate FA calculator to use pre-application. One where, if you entered the correct data, the school would be required to honor the number, so families could make choices with reasonable forethought.
Or make it more of a non-compete agreement among top full need/need blind schools, so the ivies and nescac are not going to accept a kid who EDs at a peer institution, but if a less-competitive school makes a great financial offer the family can take it. Top schools should have more faith in their appeal anyway.
@dfbdfb “yes you would raise a red flag if you bailed on Columbia (applied ED) to attend Harvard ( applied RD), that would be a clear and unequivocal violation of the agreement. However if you bailed on Columbia to attend UCB, they wouldn’t bat an eyelash about that especially if you’re from CA.”
They would definitely bat an eyelash, they’ve already secured a spot for you and promised your a FA package and if you tell them in April, you’re backing out where it clearly says you’re obligated to attend, they would be batting a lot of eyelashes, for one the high school would be blacklisted as doschicos points out.
“However in my example of going to UCB there could be a cost difference of $25K (or more if my child lives at home) between full pay at Columbia vs full pay at UCB, and who is to say that I simply don’t want to pay the difference even if I can afford to. UCB isn’t going to rescind your acceptance if you say that its not affordable to attend Columbia.”
Well then, you shouldn’t have applied to Columbia ED if you thought UCB could be a better value if a student were fortunate to get into both. You can’t use ED to secure a spot and still be open in case something better comes down the road, you have to withdraw your apps from everywhere.
“Top schools should have more faith in their appeal anyway.”
They obviously don’t, if they did, they would be SCEA like HYPS or EA like MIT, Georgetown, Michigan and other public universities. That’s why I like MIT’s attitude on this a lot - apply where ever you want, we’re confident that we’ll get the class we want at the yield and acceptance rate we want without needing ED or SCEA.
“ED is certainly “fair” to full pay and low income (those that can expect there full cost of attending to be covered ~ less than 60K of yearly income), however those in between are in a bit of a conundrum since they are committing to a university without knowing exactly how much FA they will get.”
The issue of fairness is not only financial aid but that low income students don’t even understand the process and the rules - they think it’s for rich people, that they can’t decline if they don’t like the FA package, don’t have high school GCs that know you need to spend the summer getting the app ready, the tests need to be done by Oct etc. That’s why it’s unfair.
Schools will do what they deem to be in their best long term interests. That that may be deemed to be “unfair” to any group of kids won’t really impact that. They are not in the business of fairness.
The main reason for a school to offer an ED option is to improve their reputation by enhancing their aura of exclusivity and hence desirability. Take UPenn for example: from the 15-16 CDS UPenn admitted 3787 and enrolled 2435 for a quite respectable looking yield of 64%. When you factor ED into the equation, the yield doesn’t look so hot. Assuming ED yield is close to 99%, subtracting ED enrollment of 1300 (out of 1316 accepted) from 2435 total enrollment = 1135 enrolled from RD. With RD acceptance of 2471 (3787 total - 1361 ED) their RD yield, or more precisely, their yield from kids who actually had a choice was only 1135/2471 or 46%.
So, is ED fair?
I think the numbers pretty clearly show that in a power dynamic where the schools hold most of the cards, and the only card the kids hold is to hurt a school’s yield numbers by declining their admissions offer, ED just hands more power to the school.
From an individual student’s perspective, is ED fair?
I think that if you’re standing in the shoes of the kid who played the school’s game and got in ED and who might not have gotten in RD, it probably looks pretty fair.
If, on the other hand, you were a kid who didn’t apply ED because they were unwilling to risk a take-it-or-leave-it fin aid offer with a decision required before having other options in hand, it probably looks very different.
Are you certain about that? Obviously, if a family simply states “we just like that Cal is a better deal” Columbia may be pissed, but their agreement specifically states that you can withdraw if the FA package does not work.
I wonder if someone came back with “we looked at the EFC you came up with and it just doesn’t seem plausible given that… (we have another kid going to start school in 3 years, student’s grandparents are aging starting to need more care, etc, etc, etc.)… and our kid has the option of attending Irvine as a commuter for 1/2 your EFC with no debt, so we can’t take the risk,” if the school would really hold it against the High School or GC or whomever.
Admins are not exactly getting college president salaries. They understand the financial strains of college. What is the point of the FA clause in the agreement otherwise? (esp. since, I think, admissions and FA are firewalled at most of these schools. Adcoms dont’ know what kind of package you might get, as far as I know.)
You do not have to explain why you feel you can’t afford the ED. In fact there is rarely time to explain, you just turn down the ED for financial reasons.
“Well then, you shouldn’t have applied to Columbia ED if you thought UCB could be a better value if a student were fortunate to get into both. You can’t use ED to secure a spot and still be open in case something better comes down the road, you have to withdraw your apps from everywhere”
No, the contract does not say that, I can determine “at any time” prior to accepting/rejecting the offer of admission if the FA is good enough, to include changing my mind if I deem that is necessary for whatever reason.
“Schools will do what they deem to be in their best long term interests. That that may be deemed to be “unfair” to any group of kids won’t really impact that. They are not in the business of fairness.”
I don’t disagree but the OP’s thread is about this, hence the discussion:
“It seems that I have read quite a bit about how unfair ED is to low and middle income applicants. I find that these arguments don’t hold a lot of water with me.”
Kindasorta. As I pointed out upthread, my daughter got a fabulous merit package from the school she’s going to now. She got in RD. I hold that it’s an open question whether she would have gotten as good of a financial package had she gotten in ED and thus been (ethically, y’all!) obligated to attend that school—I mean, clearly she wants desperately to go there, so why should the school try as hard to get her to attend?
If there are differences between ED and RD merit aid decisions—and absent a really good study with excellent controls we don’t know for certain, but the suspicion is certainly verified in the meantime—then no, ED isn’t even fair to the students who got in.
“No, the contract does not say that, I can determine “at any time” prior to accepting/rejecting the offer of admission if the FA is good enough, to include changing my mind if I deem that is necessary for whatever reason.”
Ok so you get accepted to Columbia ED and they give you a good FA package but not what you would consider the best. They’re expecting you to give a deposit to secure a place in the class, and you’re going to say I’ll give it in May when I know my other FA packages and whether I get into the state flagship? They’ll be wondering why you kept applying to other colleges, wouldn’t they?
"Are you certain about that? Obviously, if a family simply states “we just like that Cal is a better deal” Columbia may be pissed, but their agreement specifically states that you can withdraw if t@theloniusmonk
Sure about what, not sure what you’re referring to? I hope that family won’t actually say the college name, they would just say, we can’t afford Columbia anymore (they could lie and just say someone lost their job), and we have to go with a local, more affordable college.
“They would definitely bat an eyelash, they’ve already secured a spot for you and promised your a FA package and if you tell them in April, you’re backing out where it clearly says you’re obligated to attend, they would be batting a lot of eyelashes, for one the high school would be blacklisted as doschicos points out.”
The more I think about it (none of my kids had an ED school as their 1st choice, so I didn’t have to consider the implications too hard.) the more it seems particularly problematic given schools don’t commit to an FA package before you apply. It would be like applying for a job and committing to only applying to one company and take the position if offered provided the salary is “Enough to live on…” That’s a very fugable definition, and given that some schools actually think it’s “full need” to include loans in a package, it really is a dodgy way to run the game.
I had heard there was a bit of to-do back when the schools decided on whether to be REA, EA, ED etc. with some of the non-ED/REA schools really objecting to the concept. Would be interested to hear what they all think now.