But athletes have to commit, don’t they?
So one more struggle for me in my naiveté. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to grant exclusivity to customers, but the customer here is also agreeing to that.
In some ways, it serms less about markets and more about contracts. I don’t have to apply ED, but if I choose to do so, for the benefits I receive from that, I also agree to certain terms. And of course, ED isn’t just for FP students.
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So as noted above it is typically OK to compete until a potential customer decides to accept a competitor’s offer, and then to stop competing once they do, at least during the period they are under contract. That is why it is critical that the complaint is alleging that applying ED is not actually the same thing as a legal agreement to attend.
But I am really not familiar enough with all the details of athletic recruiting to form any sort of opinion on that process, including when there is in fact an agreement to attend. And I think it could be a moving target.
Like I recall that NLIs were once a 1-year commitment, but I think that is no longer true for Div 1? Again, I really don’t know much about such details.
Again, same sort of answer. The complaint is alleging applying ED is not actually forming a contract, so the defendants can’t use that sort of defense. As I noted in my initial post above, I have no firm feelings about the ultimate merits of that argument, but I do think it is an interesting argument at the minimum.
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There is also the fact that many ED schools will give you a pre-read on the real cost. I mean we won’t be full-pay at my daughter’s potential ED school (qualify for need based aid). I feel like many schools are pretty upfront about how much it will cost you. You apply ED knowing that amount.
I guess I don’t understand how ED makes it more expensive for RD people???
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In fact I would think the opposite- if the argument is ED is aimed at the wealthy, then the school has those fees locked in and has more funds available for aid to RD?
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The only RD matriculants who are eligible for the class action group are full pay kids who did not receive FA. The specific wording is, “admitted through any decision process and did not receive financial aid in the form of…”
The idea is having a group of mostly wealthy kids with fees locked in facilitates increasing sticker price and contributes to why tuition has been increasing much faster than inflation at the listed colleges. That increased sticker price impacts students who pay sticker price. As I discussed earlier, I believe this claim is easy to break down.
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Oh I missed that. Well that’s kinda dumb (imo) , there are many reasons you don’t get aid and RD kids are free to go elsewhere.
I know nothing about the legal merits of this one way or the other.
But I will be glad if ED goes away. It benefits colleges and rich kids and nobody else.
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This is also not an opinion on the merits of this case, but same for me. I see no reason why non-binding Early Action cannot serve the valid interests of prospective students, and I do not care about whatever benefit colleges are getting out of the binding version instead.
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I have always assumed that the main benefit for students of ED vs Early Action is an increased chance of admission by indicating to the school that if they admit you, you will come. It gives them predictability of yield and revenue and the student who is all in on the school, a better chance to get in. I am not sure Early Action would give the same admissions bump if the school can’t rely on the student being committed.
All of that said, I agree that ED benefits wealthy students who are not worried about paying full tuition and also can benefit those on the low end who have lots of need (especially at schools that advertise no cost or no tuition below a certain income level). But, it seems to disadvantage many in the middle in terms of admissions to highly selective schools.
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This is a dumb lawsuit. No one forced them to apply ED. They could go to Podunk U, or apply to need blind college. They can be released from an agreement if they can’t afford it. I hope they lose.
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Athletes who are not offered athletic scholarships (such as in the Ivy League, NESCAC, Elite Division 3, non-scholarship Division 1 sports) are, I would guess, not any different legally than any other early decision applicant.
The school is only offering these prospective student athletes admission in exchange for a commitment to attend, and admission is only offered if they apply early decision.
The athletic recruitment process for these schools is really an honor commitment from both parties (school/coach and a student-athlete), and is not legally tied to being on an athletic team, since participation is voluntary and not subject to any merit aid (such as an athletic scholarship).
That means that if this goes anywhere, the entire early decision system that is used for athletic recruitment could also fall apart for non-scholarship schools.
This whole system was developed to allow the non-scholarship schools to be able to essentially make “offers” to athletes before the regular decision notification date. These “offers” tell the athlete if they’ll get in and how much aid they will receive.
Waiting until late March was problematic for those choosing between an athletic scholarship and waiting for an answer about admissions and aid from a non-scholarship school like the Ivy schools (athletic scholarships are offered well before March and will be offered to someone else if the athlete must wait until late March to give an answer).
In the dark ages, prior to this system being developed when I was recruited, we had to wait until acceptance letters were sent. All were mailed on April 15 and received on about April 17 and April 18, with decisions due May 1. There was no pressure from coaches that they would give an admissions slot in exchange for a commitment in those days, other than them trying to gauge a recruit’s interest by talking to them. I got into more than one Ivy and all Patriot League schools to which I applied (although the Patriot League didn’t yet exist), and that was typical for all Ivy League school recruits at that time.
That acceptance date has been moved to March, which is better than the mass hysteria for the students and coaches of the April 17 receive-fat-envelope-date, when there was less than 2 weeks from admission confirmation to decision date. There was some kind of early action or early decision in place at some schools, but I never heard of any pressure being applied by coaches to a recruit to apply early decision.
I can remember hosting a recruit who had an athletic scholarship on the table, and he was going to get an early answer from admissions (in late February or early March), in what was called the squeeze play to that time. I heard of this only once. I was not a walk-on, and although solid academically, am quite sure that I wouldn’t have gotten in without the coach’s blessing. Going back to this system, in these days when those under $100K get full financial aid and aid overall is significantly better, would not be good for the student-athletes or the school’s teams.
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Yes, but the college has shared their name with all the other colleges they are communicating (colluding?) with, and the student will be blackballed from these schools.
When is the student’s name shared with the rest of the group?
When the student applies early decision, when the decision is reached, or when the offer is formally accepted by the student?
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Some colleges admit so many applicants EA that they do not have a lot of space (overall or in popular majors) to admit that many in the “regular” action, so the “regular” action becomes much more selective. Perhaps they should rename EA to be the “regular” action, and rename the “regular” action to be the “late” action.
Something similar may occur at rolling admission colleges.
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I don’t think we know with certainty if the COFHE schools were sharing names of ED applicants. If they were/still are after the 2018 DOJ ED investigation, the people involved are really naive and knowingly put their organizations at risk.
Not sure whatever happened to this DOJ investigation:
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I don’t think that is the case. If a student backs out of ED for fiancial reasons, I believe that information is only relayed back to the school. Students miscalculate and family finances can change dramatically due to unforeseen circumstances. As far as I am aware, colleges do not alert other colleges in this kind of situation.
If I am wrong someone else feel free to clarify.
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Maybe you are right and they don’t share names anymore. If this is the case, people should be made aware. ED is framed by the schools as a binding agreement, but in reality perhaps it is now nothing more than a “gentleman’s agreement”–and one that benefits one party much more than the other. So students need to know it’s not actually binding, and they don’t actually need to withdraw other apps, and it is in their best interest to keep their options open and compare offers.
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So a lot of the quotes in the complaint supporting the allegation that schools are sharing names are indeed pretty old. If the case gets past a motion to dismiss (which is TBD), they will get discovery, and at that point they will need to come up with some actual evidence to support this allegation as to the relevant time period.
I note they also make a lot out of the allegation that colleges and relevant organizations represent ED as binding, despite it not actually being binding. That allegation is supported with a lot of current evidence described in the complaint. So they may be thinking this could also potentially be enough even if there is no longer any name-sharing. But I am sure they are hoping to find evidence of recent name-sharing.
Edit: By the way, again without going to the ultimate merits of the lawsuit, a lot of discovery about ED could be very interesting, and potentially useful to prospective students. There is a lot about ED that outsiders speculate about, and sometimes they rely on that speculation when deciding whether or not to apply ED. So to the extent we could get better information about what is actually happening in ED, I could see that as a good thing, independent of what ultimately happens with the lawsuit.
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So, this may well boil down to whether a “gentlemen’s agreement” between the litigants, without any teeth, is in violation of the antitrust laws?