The ED agreement clearly states - first paragraph of text, third sentence "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. " In other words, if the financial aid offer is not sufficient, the student can decline and continue with applications to other universities.
So the agreement clearly allows the out that you’re seeking.
And there’s no reason that if a student isn’t admitted ED, the only possibilities are gap year or projects. Why not just move on and apply to other colleges? ED results come out before most college’s RD application deadlines, so nothing is stopping students from applying to other colleges.
If I could suggest, it sounds like whoever is doing this counseling is not giving you very good advice. Or at least not giving you advice that’s accurate with regards to UChicago.
@milee30 With regard to the issue of getting out, the question is who is the arbitrator who decides whether the offered aid is sufficient?
With regard to RD and gap, I think you misunderstood me. I was talking about the scenario when the offer is not sufficient to attend (basically anything above NPC, and/or inability to take loans) but the arbitrator decides that the aid is sufficient and so you can’t bail out of the agreement.
Also, about showing interest or commitment to UChicago. We did not apply REA to the other schools so that we could apply to UChicago but we wanted to avoid a financial disaster if the offer is not sufficient. That’s all. It does not make us “uninterested masquerading as the uninformed” or not having “that special UChicago attitude”.
It is clear now to me that @TheVulcan in #309 was right about EA. I wish I knew what I know now and maybe I would have made a different decision. Too late now.
You do! You (AKA the applicant) are the arbitrater. If you don’t feel the offer is affordable, you decline the offer. Done. You walk away and apply somewhere else.
Please relay this information to whatever counselor has been giving you all this misinformation. Hopefully s/he hasn’t been telling this to many people and you can stop it from spreading or being repeated.
Applicants should feel free to apply ED knowing that if the college’s offer of aid is not sufficient they can decline the offer and are free to apply to other schools. Period.
And if your misunderstanding - that you would be locked into an offer you didn’t feel was sufficient - kept you from applying ED but this is a place you love and fit - then think about taking the college up on the offer to be put into the ED2 pool for consideration now that you understand how the ED commitment works.
@ThoughtProcess1 there would not be a need for the university to be the “arbitrator” and thus refuse to release the applicant in a financial aid dispute. First order of business would be an appeal and then the university and the family would work toward a solution. Everyone trying to be on the same page. The goal is the same, right? To enroll your DC.
For all those applying ED to any school, it might be a good idea to look at the ED requirements of the school you’re EDing to. If it’s not clear to you, definitely at least correspond with the specific school about it instead of looking up random answers on the internet.
@ThoughtProcess1 Even that site you link specifically points out:
“Insufficient financial aid is the only legitimate and explicitly approved reason to withdraw from the ED commitment.”
The references to a gap year are referring to a student who was admitted ED and decided not to attend (for reasons OTHER THAN financial aid related, which is a legit approved reason) so are blacklisted by the college. A gap year is suggested for kids who mess up by applying to multiple colleges ED, who decline but it’s not a financial aid issue or who have issues that cause other colleges to withdraw their offers. You would not be blacklisted if you declined an ED due to insufficient aid, so the gap year discussion doesn’t apply.
If you misunderstood something you found on the internet on a random blog, well… you’re not alone. It’s complicated and under high pressure situations we sometimes miss nuance. But if you are paying this group to give you advice, you need to consider if you’ve been given seriously flawed advice bordering on malpractice.
Again, if your only concern is being released from an ED offer because the financial aid is insufficient, you are worried about nothing. When an offer comes, if it’s not sufficient, decline and move on. No gap year needed. Keep applying to other colleges.
“Sure. Whatever. But what is the EA process for, exactly?”
@Vulcan I was asking the same question this time three years ago when my own kid got deferred EA. The easy answer is that they continue to receive great matriculants from the EA pool even though they’ve introduced ED1 as an alternative. The not-so-easy answer is that they obviously have two distinct applicant segments in each of the early and regular pools. Those who are admitted EA tend to be price sensitive and wish to compare offers among various places. Many of them will receive merit in addition to any relevant need-based award. Note that “price sensitive” doesn’t necessarily correlate with “financial need;” some will opt to price-shop simply because they have a special talent or hook that makes them attractive to many colleges. On the other hand, those admitted ED1 tend to be non-price-sensitive; even those requiring financial aid have chosen UChicago based on factors other than price (No Barriers presumably takes care of the need-based portion of the equation). UChicago describes these two segments as those who think UChicago is a clear first choice (ED1) vs those who don’t necessarily rate the school as #1 (EA). Back in the olden days, ie Class of 2020 and prior, the early pool definitely consisted of both segments like it does today, but because they just offered EA they had no good way of allowing students to self-select into First-Choicers vs. Price Sensitives. They ended up offering merit to admits who would gladly have enrolled as full pay. This new system allows them to allocate scarce funds much better and use available money to build the kind of class they want.
@JBStillFlying, the question at hand is not who applies ED vs EA. The question is who gets admitted EA.
My answer to this question, based on experience of my son, who was admitted EA to Caltech and MIT but deferred by UChicago, that of his friends, as well as observation of limited statistics here on CC, is that EA at UChicago is not used to select the most qualified candidates, and strong unhooked candidates unwilling to apply through binding plans would be better off applying SCEA/REA elsewhere (or limiting EA to MIT/Caltech if those are their top choices, even though there’s no statistical benefit to EA in those two schools), and applying to UChicago RD.
UChicago is essentially misleading those candidates into thinking they have a chance applying EA, whereas they are in fact undermining their chances even in the consequent RD round by applying EA.
Very disingenuous.
(Feel free to correct me if there exists evidence on CC of strong unhooked candidates admitted EA.)
@TheVulcan are you really stating that the students who have posted here that they were accepted EA are not strong candidates, not the “most qualified”? Would you really want someone to go through the list of students who were admitted EA and pick out the ones they thought were qualified versus the ones that weren’t based on a few summary pieces of data?
This isn’t China or India. Admissions aren’t based on a single test or even a few data points.
Not only is there no way to know who is the best candidate based on the brief summary of information provided (none of us see the whole app, none of us see the essays, LORs, EC descriptions) but it’s simply rude and based off nothing more than your guess, which is fueled by anger and disappointment.
I’m sorry your son wasn’t admitted. It is disappointing to know a college doesn’t view your child the same way you do. But your posts are presenting as not just sour grapes against the college but as attacking the quality of the admitted students. Hopefully your son doesn’t share those views and is moving on to focus on the positives of his acceptances to alternate colleges.
@milee30, please do not be sorry for my son’s deferral. He could not be happier with his MIT and Caltech admissions. As I stated earlier we expected no other outcome at UChicago (which I indicated prior to decisions being released in post #177).
I am simply sharing my observation that an unhooked applicant seems to stand no snowball’s chance in hell in UChicago’s EA round, by design.
Those sharing their EA results here could do next year’s applicants a favor by sharing their stats and demographics.
(Not sure what prompted the “China or India” remark, but just for the record, we are neither)
@TheVulcan , I am not quite following the logic of your conclusion that EA at Chicago is misleading and disingenuous. You seem to think that this follows from the fact - or rather your speculation - that Chicago does not take the kind of kids you think it ought to take - unhooked kids with very high objective stats, impliedly of a STEM orientation. But if Chicago takes a significant number of EA applicants of any sort, then that pool is serving a purpose for both the school and the kids selected from it and would hardly justify the accusations you are making. Although we don’t know (to my knowledge anyhow) just how many are admitted EA, the figure must surely be in the hundreds. Someone on this board can perhaps make a reasonable speculation as to the numbers.
You are dismissive of the supposition that Chicago is looking for a certain type as opposed to simple high-stat applicants. However, the evidence of this may be right in front of your eyes. Your own child must have had an absolutely stellar set of credentials in order to gain acceptance to both Caltech and MIT. In a prior post you indicated that he considered both those schools to be better for him - or even objectively better - than Chicago in any event. It seems reasonable to suppose that the Chicago adcoms, who are not without experience in these matters, connected those dots when they considered his application. An EA app already tells them that the applicant is casting his net wider than Chicago. An app from a kid who is especially well qualified for one of the top STEM schools in the country, and is perhaps more narrowly focussed on those studies than Chicago prefers, is probably not hard for them to sniff out and to lead them to conclude that that kid is not going to come to Chicago and might not be so happy there if he did. That EA pile will, however, also contain apps from kids who, yes, want to cast their net wider than Chicago but who also show that they have a special interest in Chicago-style culture and undergraduate education. My speculation is that those are the kids selected at the EA level. Isn’t that a reasonable speculation and, more than that, a reasonable basis for selecting those applicants over others?
I suspect that you dismiss this because you simply don’t believe Chicago has any particular specialness or is seeking any particular type. If so, it is probably better for all concerned that your child will now exercise those very attractive options he has at another school, thereby opening the door to one other kid at Chicago cut more from Chicago cloth.
The China or India remark wasn’t directed at your son, unlike your remarks that the EA candidates you observe are not the most qualified, which are clearly directed at individuals. We have no idea what race or ethnicity your son is and it’s not relevant. The comment is an illustration that unlike countries that base college acceptance on a test or a few data points, top selective colleges in the US are looking for a more complete package, so are evaluating qualities that are not apparent when a person lists their bare stats.
Making a judgment like you do based on bare stats indicates you either don’t understand what the college is basing their decisions on or that you are being deliberately hurtful to the applicants who have posted here. I’m hoping it’s the former, so was describing the decision process.
An applicant can have perfect test scores and a perfect GPA and still not be an attractive candidate for a college like UChicago. A candidate can have a long list of ECs which might not show the college the attributes the college is looking for. Additionally, some candidates with excellent qualifications can tank their chances by showing arrogance or other undesirable qualities on their application. If you’re a genius but also an insufferable grind, the college is likely to say no thank you. There are so many intricacies to the process, it is impossible to make an educated guess without seeing the actual application.
Early Action brings in tons of apps, at all schools. Huge numbers that colleges can bring in with great marketing and then defer and reject to bring the admit rate down. As the top schools move away from EA to ED1/ED2, the remaining ones that offer EA plus ED/ED2 run up even more apps, which they gladly accept the app fee for, defer (maybe they will convert to ED2!) and reject.
My D’s good friend was deferred from UChicago. Average excellent student but not a brainy type that generally goes there (and over represented minority to boot). She should have been rejected vs some of the kids info I see her. But was deferred.
Yet your son still applied and you seem obsessed with analyzing the applicant data.
It’s normal to be disappointed when your child is disappointed. It’s understandable that some people react by throwing a few barbs at the evil college and the nefarious plot that prevented your child from receiving his rightful place. But when you move into denigrating the qualifications of the other applicants and insulting them by stating that those applicants were less qualified but admitted for other reasons, it’s time to stop. Hopefully you are not sharing these “observations” with your son, leading him to believe that he is better than the other kids but was somehow a victim here.
Spend less time throwing shade at the college and the kids who were admitted and a few minutes looking up the definition of sour grapes. Or how to be gracious. Either would be appropriate.
I was waiting for it and it duly arrived: the accusation that the sole rationale for EA is to gin up a college’s selectivity stats and even the superadded one that they also do this for the fees.
The former seems unlikely given that a significant number of kids want the flexibility of that option and a significant number do actually get accepted via that pool. Nobody makes anyone take that route. Those rejected via the ED route are also substantial though fewer percentage-wise, even though these applicants have the advantage of clearly demonstrated preference. Rejection hurts. That’s true no matter what your pool. Perhaps it hurts most of all those with some sense of entitlement.
As for the suggestion that colleges keep EA going partly to garner application fees from no-hopers, I wonder what a cost analysis would show. Is the cost associated with processing an application so much less than the fee it brings in as to make this a motivating factor, even assuming the absolute cynicism implied in such a strategy? Not likely.
Here is my two cents on the EA thing. The financial part has been argued well and seems to be a settled matter. Here is why one might make MIT/CIT EA, but not UChicago.
CIT/MIT have only EA, then RD. Thus it has to cast wider net in order to yield the # they want. Google it: CIT/MIT EA has 8% rate, CIT yield in the 40s and MIT in 70s( better than UChicago around 60s per historic data). Thus MIT admits 700+ EA, CIT 300+. Since UChicago has EDI which fills 40% class, they only pick the very very attractive (both hook wise and non hook wise). Thus the number of EA admits is lower than the 300-700 in MIT/CIT. so a very good candidate might make the bigger net at MIT/CIT, and unfortunately miss the smaller net at U Chicago. This is the how it should work given the way commitment is projected.
Also, institutions have their own priority and no one know exactly what it is at UChicago, MIT or CIT. So you might score high on one matrix and borderline on another one.
It’s standard practice for a lot of top candidates( top because of hooks or without)to apply for multiple EAs ( sometimes coupled with ED) to either shop around for money or see being wanted everywhere ( remember those who got admitted to all ivies). There are a lot of hooked candidates in MIT EA pool as well. Of course, there is risk associated with this.