UNC, Duke, or Northwestern

annasdad
Sun, 15 Jul 2012 12:43:10 +0000

Alexandre:

Should Northwestern not match the financial packages offered by other schools, the OP can turn them down on those grounds.



That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the ED process. Applying ED means the applicant is committing to that school, if accepted and if the financial package is within the applicant’s means. It does not mean that applicant can wait and compare it with other financial awards that may be better. And while there is surely some wiggle room around that, advising a student to apply ED with the intention of using that wiggle room to compare financial aid offers is advising the student to do something that is unethical.