<p>^^how can this line of discussion (above 2 posts) help this poster in any way?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if it’s Harvard, if it’s Princeton, or anyplace else. The situation would be the same.</p>
<p>I DO feel sorry for the OP in that he/she is a young person who obviously could have used a lot more guidance in many ways. My advice would be to make the best of it. You wouldn’t have applied ED to a school you thought you’d be unhappy at, would you?</p>
<p>“how can this line of discussion (above 2 posts) help this poster in any way”</p>
<p>You don’t believe it’s helpful to explain ‘nothing’ posted on the Internet is truly anonymous, unless one is using a proxy server? I’d argue better to inform cog of the facts before he/she naively wanders around cyberspace.</p>
<p>Some people don’t realize that, if they post/email from home (or work), the computer they use is generally easily traceable. The OP is talking about being “careful,” and may assume that she cannot be traced.</p>
<p>cogito, This is simpler than you think. You haven’t really explained convincingly if there were reasonable grounds that you did not follow up on your ethical obligation to withdraw other apps once you were accepted at the LAC. If there were, most schools will be more than sympathetic–let the LAC know.</p>
<p>If you have no explanation other than you wanted to see how other apps played out, or if your explanation rings false, you are gaming the system. If this is the case, the likelihood is high that the LAC will contact either your HS or get in touch with other cross-admit institutions, and that eventually you will be denied admission all around. The type of schools that you’re presumably applying to have many qualified applicants for every seat in the freshman class. The don’t need another 2300-SAT student if that kid has low ethical standards.</p>
<p>It’s not as though she had these applications in already, signed the ED agreement, and then didn’t withdraw the apps. She applied to these other schools after she signed the ED agreement.</p>
<p>And apparently sees nothing wrong with having done so!</p>
<p>MarathonMan88…Does this contradict some others’ advice to call the LAC to get unplugged from there, and it won’t be a problem?</p>
<p>If so, it might be better if OP could figure out why the LAC isn’t delighting her/him. The LAC really wanted you and at some point you really wanted them. </p>
<p>If you could possibly regain your appreciation of that LAC that admitted you ED, your problems are immediately solved, as long as you withdraw the other RD apps floating around right now. Otherwise, others are telling you you’re taking quite a risk to negate your contract unilaterally as you are considering doing.</p>
<p>I’m not going to lecture you about right and wrong; enough said by others. </p>
<p>I sometimes advise my kids this way: figure out for each decision, what’s the worst thing that could happen, and then could you live with it? It seems to me the “worst” thing about going to your LAC is you might not like it much and presumably with good grades could transfer elsewhere as a sophomore. The “worst” thing about letting your applications continue elsewhere without release from the LAC from the ED contract is you might lose all opportunities next year to attend college; you’ll never be welcome to reapply to any schools from this year; area peers might be upset with you; the GC amends her recs for future years… which path sounds like you couldn’t live with it? Or as you said, which pathway “blows” your future more?</p>
<p>I don’t think it is necessary to actually withdraw applications. I think not accepting them would be enough. It’s easy to say it’s an over sight to not withdraw the application.</p>
<p>However, wouldn’t it be more painful to discover you had been accepted to Harvard or whatever the dream school is and now you can’t go because of your ED application?</p>
<p>Withdrawing the applications just makes things emotionally easier and clearer. Then the what ifs are actually less, not more, and the situation can all be resolved by Monday morning.</p>
<p>ED is a contract that can only be dissolved for important reasons, financial the health of someone or something like that. If you are having second thoughts you should negotiate with the LAC before the RD decisions come in and take those consequences. </p>
<p>I don’t think a school really wants a student who really doesn’t want to be there.</p>
<p>
Then perhaps Harvard doesn’t deserve the respect it gets, eh?</p>
<p>I find your position on the matter pretty narcissistic, to be honest. I’m a high school senior and I would never back out of a commitment like that (unless it was due to a health issue, etc.). But perhaps my parents simply instilled deeper values in me than you have done with your D. It was her choice, she knew what it entailed, and chose to apply anyway. Let her live with the consequences-she can always transfer after a year if she really doesn’t like it. You need to remember that someone else’s ED spot was riding on her application. Someone who, because they applied ED, obviously chose that institution as their first-choice school. She took someone’s spot. Let her represent it with integrity rather than arrogance.</p>
<p>“It’s not as though she had these applications in already, signed the ED agreement, and then didn’t withdraw the apps. She applied to these other schools after she signed the ED agreement.”</p>
<p>If whatever top college may admit the student finds out the student did that and then backed out of ED for no good reason, that college still may rescind their acceptance. Top colleges aren’t interested in accepting students who lack ethics. The top colleges have an overabundance of excellent applicants, and don’t need to select a student with a history of trying to game systems.</p>
<p>And the world of college admissions is very small especially when it comes to top colleges and back-ups to top colleges.</p>
<p>For instance, I’m on vacation now in a remote place thousands of miles from home, and managed to meet a man who teaches in the same department as a friend of mine who teaches at a top 20 LAC. The same man attended college and grad school at Ivies with a former co-worker of mine who taught with me at a second tier public. He also knows a college friend of mine who did not attend college with him nor work with him, but did attend an Ivy with me.</p>
<p>To refine an earlier comment of mine, there are obviously a few cases where breaking the ED agreement is actually right. For example, in the situation mentioned by zoosersmom (automobile accident causing the student to want to remain near home), clearly it was best for everyone, for the college to release the student, and I wish her the best in the future!</p>
<p>But the circumstances where it’s right are generally dire. They do not involve recent accomplishments that make it possible to be admitted to a “better” university. Over the years, there have been occasional mentions on this board of students released from ED agreements for financial reasons, but in those few cases it’s always been a release to attend a public university.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine a school would hold a student to an ED contract knowing that they now have such angst and remorse. Surely emotional distress would be acknowledged. Who wants to force someone to attend someplace they don’t want to be??? Granted I don’t know much about ED but what would happen to a student who just says I’m not coming? Period. I find it hard to believe a school has the time or resources to allocate to start an investigation. So what exactly does the HS GC do in ED? Do they really mark transcripts? I know very little about this stuff! Glad D1 didn’t do any ED schools!</p>
<p>Despite Cog’s pleas for sympathy, the student I’m more concerned about is the one whose ED spot at the LAC Cog took. I’m also concerned about the other students in Cog’s region or with Cog’s skills/ECs who were rejected because when “crafting the class” they thought they already had “one of those.”</p>
<p>I think that it is necessary to actually withdraw applications immediately. Leaving aside the fact that an ED contract requires it, there is the matter of negatively affecting the applications of other students. </p>
<p>And I wonder when Cog started cheating and lying. I wouldn’t be surprised if his or her academic credentials are littered with fakery. I’m sure that s/he has been presented with situations in the past where unethical actions would result in Cog getting something s/he wanted. This smacks of a pattern of behavior to me. After all, Cog’s question wasn’t “Is this right?” but “Can I get away with it?”</p>
<p>By the way, in the wake of the negative publicity surrounding their acceptance of the Ivywise plagiarist, Harvard may be inclined to be a little more severe about this sort of thing than in the past.</p>
<p>I agree with Consolation including about implications about Cog’s character. Cog’s questions and posts seem to reflect the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of time gaming systems.</p>
<p>"I can’t imagine a school would hold a student to an ED contract knowing that they now have such angst and remorse. "</p>
<p>This is probably true. At the same time, other colleges don’t students who enter into contracts then break them for no good reason. If the ED college lets the OP out of ED because the OP feels remorse or got into a better college, top colleges still wouldn’t be interested in such a student.</p>
<p>I would like to put in a strong vote to let this thread die.</p>
<p>Thinking about it last night, I was very uncomfortable. Here on the Parents Forum, we tend to assume that kids have lots of adult advisors and guidance. I don’t get the feeling that’s the case with cogito. If she had such advisors, I don’t think this thread would exist, and we certainly wouldn’t have gotten to see her “raw” thought process – the kind of thing you say to your mother, who lets you vent and then helps you shape that thought into something more socially acceptable.</p>
<p>I’m certain cogito has gotten the message that her line of thinking does not attract support or approval in the adult world. She may or may not care about that.</p>
<p>But I’m also pretty certain that she did NOT think through the implications of starting this thread and being so honest on it. Whatever steps she took to disguise or protect her identity will vanish instantly – for everyone who matters – within minutes of her taking any action along the lines she discussed. Apart from being embarrassing to her, the mere existence of this thread has probably made her position a lot more precarious.</p>
<p>The most responsible thing we can do is to let this go away and never come back.</p>
<p>" I was very uncomfortable. Here on the Parents Forum, we tend to assume that kids have lots of adult advisors and guidance. I don’t get the feeling that’s the case with cogito. If she had such advisors, I don’t think this thread would exist, "</p>
<p>Maybe cogito doesn’t want her/his adult advisors to know about her/his lack of ethics.</p>
<p>Maybe cogito has adult advisors who lack ethics themselves.</p>
<p>Whatever happened, if cogito is smart enough to have a chance of being admitted to a top college, s/he is smart enough to have read and understood the rules of ED that s/he had to sign and agree to.</p>
<p>And if this thread leads to the OP’s having an admission rescinded, the reason will be the OP’s actions in breaking ED’s rules. The OP – not us – is responsible for those actions.</p>
<p>I hope that if the OP does attempt to break the rules of ED, s/he is held responsible for that behavior. After all, by applying ED and then planning to back out for no good reason, the OP probably also hurt someone else’s chances of admission at the college that accepted the OP ED.</p>
<p>This all sounds like a lot of fretting over a choice the OP does not yet have. 27,000 kids applied to Harvard this year and 25,000 of them are going to get rejected. Unless he already has a likely letter or phone call, chances are he won’t have to worry about whether to go to Harvard.</p>
<p>All of the above posts have left me depressed and unsure.If Harvard considers ED commitments seriously,I guess I have no other option except following your advices.</p>
<p>cogitoergosum - Bravo to you. You are choosing to do the right thing, and will have peace of mind which is priceless. Best of luck.</p>