<p>Did I miss what cogito is going to do? Dang! That’s what I get for taking S to get his wisdom teeth out!</p>
<p>Best of luck to you OP. Do the right thing and you won’t regret it.</p>
<p>OK, cog edited his post so what I wrote makes no sense. I don’t think we know what he’s decided to do …</p>
<p>OP, choices in life are not always clearcut. Often, you have to balance risk and reward. You also have to factor in your own conscience and the potential anxiety created by taking certain actions. The question isn’t just whether you should you take a risk, but can you bear the risk.</p>
<p>Those trying to hit you over the head with a moral cudgel are probably hypocrites; if not they are saints. Either way, we make our own decisions in life and we have to live with the consequences. Sometimes we can correct mistakes, but not usually without a cost, and often with considerable risk. I wish you well.</p>
<p>Sorry, I had intended to let this thread die as suggested. But I have to respond to the last post. I am not a saint, but I’m not particularly hypocritical either. I think cogitoergosum is in serious need of some moral guidance. I’ve lived long enough to make agreements I’ve later regretted, but I’ve honored them nonetheless. Lost some advantages, stayed happy.</p>
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<p>I’m offended by this post. Hypocrites?Saints?</p>
<p>Is it really Harvard?
Am guessing it is at least one of the top Ivies. But even if not (whether its Berkeley or Comm. College or whatever) the ED contract is till binding.
Am guessing there may be people who cheat the system and manage to get away with it, but somewhere, sometime, some other student (or students) get screwed as a result.</p>
<p>What QuantMech said. </p>
<p>And now, I’m going to try my best to leave this thread.</p>
<p>Saint? Hardly. I’ve done some things that I knew were wrong and still feel guilty about. </p>
<p>If the OP had regretted applying ED between October and December I believe it would still have been possible to change the ED application to a RD application, but that didn’t happen.</p>
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Translation: leave the apps in, and lie like hell when you get an acceptance. (Not sure why conscience is invoked here - doesn’t seem to have entered into the process to date).</p>
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Cool! And I’m not even Catholic!</p>
<p>Wait. Don’t you have to be dead to be canonized?</p>
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<p>That is true. However, I would maintain that this does not fall into that category. cogito applied ED, knowing that meant she couldn’t apply RD to other colleges while her ED app was being evaluated. That didn’t stop her from then applying RD to other colleges, however. And now, she thinks she might get an acceptance from one of them. (For the record, I don’t think it’s really Harvard; I think it more likely to be Princeton or another Ivy. Princeton doesn’t allow transfers, does it? Might be why she wasn’t open at all to the suggestion she transfer if she doesn’t like her LAC.)</p>
<p>She consciously chose to violate the letter and spirit of the ED. There have been several opportunities for her to fix the fix she’s in, as has been pointed out; she has not taken ANY of those opportunities. She could have withdrawn her ED app; she could have refrained from applying RD to other schools; she could have withdrawn her apps from other schools; she could call her LAC to try to get out of the ED admit; she could still pull her other apps.</p>
<p>It’s perfectly clear which choice was the honorable one. At each junction, she chose the dishonorable path.</p>
<p>For the record, I’m not a saint.</p>
<p>In case young, impressionable persons are looking at this thread, owlice’s post above contains an important inaccuracy:</p>
<p>No ED program of which I am aware forbids students to submit RD applications while an ED application is being evaluated. There is nothing wrong with submitting RD applications, or rolling-admissions applications, before getting an ED decision. Most (not all) ED programs even allow applicants to submit EA applications while their ED decisions are pending.</p>
<p>What the ED programs require is that, once admitted, a student withdraw all outstanding applications and decline all offers of admission otherwise received. </p>
<p>My impression is that this is somewhat honored in the breach for students who have requested financial aid and have not gotten a definitive award yet, or who have gotten an award that does not meet demonstrated need (and, I suspect, in practice those who are disappointed with their financial aid packages). I think it is generally believed that ED schools will often release students from their commitments in favor of a substantially cheaper option if the ED school’s offer will arguably impose a hardship on the family.</p>
<p>I have no idea about the school the OP was admitted to. But Barnard explicitly stated that my D could get out of the contract if the FA was not sufficient, and we asked the admissions administrator we talked to to put it in writing for the GC. She did.</p>
<p>Few schools want kids who don’t want them.</p>
<p>And gee, I also have sympathy for the OP. “Isn’t there any way?” is a frequent plaint.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why the adults here are so morally outraged.</p>
<p>BTW: I have read college counselors who counseled their own kids to apply to more than one school ED because they thought the system was so stacked in favor of the colleges. </p>
<p>Risky business I agree, but hardly a major moral flaw.</p>
<p>In our case we did follow “the rules” to the letter, and I would not allow a child of mine to apply ED with any doubts. But I wish we could find a way out for the OP. I am not puritanical enough to rejoice that a young kid can’t get what s/he wants. To me, it’s a shame, ED or no ED.</p>
<p>JHS, thanks for the correction! It’s an important point; glad you made it.</p>
<p>mythmom, I have some sympathy for the OP, too; I have more for the other students who have been/may be affected by her actions, however. And there is a way out for the OP: she can contact the LAC to tell them she wants out of the ED. Of course, that means she takes her chances with RD, like millions of other students. Nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>OWLICE,
You are right…there IS a way out for the OP…she could get out of her ED commitment (as bad as that is to do since it was meant to be binding) NOW and then let the chips fall where they do in the RD round at her other schools. BUT she wants her cake and eat it too …she wants to keep her ED option and see what other options she is handed in RD schools which apps should no longer be active. Well, all kids would love that situation. Measures must be in place to stop that unfairness and that is why the more selective schools do pass around a list of ED admitted students. And while we can debate the morals and all that, what also is present here is that this person’s actions affects OTHERS, not just herself. She took an ED spot that someone else could have had. She also has an unfair advantage to have an early admit school but have active applications out.</p>
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<p>But Soozie, my understanding is that a kid can only get out of an ED commitment in very particular circumstances – extreme financial hardship is usually the one I hear. And if a student is allowed out of the ED contract because the necessary financial aid hasn’t been offered and the family simply can’t afford it, he or she is typically limited to attending a local college or an in-state public. Is my understanding incorrect? Certainly, if the OP’s ED school were to release him from the ED contract, it would not give him free reign to matriculate at, say, one of the Ivies. Would it? If that were the case, the entire ED system would be undermined.</p>
<p>wjb…I basically agree with all that you wrote. But I was in a worst case scenario going with owlice for a moment that if the student backed out now, she’d have lost the ED school. Truthfully the only reasons to be let out of an ED school is for financial hardship or other things like illness or change in some sort of circumstance, and not a change of heart. But some were talking about a college not insisting you come if you absolutely do not want to attend. While I think backing out in that case is not truly ethical, it probably happens…BUT not like the OP wants AFTER she has apps in at other places and gets conceivably admitted to other places. In other words, it is one thing to back out in January before hearing from other schools. That’s bad, it’s true. But it is not as bad as holding onto the ED school until hearing where else you got in when you should not have any other active apps out there. Now, THAT is gaming the system and that is why (besides morals and ethics) people are disgusted here because it is plainly UNFAIR to others. It does affect others. Thus, if a school like Harvard finds out a student has done this, they will either not accept them or rescind the offer. </p>
<p>Also as others have pointed out, the ED school will tend to blacklist kids from the OP’s high school in the future due to breaking of the contract and gaming the system and that is unfair to those students. </p>
<p>To the OP…it seems as if you may be keeping these applications in which you have already been told what is wrong with that and the possible and real consequences that may befall you. I hope you have understood. In any case, I want to point out that it would be very easy for these schools to find out. For one thing ,your own school or friends know that you have been admitted ED to a certain college. If they hear you are enrolling at another college that you got in RD, do you think everyone is gonna stay mum about this and nobody is going to call the affected schools? You are running huge risks here and naively so.</p>
<p>Soozie puts it very plainly and soundly. Cogito has made it pretty clear that she’s holding onto that ED LAC until after she hears from the other schools. It is gaming; there’s no other way to look at it. And it did give her an advantage over other students.</p>
<p>Whatever, the actions of one student aren’t going to change too much, as disheartening as they are to me. What is more disheartening, though, and ultimately much more damaging, is the voices of people I respect defending, or dismissing as inconsequential, this “mistake”. Which is why I should really stop reading this thread.</p>
<p>Garland, I also find that disillusioning. I fear that there are families out there who actually are in on this game and that some of these kids are not acting alone. In fact, I have heard stories from others of such antics.</p>
<p>Unhappy post deleted. I’m going to renew my pledge to stay offa this thread!</p>