Early decision seems like a scam

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What ED takes away from students is information.

Information about what other schools might accept them, and at what price.

Information about how they personally might change between October and May. Information about how colleges and the world might change between October and May.

Thus ED deprives students of the opportunity to make an informed decision.

AND THE STUDENTS ACCEPT THIS WHEN THEY DECIDE TO APPLY ED. NOBODY IS FORCING THEM.

These 'arguments' against it make zero sense or are deliberately obtuse.

OP said ED feels like a scam. I’m not “arguing against ED,” I’m explaining why ED feels like a scam. It is characteristic of scams that they are (a) optional but (b) effectively pressure people to make decisions with incomplete information (c) in order to obtain a perceived benefit.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers.

And for kids who know exactly what they want.

+1
Every school should have ED so there is no doubt about who will actually enroll if accepted. This would save SO MUCH time and effort on both the students' and the colleges' part.

Except it makes it impossible to comparison shop based on merit aid. If it were up to me colleges wouldn’t be able to have binding ED and maintain their nonprofit status. I say this as someone who can afford the full cost of a private university for my kids so they’ll likely benefit from ED.

But nobody is entitled to merit aid. ED matches and the resulting probable guaranteed tuition revenue allows the schools to offer more merit etc later. I think those who are put off by ED are people who try to use ED to game the system themselves like EDing at a high reach or to allay self-imposed anxiety by having a sure thing in the fall rather than a range of choices in the spring. That was not the purpose of ED.

Maybe I just have a different perspective because it worked out well for my dc. He EDed to basically a target school and it was his first choice by far and we could pay. Boom done.

And? How is that relevant?

The point is that candidates who may otherwise be admitted cannot try because ED'ing means taking the risk of committing to a school they can't afford.

No one is entitled to admission, either.

NPCs are accurate and you can back out if the offer is less than suggested by the NPC. Nobody should be surprised by the cost when applying ED.

NCs are not always accurate and in any case, you can't back out because you didn't get the merit aid you need in order to attend.

Yes you can.

No, you can't. If you don't get the expected FA, then yes, you can't back out.* But if you don't apply for FA but need merit aid, and don't get it? You are stuck.

I see, well then don't apply.

That's right.

Affirmative action for the rich.

*should say, "If you don't get the expected FA, then yes, you can back out.

The school is going to accept a certain number of full pay students no matter when they apply. Their budgets rely on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What ED takes away from students is information.

Information about what other schools might accept them, and at what price.

Information about how they personally might change between October and May. Information about how colleges and the world might change between October and May.

Thus ED deprives students of the opportunity to make an informed decision.

AND THE STUDENTS ACCEPT THIS WHEN THEY DECIDE TO APPLY ED. NOBODY IS FORCING THEM.

These 'arguments' against it make zero sense or are deliberately obtuse.

OP said ED feels like a scam. I’m not “arguing against ED,” I’m explaining why ED feels like a scam. It is characteristic of scams that they are (a) optional but (b) effectively pressure people to make decisions with incomplete information (c) in order to obtain a perceived benefit.

IME the 'pressure' is coming from peers or counselors or parents or the student's anxiety, not the universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What ED takes away from students is information.

Information about what other schools might accept them, and at what price.

Information about how they personally might change between October and May. Information about how colleges and the world might change between October and May.

Thus ED deprives students of the opportunity to make an informed decision.

Those same changes may happen between May and August. At some point the kid has to make a choice and can only go to one college. Plenty of kids are ready to make that decision in October.

[Anonymous]

Not a scam at all. My child is not applying ED. We weighed the choices, and decided we want to keep options open and select a school with price tag in mind.

See how that works? The power is in the hands of the consumer. We have a plethora of choices. We weigh decisions with readily available information in hand.

It’s really the opposite of a scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a scam at all. My child is not applying ED. We weighed the choices, and decided we want to keep options open and select a school with price tag in mind.

See how that works? The power is in the hands of the consumer. We have a plethora of choices. We weigh decisions with readily available information in hand.

It’s really the opposite of a scam.

All in the hands of the consumer.
Sounds so familiar...

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:ED's main benefit is to colleges. It takes choices away from students.

It's mutually beneficial. Students get a leg up by applying ED, sometimes a significant one. It's up to them and their parents to weigh the pros and cons. Also, it is not difficult to get out of ED for financial reasons.

No much of “leg up” at top schools. One has to move down the chain to get some ED advantage.

ED has a distinct advantage at:

Northwestern
Brown
JHU
UChicago
Columbia
Dartmouth
Michigan
Rice
Vanderbilt
Emory
WashU
UVA

And for some SLACs, like Middlebury and Colby.

We really don’t know about Colby because they haven’t released a CDS in years. For Middlebury there used to be a slight advantage but it has been narrowing. For many of the schools mentioned the perceived advantage probably doesn’t exist and can be explained by differences in the quality of the applicant pools for ED vs RD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED's main benefit is to colleges. It takes choices away from students.

It's mutually beneficial. Students get a leg up by applying ED, sometimes a significant one. It's up to them and their parents to weigh the pros and cons. Also, it is not difficult to get out of ED for financial reasons.

No much of “leg up” at top schools. One has to move down the chain to get some ED advantage.

ED has a distinct advantage at:

Northwestern
Brown
JHU
UChicago
Columbia
Dartmouth
Michigan
Rice
Vanderbilt
Emory
WashU
UVA

And for some SLACs, like Middlebury and Colby.

We really don’t know about Colby because they haven’t released a CDS in years. For Middlebury there used to be a slight advantage but it has been narrowing. For many of the schools mentioned the perceived advantage probably doesn’t exist and can be explained by differences in the quality of the applicant pools for ED vs RD.

Gmab. Those two are notorious for admitting a very large percentage of the class ED. 70% of Middlebury's freshman class was admitted ED two years ago. Colby won't publish those stats because they are embarrassingly high. But they are far from the only ones that admit 50%+ of their classes ED.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/1ggxd55/schools_with_the_biggest_and_smallest_relative_ed/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a scam at all. My child is not applying ED. We weighed the choices, and decided we want to keep options open and select a school with price tag in mind.

See how that works? The power is in the hands of the consumer. We have a plethora of choices. We weigh decisions with readily available information in hand.

It’s really the opposite of a scam.

All in the hands of the consumer.
Sounds so familiar...

Yep! Your choices are unlimited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From the data at our NJ HS, it seems that ED at top SLACs doesn’t give a better chance to those with less than perfect stats, but it does give better odds to those with perfect stats, i.e, kids with 4.5+ and 1520+ get in at a higher rate in ED than in RD). It is meaningful to these schools (Williams, Swat, Amherst, Bowdoin) when a top student at our school chooses to apply to a SLAC rather than an Ivy.

At the SLACs in the Midwest (Carleton and Grinell) and the slightly less selective East Coast SLACs (Haverford, Colby, Wesleyan, etc.) ED is a huge boost for our school.

💯

[Anonymous]

We didn’t ED or REA with my firstborn -2024 HS grad. He got into multiple T10/20s RD unhooked, off some WLs early May. It was such a looooonnnnnggggg drawn out process. It was a roller coaster and all of Senior year.

My 2028 is doing ED. I pray it works out because I have PTSD from that process 2 years ago. lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We didn’t ED or REA with my firstborn -2024 HS grad. He got into multiple T10/20s RD unhooked, off some WLs early May. It was such a looooonnnnnggggg drawn out process. It was a roller coaster and all of Senior year.

My 2028 is doing ED. I pray it works out because I have PTSD from that process 2 years ago. lol

+1 To be done with this sh@t before the holidays would be a dream come true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We didn’t ED or REA with my firstborn -2024 HS grad. He got into multiple T10/20s RD unhooked, off some WLs early May. It was such a looooonnnnnggggg drawn out process. It was a roller coaster and all of Senior year.

My 2028 is doing ED. I pray it works out because I have PTSD from that process 2 years ago. lol

+1 To be done with this sh@t before the holidays would be a dream come true.

From experience, it is. We were so happy come mid-December.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's literally a scam in an anti-trust way:

https://www.highereddive.com/news/32-colleges-accused-of-using-early-decision-to-drive-up-costs/757337/

It's affirmative action for the rich. Students who have to compare aid packages or have parents who didn't go to college (and know about ED) are at a big disadvantage for ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What ED takes away from students is information.

Information about what other schools might accept them, and at what price.

Information about how they personally might change between October and May. Information about how colleges and the world might change between October and May.

Thus ED deprives students of the opportunity to make an informed decision.

AND THE STUDENTS ACCEPT THIS WHEN THEY DECIDE TO APPLY ED. NOBODY IS FORCING THEM.

These 'arguments' against it make zero sense or are deliberately obtuse.

OP said ED feels like a scam. I’m not “arguing against ED,” I’m explaining why ED feels like a scam. It is characteristic of scams that they are (a) optional but (b) effectively pressure people to make decisions with incomplete information (c) in order to obtain a perceived benefit.

It's not a "perceived benefit," it is an actual benefit. Also, if the ED school is the one you actually want to attend -- and that is the only reason anyone should apply ED -- then it isn't "incomplete information" either.

I have one who did not apply ED anywhere because no school was his clear favorite, and he had many options to choose from with merit. I have one who had a clear first choice, applied ED, got in with merit. Both are happy and thriving where they are.