Is Early Decision Just Volunteering to Give Away All the Cash You Have?

[Anonymous]

All this bitterness and anti-ED is just jealousy. If you can’t pay the NPC, you can’t pay the NPC. Your DC has no right to go to a college YOU CAN’T PAY FOR!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, ED is an admission boost for kids from families who will pay the full amount. It is AA for white kids, or those with $$.

Been saying this for years, and why so many people falsely assume certain TT private high schools are so great with ex missions. Yes, the kids are smart (and prepped) but most of them will also have the $$ ED admission boost, it’s not just the school

ED is an option for EVERYONE! Run the NPC. If you are WILLING to pay that number, then you can apply ED. If not, then ED is not for you.

The fact people cannot understand this is astounding. A T25 is typically not giving your kid merit. It's FA or nothing. NPC will tell you how much. And if you are "donut hole" then you made the choice to not save, so focus your energies on finding the best school you can afford for your kid. Because Brown/Harvard/ETc is not giving you merit in RD either.

Did you even read your own post? Not everyone is willing to pay 80K/year, even if the NPC has decided the family can afford it. Maybe that family wants to blow their money on expensive cars, maybe they're older parents who didn't save enough for their own retirement or are supporting elderly parents of their own. Ergo, ED is not an option for EVERYONE! (even if you add in all CAPS to try to make it so).

No, it actually an option for everyone. You are just making the Choice not to pay what the NPC states you owe. Yes, we all make choices in life. You are entitled to make whatever financial choices are best for your family. But fact remains that you could choose to do ED if you are willing to pay what the NPC states. If you are not, then don't do it. You can choose how to spend your money. However, note, at T25 schools (where ED matters), the NPC isn't changing for RD/EA. So you unfortunately still wont be able to afford the school even if you get in during RD.

So the difference is you want to have all the options of exploring merit and still the perks of committing early. That's not how ED works. ED means you are willing to commit to a school. It benefits both the student and the school. If however, you are stating "I might be willing to pay $90K for school X, but only if they don't get into a decent school with good merit" then you are not willing to do ED. That is a choice. And if you truly cannot afford the $90K, well then nothing is changing in RD/EA, so why the hell are you annoyed you cannot ED to a school your kid could never afford to attend?

How is it possible that a person can understand all this, and still not understand that ED is an advantage for the wealthy?

How can you acknowledge that there are some schools some kids “could never afford to attend,” and not recognize that this means that many of the kids who do attend bought their way into a shallower admissions pool?

And just for the record, many T25 schools (including Duke, Hopkins, Notre Dame, UVA, and UNC) have merit-based full rides. This idea that every T25 charges every student the full NPC price is far from the truth.

How can you not understand that even if your kid was admitted (via ED/RD/EA), the NPC would still be the exact same result. Those schools don't give merit. So if you cannot afford to pay $90K and commit in Dec, nothing changes in April. Those schools are not giving you merit.

Duke, hopkins etc may have a few merit based scholarships, but not many at all (I don't consider 15-25 for a class of 1800+ to be merit really---odds are your kid is not earning that). Fact remains admission even in ED is still very slim to none. And getting one of the "merit scholarships" is even less likely.

Also, for most T25, ED only gives a slight advantage once you take away the athletic/specialized admits and legacy admits. At Duke, it's estimated that 40%+ of the ED admits are Athletics/legacy admits. Those kids were gaining admission no matter what. Another 15% of the ED are Questbridge kids (lower income/top students/highly qualified). So the "advantages of ED" as not nearly as high as you seem to think they are. So 55%+ of the ED slots are easily going to someone that is not a donut hole family. Once you run the numbers, the advantages of ED are only slight versus RD/EA.

But yes, ED at any school might give your kid a slight advantage. As it should! you are committing to that school (Be it Duke or something ranked 50 or 100+), signaling that they have a guaranteed yield spot with you. Colleges are a business. They want X students to enroll as freshman each fall. Not X-Y or X+Z, but X. Either of the other causes major issues (from financial to overcrowding in classes and dorms, etc). ED allows them to ensure they hit the X number as close as possible.

Nobody is guaranteed admission to any college. Or to have merit at any college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All this bitterness and anti-ED is just jealousy. If you can’t pay the NPC, you can’t pay the NPC. Your DC has no right to go to a college YOU CAN’T PAY FOR!

And 99.9% of the time, if you cannot pay the NPC for ED, nothing will change for RD/EA. The Top 25 schools simply do not offer much merit at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All this bitterness and anti-ED is just jealousy. If you can’t pay the NPC, you can’t pay the NPC. Your DC has no right to go to a college YOU CAN’T PAY FOR!

I wonder if these people complain that "it's not fair, why do you get to drive a $75K BMW and I'm stuck in my Honda. You gotta give me a BMW for the price of a Honda"

fact is many things in life are not "fair". But I think the life of a "donut hole" kid is much better than 75-80% of the kids out there. They grew up with parents who were around, who care about them getting an education, who were able to provide guidance and assistance if the kid struggled, they likely graduated college so know how to prepare the kid for college. Much better life than a kid who grew up poor, has no clue what college means or provides, whose family has never been to college so doesn't understand why or how to get there, who cannot afford any tutors or assistance if the kid struggles, etc. The donut hole families are literally complaingning about 30-40 top universities with single digit acceptance rates and are begrudging the fact they cannot afford to pay for them. Their kid has likely had many advantages in life and is well prepared to excel at any school they attend.

I do agree, if I don't have the funds saved for $90K/year, I'd search for merit, rather than complaining I cannot afford a few schools (that I'm not likely to gain admission to anyhow).
Recognize that as a donut hole family, you have so many more privileges than most kids in this country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this bitterness and anti-ED is just jealousy. If you can’t pay the NPC, you can’t pay the NPC. Your DC has no right to go to a college YOU CAN’T PAY FOR!

I wonder if these people complain that "it's not fair, why do you get to drive a $75K BMW and I'm stuck in my Honda. You gotta give me a BMW for the price of a Honda"

fact is many things in life are not "fair". But I think the life of a "donut hole" kid is much better than 75-80% of the kids out there. They grew up with parents who were around, who care about them getting an education, who were able to provide guidance and assistance if the kid struggled, they likely graduated college so know how to prepare the kid for college. Much better life than a kid who grew up poor, has no clue what college means or provides, whose family has never been to college so doesn't understand why or how to get there, who cannot afford any tutors or assistance if the kid struggles, etc. The donut hole families are literally complaingning about 30-40 top universities with single digit acceptance rates and are begrudging the fact they cannot afford to pay for them. Their kid has likely had many advantages in life and is well prepared to excel at any school they attend.

I do agree, if I don't have the funds saved for $90K/year, I'd search for merit, rather than complaining I cannot afford a few schools (that I'm not likely to gain admission to anyhow).
Recognize that as a donut hole family, you have so many more privileges than most kids in this country.

It’s not about the kids who are full-pay (barely). It’s about kids from families who make less than that, and will qualify for some financial aid, but who make too much to qualify for a need-based full-ride. These kids, if they are strong enough students to get into T40s, can almost certainly get a lower net price somewhere pretty good by chasing merit and/or renegotiating financial aid packages. And most of them would be ashamed to ask their parents for money for school if they can get a full ride anywhere, a position you lot seem to regard as a moral failing. This is the class of kids who are excluded from elite schools by ED.

Posters on here who act like the whole world is either full-pay or so poor they will get a need-based full ride are erasing all these people who fall in between. And it seems to me that American elites being systematically blind to the circumstances faced by the middle class is a genuine issue in our society right now. And I can’t help wondering if the systematic exclusion of all the in-between people from your favorite schools has contributed to the creation of this blind spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this bitterness and anti-ED is just jealousy. If you can’t pay the NPC, you can’t pay the NPC. Your DC has no right to go to a college YOU CAN’T PAY FOR!

I wonder if these people complain that "it's not fair, why do you get to drive a $75K BMW and I'm stuck in my Honda. You gotta give me a BMW for the price of a Honda"

fact is many things in life are not "fair". But I think the life of a "donut hole" kid is much better than 75-80% of the kids out there. They grew up with parents who were around, who care about them getting an education, who were able to provide guidance and assistance if the kid struggled, they likely graduated college so know how to prepare the kid for college. Much better life than a kid who grew up poor, has no clue what college means or provides, whose family has never been to college so doesn't understand why or how to get there, who cannot afford any tutors or assistance if the kid struggles, etc. The donut hole families are literally complaingning about 30-40 top universities with single digit acceptance rates and are begrudging the fact they cannot afford to pay for them. Their kid has likely had many advantages in life and is well prepared to excel at any school they attend.

I do agree, if I don't have the funds saved for $90K/year, I'd search for merit, rather than complaining I cannot afford a few schools (that I'm not likely to gain admission to anyhow).
Recognize that as a donut hole family, you have so many more privileges than most kids in this country.

It’s not about the kids who are full-pay (barely). It’s about kids from families who make less than that, and will qualify for some financial aid, but who make too much to qualify for a need-based full-ride. These kids, if they are strong enough students to get into T40s, can almost certainly get a lower net price somewhere pretty good by chasing merit and/or renegotiating financial aid packages. And most of them would be ashamed to ask their parents for money for school if they can get a full ride anywhere, a position you lot seem to regard as a moral failing. This is the class of kids who are excluded from elite schools by ED.

Posters on here who act like the whole world is either full-pay or so poor they will get a need-based full ride are erasing all these people who fall in between. And it seems to me that American elites being systematically blind to the circumstances faced by the middle class is a genuine issue in our society right now. And I can’t help wondering if the systematic exclusion of all the in-between people from your favorite schools has contributed to the creation of this blind spot.

So just like 85%+ kids, they need to wait to see which college has the best financial offer. Most kids do just that, and skip ED. But stop complaining about "not being able to do ED". That is a choice. Outside of the Top 25-30 schools, there is a ton of merit. And if you need to wait to see who offers the most merit, so be it. So do many kids. Sure others don't have to wait, because their parents saved or are willing to accept the NPC at their top choice and let them ED there.
That is life. Most outside the top 25 your kid will still get admitted in EA/RD and they can compare their Merit offers and choose.
It's literally only 25-30 schools that give a ED advantage. And even then it's not as big as you think. Take Duke (and others are similar). ~40% of ED acceptances are legacy/athletes, another 15% are Questbridge students. So that leaves 45% of the ED slots for "everyone else"It's not as big of advantage over RD as you are making it out to be. It's still damn hard to get admitted to Duke (or any other T25) in ED or RD.

But if you truly want the advantages, then make yourself poor/questbridge eligible for the last 10+ years and truly live in poverty. maybe then your kid will get a free ride to duke or Harvard on FA. But I'm guessing you don't want it that much to make those sacrifices to be that poor for that long

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this bitterness and anti-ED is just jealousy. If you can’t pay the NPC, you can’t pay the NPC. Your DC has no right to go to a college YOU CAN’T PAY FOR!

I wonder if these people complain that "it's not fair, why do you get to drive a $75K BMW and I'm stuck in my Honda. You gotta give me a BMW for the price of a Honda"

fact is many things in life are not "fair". But I think the life of a "donut hole" kid is much better than 75-80% of the kids out there. They grew up with parents who were around, who care about them getting an education, who were able to provide guidance and assistance if the kid struggled, they likely graduated college so know how to prepare the kid for college. Much better life than a kid who grew up poor, has no clue what college means or provides, whose family has never been to college so doesn't understand why or how to get there, who cannot afford any tutors or assistance if the kid struggles, etc. The donut hole families are literally complaingning about 30-40 top universities with single digit acceptance rates and are begrudging the fact they cannot afford to pay for them. Their kid has likely had many advantages in life and is well prepared to excel at any school they attend.

I do agree, if I don't have the funds saved for $90K/year, I'd search for merit, rather than complaining I cannot afford a few schools (that I'm not likely to gain admission to anyhow).
Recognize that as a donut hole family, you have so many more privileges than most kids in this country.

It’s not about the kids who are full-pay (barely). It’s about kids from families who make less than that, and will qualify for some financial aid, but who make too much to qualify for a need-based full-ride. These kids, if they are strong enough students to get into T40s, can almost certainly get a lower net price somewhere pretty good by chasing merit and/or renegotiating financial aid packages. And most of them would be ashamed to ask their parents for money for school if they can get a full ride anywhere, a position you lot seem to regard as a moral failing. This is the class of kids who are excluded from elite schools by ED.

Posters on here who act like the whole world is either full-pay or so poor they will get a need-based full ride are erasing all these people who fall in between. And it seems to me that American elites being systematically blind to the circumstances faced by the middle class is a genuine issue in our society right now. And I can’t help wondering if the systematic exclusion of all the in-between people from your favorite schools has contributed to the creation of this blind spot.

You literally state those kids will get good merit at "somewhere pretty good". And those schools are outside the T25 and do not give much advantages to ED. So use that if you need to. I get it, school is expensive. I grew up LMC/poor and picked where to attend college based on who gave me the most money. ED would never have been a thing for me (I'm too old for it to have been anyways). I literally picked a much lower ranked school to attend, because they gave me a full scholarship and turned down what is now a T15 school. I'm still successful in life, despite not "attending an elite college"