ED even realistic?
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Anonymous
| Our daughter is talking about applying to one college ED. But there is no way we can afford full tuition at 99% of schools. Doesn't ED assume that you'll pay full tuition? If she gets in but we can't afford the full tuition, she can't go. It seems too risky and probably pointless. |
Anonymous
| Try out the net price calculator to get a sense of the financial aid your D can expect. If it's out of reach, don't apply ED |
Anonymous
| If you can’t afford tuition based on your EFC, you shouldn’t apply ED. You can only be excused from the agreement if you don’t receive adequate aid according to need, not want. Use the Net price calculator on the schools website to determine if it will work for your budget or not. |
Anonymous
| Technically I believe you have an out if you deem the financial aid offer insufficient, but I'm with you. It made me nervous and we steered clear of it. A happy ending for us, though. DS got into his dream school in RD and received a very generous aid package. |
Anonymous
+1 We need to rely on in-state public tuition or merit aid because we cannot afford to be full-pay, nor do we qualify for need-based aid. For this reason, ED is not an option for our kids. |
Anonymous
|
"Technically I believe you have an out if you deem the financial aid offer insufficient,"
Of course you have an out if you deem the financial aid insufficient. You just need to be very clear with your DC as the application goes in what aid will be insufficient. You can ALWAYS pick an optimistic number. If ED school costs $70k and calculator says you must pay $20k, tell DC $18k or $15k because you are worried about the stock market or that your company isn't giving raises this year. The first thing people do wrong with ED is thinking that their ED school is the only school they are going to apply to early. You have to apply to all the school you can around the ED deadline and a few rolling ones before if you can. For example, in MD, everyone should apply to UMd on November 1st even if they have an ED school. You aren't going to hear from UMd in time to matter for the ED decision but only if you get in ED does it matter at all. If you don't get in or are deferred, you need all those early applications to improve your odds. All ED does is state you can't apply ED to more than one school and that if you decide to attend the ED school, you will pull your applications from the other schools. Yes, you might feel some pressure if the cost calculator tells you they are going to offer $X and they only come back with $X minus 10% but if you are clear with your DC that if they don't offer $X it will not happen, then that pressure is only in your mind. I think where people go off track with ED is aiming their ED application at a school that is too much of a reach. You can read that as financial as well as academic reach. Super reach schools are unlikely to offer merit aid but schools like Rochester Institute of Technology with "friendly" ED hand out most of their acceptances and money in the ED crowd. If you hem and haw about how "friendly" they actually intend to be, you lose out. |
Anonymous
| Op, this is where google is your friend. You do not need to be full pay to have an ed acceptance. You can turn down an early decision offer if the financial aid awarded is insufficient. |
Anonymous
If you *know* you can't pay the tuition, then why apply at all to this school?????? |
Anonymous
| Your HS college counselor can guide you on this. Now is a good time to make an appointment with them as there is a lull after the seniors have been enrolled and before September. |
Anonymous
Agree, but if you do not qualify for need-based aid (and are therefore assumed by the school to be full-pay), and must rely on merit aid in order for your DC to attend, then ED is extremely risky. |
Anonymous
Insufficient by whose standards? Seems like an easy out if it’s just an arbitrary opinion. |
Anonymous
| ED does NOT assume you will be full pay. Run the net price calculator from the school's website to get an idea of your responsibility. If you or spouse are in business for yourself, the calculators are not reliable. If they are in the ballpark, apply. You can get out of an ED acceptance if you don't have the money. ED acceptances notify usually around Dec 15. Your student must be prepared and willing to apply to alternate more affordable schools. You are free to apply to other schools when applying ED, but when you accept the ED offer, you must inform the other school of your decision and the school will pull your application. |
Anonymous
Not OP. So when you do accept the ED and pull applications from other schools, you still won't get your FA letter until regular decision time? So what happens when it comes, you don't get enough to afford it but you have pulled your applications from other schools? |
Anonymous
Doesn’t the FA letter come in with the offer? |
Anonymous
It does assume that you will be full-pay, or that the need-based aid offered will be sufficient based on the EFC. The EFC may or may not be accurate for a given family's situation. People who are neither full-pay nor qualify for need-based aid (and therefore don't file the FAFSA), and need merit aid to attend, should NOT apply ED because if the school gives no merit aid but accepts, it is assumed as part of the binding decision that the family will pay in full. |