Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit could put an end to it. Colleges, like any businesses, can't agree to restraints on trade. They can't agree to a particular deadline. And they coordinate to blacklist or punish a student who violates an ED agreement (which is not legally binding).

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Complaint-DAmico-v-Consortium-on-Financing-Higher-Education-August-8-2025.pdf

It’s not legally blinding but a college is never required to ever consider your application. So long as they aren’t discriminating, a college could arbitrarily decide applications submitted on wednesdays and sundays will be cut.

If it isn’t legally binding maybe my kid should just ED to 20 schools and treat it like EA.

Anonymous wrote:What’s wrong with EA? Kids just need to get their act together but most public schools offer it and there’s nothing limiting kids from applying.

Agreed!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit could put an end to it. Colleges, like any businesses, can't agree to restraints on trade. They can't agree to a particular deadline. And they coordinate to blacklist or punish a student who violates an ED agreement (which is not legally binding).

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Complaint-DAmico-v-Consortium-on-Financing-Higher-Education-August-8-2025.pdf

This lawsuit has zero chance.

What's your basis? A similar lawsuit concerning coordination on financial aid need analysis formulas has gotten over $300 million in settlements, and the group coordinating disbanded...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit could put an end to it. Colleges, like any businesses, can't agree to restraints on trade. They can't agree to a particular deadline. And they coordinate to blacklist or punish a student who violates an ED agreement (which is not legally binding).

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Complaint-DAmico-v-Consortium-on-Financing-Higher-Education-August-8-2025.pdf

It’s not legally blinding but a college is never required to ever consider your application. So long as they aren’t discriminating, a college could arbitrarily decide applications submitted on wednesdays and sundays will be cut.

It's the coordination that's not acceptable and the anti competitive effects. The effect of the coordination amongst schools to enforce these agreements is to eliminate price competition (competition on financial aid and scholarships). You can't do horizontal restraints of trade like this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is also great for those whose income is above QuestBridge but below the 200k financial aid cutoff (or a similar number). Only those with income around 50k above the cutoff are complaining. They are in the opposite of sweet spot. Hence the constant new threads wishing for the demise of ED.

Around 50k? That’s low income, easy to ED or even do Questbridge.

Read again. 50k above the cutoff, so roughly 250k.

Anonymous wrote:ED is also great for those whose income is above QuestBridge but below the 200k financial aid cutoff (or a similar number). Only those with income around 50k above the cutoff are complaining. They are in the opposite of sweet spot. Hence the constant new threads wishing for the demise of ED.

Around 50k? That’s low income, easy to ED or even do Questbridge.

What’s wrong with EA? Kids just need to get their act together but most public schools offer it and there’s nothing limiting kids from applying.

ED is also great for those whose income is above QuestBridge but below the 200k financial aid cutoff (or a similar number). Only those with income around 50k above the cutoff are complaining. They are in the opposite of sweet spot. Hence the constant new threads wishing for the demise of ED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it's filling up college seats with athletes first. it's ridiculously obvious that athletes are priority one - far above rich people.

I actually see fewer issues with people who pay more getting first dibs. That happens in every business. I just dont why we care who can sail the fastest.

100% this is happening. Male athletes are taking up nearly HALF of male spots at SLACs. Those spots are gone before strong male students can apply. I'm not saying the male athletes aren't qualified but most of the rejected students at these SLACs are more than qualified and still there aren't any spots left for them. It's weird. It's particularly bad at places like Swarthmore, CMC, Haverford, Hamilton, etc.

The ED requirement for recruited athletes benefits the school, not the athlete. The athlete applies ED in return for basically guaranteed admission. Schools could easily move these to RD but it only hurts the school because some athletes would apply ED somewhere and if they got in drop the recruited slot. The result would be even more recruitment slots given out in the expectation that some fall off. No real benefits to anyone.

ED is really unfair to students who don't want to commit to any particular school. My daughter had very limited schools to apply to early this year because so many have abandoned their EA round for ED. Her first choice is REA, which she did take advantage of, but if that falls through, she had to go to ED2 or RD. Too many balls to juggle. Luckily she did receive a favorable EA decision last week from a T25 school that could act as a backup should none of her first choices come through. FWIW we are full pay and not even close to qualifying for aid.

As a parent, I hate the trade off of shorter wait time in exchange for giving up all my DC's other choices so that colleges can leisurely fill all their institutional priorities on their schedule, not mine.

There's too much hysteria that teens feel tehy "must" apply somewhere ED just to get into college or else there won't be any spots left.

I know fear and FOMO sells, but it feels so manipulative.

Anonymous wrote:it's filling up college seats with athletes first. it's ridiculously obvious that athletes are priority one - far above rich people.

I actually see fewer issues with people who pay more getting first dibs. That happens in every business. I just dont why we care who can sail the fastest.

100% this is happening. Male athletes are taking up nearly HALF of male spots at SLACs. Those spots are gone before strong male students can apply. I'm not saying the male athletes aren't qualified but most of the rejected students at these SLACs are more than qualified and still there aren't any spots left for them. It's weird. It's particularly bad at places like Swarthmore, CMC, Haverford, Hamilton, etc.

Anonymous wrote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit could put an end to it. Colleges, like any businesses, can't agree to restraints on trade. They can't agree to a particular deadline. And they coordinate to blacklist or punish a student who violates an ED agreement (which is not legally binding).

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Complaint-DAmico-v-Consortium-on-Financing-Higher-Education-August-8-2025.pdf

This lawsuit has zero chance.

Anonymous wrote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit could put an end to it. Colleges, like any businesses, can't agree to restraints on trade. They can't agree to a particular deadline. And they coordinate to blacklist or punish a student who violates an ED agreement (which is not legally binding).

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Complaint-DAmico-v-Consortium-on-Financing-Higher-Education-August-8-2025.pdf

It’s not legally blinding but a college is never required to ever consider your application. So long as they aren’t discriminating, a college could arbitrarily decide applications submitted on wednesdays and sundays will be cut.

Anonymous wrote:The ongoing antitrust lawsuit could put an end to it. Colleges, like any businesses, can't agree to restraints on trade. They can't agree to a particular deadline. And they coordinate to blacklist or punish a student who violates an ED agreement (which is not legally binding).

https://www.cohenmilstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Complaint-DAmico-v-Consortium-on-Financing-Higher-Education-August-8-2025.pdf

Agree it seems like an illegal cartel.