Anonymous wrote:My kids top choices don’t do ED so I have no personal interest here but it feels like people oversimplify and sometimes miss the broader point.

We are a donut hole family and I feel like my issues is schools that do offer merit aid and have an ED round feel stacked for the wealthy.

For example, I recognize I don’t want to pay full price for Boston College and the price during ED and the price outside ED are likely to be identical because they simply don’t offer merit except to a very very small handful of kids.

For a schools that do offer merit, it is asking kids to agree to an unknown price in advance. If ED across the board offered no merit and everyone who was selected ED automatically paid full price, or if schools would do ED merit pre-reads, it would feel more reasonable.

What happens instead is that it favors kids that can pay full price even if the actual price they are charged is in the range of a donut hole family. Those donut hole families don’t apply because they can’t pay full price and don’t know what the actual price will be.

This argument that “if you can’t afford it in ED you can afford it outside ED” makes sense for a small subset of schools that give no merit, but falls apart for schools that do give merit because you have no idea if you can afford it in ED because the price is unknown.

Merit aid is not a stand-in for financial aid. If you NEED financial aid, then the answer is don't ED to a school that offers merit to only a handful of students and is stingy with financial aid. Or, if we're living in a fantasy land where we can outlaw whatever we want, then make it illegal for schools to offer ED if they offer merit aid but not FA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could be found to violate anti trust law.

A simple solution to any perceived antitrust issues would be for schools to drop the requirement that accepted ED applicants withdraw all of their applications to other schools and, instead, the school would require that anED applicant submit the first semester’s tuition in full within a short designated time following acceptance. If the applicant didn’t submit the tuition, the acceptance would be withdrawn and the application would then be denied.

Why require this? What about ED is the issue that requires some sort of change? Do most people not ultimately attend their ED school? If so, then your solution makes sense. If the issue is that ED offers an unfair advantage to the wealthy, I still don’t see how your solution will solve anything. Also, people needing FA cannot pay their tuition on the spot. I’m also not sure how that would work with 529s — you can’t dispense funds for the next year in the current year.

Yet another person who thinks ED benefits applicants - and not the universities. Wow! And I thought it was gen z that had no critical thinking skills: you gen xers are really something.

I think it's a win-win situation for both the schools and majority of students. The only losers are the ones who make too much to get financial aid, but not enough to not feel the financial pressure. They're jealous they don't get play. Hence the constant crying here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could be found to violate anti trust law.

A simple solution to any perceived antitrust issues would be for schools to drop the requirement that accepted ED applicants withdraw all of their applications to other schools and, instead, the school would require that anED applicant submit the first semester’s tuition in full within a short designated time following acceptance. If the applicant didn’t submit the tuition, the acceptance would be withdrawn and the application would then be denied.

Why require this? What about ED is the issue that requires some sort of change? Do most people not ultimately attend their ED school? If so, then your solution makes sense. If the issue is that ED offers an unfair advantage to the wealthy, I still don’t see how your solution will solve anything. Also, people needing FA cannot pay their tuition on the spot. I’m also not sure how that would work with 529s — you can’t dispense funds for the next year in the current year.

Yet another person who thinks ED benefits applicants - and not the universities. Wow! And I thought it was gen z that had no critical thinking skills: you gen xers are really something.

Anonymous wrote:Wasn't there just a thread about this? Face it, ED is not illegal and never will be illegal. If you don't like it - don't use it.

+1

Just sounds like the irrational Open Schools Now! nutters are throwing another tantrum.

My kids top choices don’t do ED so I have no personal interest here but it feels like people oversimplify and sometimes miss the broader point.

We are a donut hole family and I feel like my issues is schools that do offer merit aid and have an ED round feel stacked for the wealthy.

For example, I recognize I don’t want to pay full price for Boston College and the price during ED and the price outside ED are likely to be identical because they simply don’t offer merit except to a very very small handful of kids.

For a schools that do offer merit, it is asking kids to agree to an unknown price in advance. If ED across the board offered no merit and everyone who was selected ED automatically paid full price, or if schools would do ED merit pre-reads, it would feel more reasonable.

What happens instead is that it favors kids that can pay full price even if the actual price they are charged is in the range of a donut hole family. Those donut hole families don’t apply because they can’t pay full price and don’t know what the actual price will be.

This argument that “if you can’t afford it in ED you can afford it outside ED” makes sense for a small subset of schools that give no merit, but falls apart for schools that do give merit because you have no idea if you can afford it in ED because the price is unknown.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet a dollar that OP must not like ED very much because they cannot afford it and are jealous.

ED does not preclude financial aid. Stop.

ED does not offer financial aid to those making between 250k-400k, which is where most ED haters reside. I love ED because my HHI is below 200k (yes, poor bastard!), even though my kid was rejected ED a week or so ago.

Not true! We are right in there around 300k and DC got a lot of FA with ED.

Same here, at a WASP school! 330K HHI, 21K/yr aid. So much misinformation on these threads.

Anonymous wrote:Posts like this spring up every year at this time. In April there will be posts insisting that UVA should increase its enrollment, or UMD needs to admit more students from the DC suburbs.

They all stem from the same place. Some parents have disappointed kids after decisions come out. They feel the anger that comes with the helplessness that they can't save their kid from this disappointment, and so they fume. I get it. It's hard. It's also life. No matter how much you want it, you can't make the universe give your kid everything they want.

Take this anger and repurpose the energy it brings toward helping your kid get excited about whatever college they end up going to. It truly will be fine.

Yes!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could be found to violate anti trust law.

A simple solution to any perceived antitrust issues would be for schools to drop the requirement that accepted ED applicants withdraw all of their applications to other schools and, instead, the school would require that anED applicant submit the first semester’s tuition in full within a short designated time following acceptance. If the applicant didn’t submit the tuition, the acceptance would be withdrawn and the application would then be denied.

Why require this? What about ED is the issue that requires some sort of change? Do most people not ultimately attend their ED school? If so, then your solution makes sense. If the issue is that ED offers an unfair advantage to the wealthy, I still don’t see how your solution will solve anything. Also, people needing FA cannot pay their tuition on the spot. I’m also not sure how that would work with 529s — you can’t dispense funds for the next year in the current year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet a dollar that OP must not like ED very much because they cannot afford it and are jealous.

ED does not preclude financial aid. Stop.

ED does not offer financial aid to those making between 250k-400k, which is where most ED haters reside. I love ED because my HHI is below 200k (yes, poor bastard!), even though my kid was rejected ED a week or so ago.

Not true! We are right in there around 300k and DC got a lot of FA with ED.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It won't happen but I will play.
I suspect it would negatively impact students needing financial aid. It's pretty clear colleges use ED to lock in highly qualified full pay students. They need them in order to be able to offer spots to students who can only attend with FA.

My kid got quite a bit of FA during ED, so not for the rich

Same here. It isn’t only for the rich; DC got a ton of FA at his ED. Sure, there were some other schools DC considered that probably would have cost even less, but it was absolutely worth it for us to pay a few thousand more for a school he is truly excited about attending.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could be found to violate anti trust law.

A simple solution to any perceived antitrust issues would be for schools to drop the requirement that accepted ED applicants withdraw all of their applications to other schools and, instead, the school would require that anED applicant submit the first semester’s tuition in full within a short designated time following acceptance. If the applicant didn’t submit the tuition, the acceptance would be withdrawn and the application would then be denied.

So, double down on the rich kid advantage?!

Well, schools will start doing some like this if the current practice is found to violate the antitrust laws. An this would not require all acceptées to pay full price, just as the current practice does not.

Posts like this spring up every year at this time. In April there will be posts insisting that UVA should increase its enrollment, or UMD needs to admit more students from the DC suburbs.

They all stem from the same place. Some parents have disappointed kids after decisions come out. They feel the anger that comes with the helplessness that they can't save their kid from this disappointment, and so they fume. I get it. It's hard. It's also life. No matter how much you want it, you can't make the universe give your kid everything they want.

Take this anger and repurpose the energy it brings toward helping your kid get excited about whatever college they end up going to. It truly will be fine.

I should have said "for those making above 250k." I accidentally added "those above 400k dont feel the pain."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I bet a dollar that OP must not like ED very much because they cannot afford it and are jealous.

ED does not preclude financial aid. Stop.

ED does not offer financial aid to those making between 250k-400k, which is where most ED haters reside. I love ED because my HHI is below 200k (yes, poor bastard!), even though my kid was rejected ED a week or so ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could be found to violate anti trust law.

A simple solution to any perceived antitrust issues would be for schools to drop the requirement that accepted ED applicants withdraw all of their applications to other schools and, instead, the school would require that anED applicant submit the first semester’s tuition in full within a short designated time following acceptance. If the applicant didn’t submit the tuition, the acceptance would be withdrawn and the application would then be denied.

Yes, that would be fine and would not involve an illegal cartel. But that is not the way it is.