Apply ED If...
- You are 100% sure you want to go there.
- Your thoughts about your second choice are not remotely as strong as your potential ED school.
- Financial Aid is not a concern.
- You aren't trying to be an athlete or any other kind of specific program.
- You are not a commitment phobe.
- The school may be a reach school, and your chances would be higher if you applied ED (only if it's your #1 though!)
Do Not Apply ED If...
- You are less than 100% sure.
- You have two schools you are in love with. (You can only ED to one!)
- Your choice of college depends on cost. (After an ED acceptance, you are bound to the school and must withdraw all other applications and acceptances without comparing financial aid offers.)
- The school is lacking any of your "nonnegotiable"aspects. (A family friend applied ED to a school, and she wanted to be a nurse. The school didn't have nursing, and she ended up transferring for her program. Don't do that.)
- You change your mind a lot.
ED Pros
- You are done with your college process SO EARLY.
- You will not have to worry about waiting for any more acceptances.
- You may be able to attend an earlier orientation or have housing priorities.
- Your acceptance chances are frequently much higher if you apply ED as opposed to EA or final deadline.
- You have the chance to be deferred at least one more time, so another possible chance for acceptance.
- You can accept some of the first wait list offers, if you are wait listed.
ED Cons
- You are limited.
- You cannot back out of the offer if you have second thoughts or it is too expensive.
- You probably will never know about scholarships and acceptances to other schools.
- The very fact that you have to withdraw other applications, even if you are curious about admission statuses of other schools.
- You may have a change of heart and be stuck.
- Don't quote me on this: some say that you have a smaller chance of getting financial aid if you apply ED. I have no idea on the validity of this statement, it probably varies from university to university.
We EDed because our schools were reaches. We had much higher chances of being admitted if we applied ED. We also aren't the type who change our minds. Our parents agreed that this was the best idea. It's so different from person to person! Make sure you really think about your choice, and that your parents are on board 110%.
Drop us an email at kennedysamongstkardashians@gmail.com if you're still struggling or have any other questions!
xoxo,
A+C
PS- Comment with any other wisdom!
I can weigh in on the Fin Aid statements a little bit based on my time as an Admissions Ambassador in college and based on the fact I was only able to go to my dream school based on Fin Aid. And for the record, I didn't apply Early Decision or Early Admission.
ReplyDeleteYou are certainly more likely to receive more Financial Aid if you get that application in as soon as possible. Once they give away their grant money and merit scholarships, it's gone. (Two notes: fill out the CSS profile FIRST, then FAFSA because of the way you can import from one to the other. Also, these deadlines are fluid. One school I applied to had a Fin Aid deadline of Feb 15 which is ABSURD and my dad was really stressed, but we could have submitted a few weeks later at least).
You can always appeal a Fin Aid decision to get more aid. This is not a guarantee, but always worth trying. Remember also that if you have younger siblings starting school a year or two behind you, it is many times the case that you receive more aid when a household has multiple children in college.
AND if you apply early decision and don't get the money you need, you can still apply to other schools and turn down the school you got into ED. It is considered binding, but remember that there's nothing they can do to actually force you to go to that school and if there's any reason to back out of that agreement, it's to be able to confidently commit to paying for a school. It's not ideal and it's not the way you necessarily want to handle things, but it's also better than drawing tens of thousands of dollars in loans that you can't handle when you first graduate.