Ron Lieber mentioned on your channel last year that applying early action or early decision gives you less of a chance of receiving any merit aid since you’re signaling to the school that your level of interest is high giving the school less of a reason to offer any kind of merit aid. They prefer to save those merit aid dollars for regular decision applicants that are trying to choose between multiple schools where the ability to give more merit aid may sway a decision towards their school. Makes perfect sense to me. At about 21:00, Luanne states the exact opposite of this idea. If I’m buying a car and I let the salesperson know I absolutely love a particular car and want that car from their dealership no matter what, would the dealership be inclined to offer any kind of deal on the car? Probably not, since I already told them I want that car from them no matter what. Conversely, if I don’t signal intense interest and let them know I saw the same car in 3 other dealerships…. All of a sudden it’s let’s make a deal time. As I see it, it’s the exact same thing with these schools. EA/ED makes sense if you want a better chance to get admitted and are willing to pay whatever they want you to pay. Otherwise, no way. RD is the way to go. Am I misunderstanding something?
You're not misunderstanding. I think to some extent both response are valid. There is not one, 100% accurate answer because every school can do what they want and not every school is transparent about what they do. Results also swing year to year. I think it also depends on how popular and how selective a school is as to how they will choose to use their merit dollars. We crowdsource student offers and I just looked at a few colleges to see trends from actual offers. Less selective schools (50% admissions and higher) seem to be giving out merit as part of early action acceptances. One school I checked (Susquehanna University), which has ED and EA, only gave money to EA acceptances, but not to ED acceptances (this is based on the offers we've collected). I saw the same patter for the College of Wooster and Muhlenberg. Here's a different example - University of Richmond, which is more selective, did not give out merit scholarship money to EA admits so far this year and in previous years they gave it out in EA sparingly. So the important factor at play is selectivity.
I personally put the slides together and I try to get as much data for each year. I can't remember specifically, but if that year is missing it's because the Common App, which was the source of that data, probably didn't share it for that year. Actually, I remember it now - the Common App doesn't keep all their past reports on their website and I couldn't find a copy for that year's report. I reached out to them but never heard back. Now, I'm saving the data myself so I don't have to search for past reports.
Ron Lieber mentioned on your channel last year that applying early action or early decision gives you less of a chance of receiving any merit aid since you’re signaling to the school that your level of interest is high giving the school less of a reason to offer any kind of merit aid. They prefer to save those merit aid dollars for regular decision applicants that are trying to choose between multiple schools where the ability to give more merit aid may sway a decision towards their school. Makes perfect sense to me. At about 21:00, Luanne states the exact opposite of this idea.
If I’m buying a car and I let the salesperson know I absolutely love a particular car and want that car from their dealership no matter what, would the dealership be inclined to offer any kind of deal on the car? Probably not, since I already told them I want that car from them no matter what.
Conversely, if I don’t signal intense interest and let them know I saw the same car in 3 other dealerships…. All of a sudden it’s let’s make a deal time. As I see it, it’s the exact same thing with these schools.
EA/ED makes sense if you want a better chance to get admitted and are willing to pay whatever they want you to pay. Otherwise, no way. RD is the way to go.
Am I misunderstanding something?
You're not misunderstanding. I think to some extent both response are valid. There is not one, 100% accurate answer because every school can do what they want and not every school is transparent about what they do. Results also swing year to year. I think it also depends on how popular and how selective a school is as to how they will choose to use their merit dollars.
We crowdsource student offers and I just looked at a few colleges to see trends from actual offers. Less selective schools (50% admissions and higher) seem to be giving out merit as part of early action acceptances. One school I checked (Susquehanna University), which has ED and EA, only gave money to EA acceptances, but not to ED acceptances (this is based on the offers we've collected). I saw the same patter for the College of Wooster and Muhlenberg. Here's a different example - University of Richmond, which is more selective, did not give out merit scholarship money to EA admits so far this year and in previous years they gave it out in EA sparingly.
So the important factor at play is selectivity.
@@Road2College This is great info. Thx for this! I suppose there is some nuance with this, like anything else.
The Trends in Test Score Reporting Behavior slide skips from 2019-2020 to 2021-2022. Shouldn’t there have been a 2020-2021 line?
I personally put the slides together and I try to get as much data for each year. I can't remember specifically, but if that year is missing it's because the Common App, which was the source of that data, probably didn't share it for that year. Actually, I remember it now - the Common App doesn't keep all their past reports on their website and I couldn't find a copy for that year's report. I reached out to them but never heard back. Now, I'm saving the data myself so I don't have to search for past reports.