Making Your Decision After the Colleges Make Theirs: Application Accepted

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If your early application is a binding one, a “thick” packet or Web-based equivalent brings your college search to an early, happy conclusion. If your acceptance packet does not include financial aid information, it will follow shortly, and if the offer covers your need, you are expected to submit your intent-to-enroll form and deposit by the deadline indicated. You must also withdraw all other pending applications. Unmet financial need is the only grounds for not attending a college that admits you under binding early decision. If your financial aid package provides less money than you will need to attend, contact the financial aid office immediately to explain the situation in detail and respectfully request that your financial aid package be reviewed. Perhaps something can be worked out. Remember, though, that there may be a difference between what a college believes a family needs and what the family wants. The two may not be totally reconcilable. The family, however, makes the final decision about whether the early decision financial aid package is sufficient to allow the student to attend.

Financial aid issues aside, colleges rely primarily on an honor system with regard to binding enrollment, since they cannot legally force you to attend against your will. Guidance counselors also serve as enforcers of the rules. Some selective colleges using early decision may share their acceptance lists as a way to police compliance with the binding policy. If your name were to show up on two early decision admit lists, you would be in trouble with both schools. Students who are not released from their binding commitment and who choose not to enroll at their early decision college may find some other doors closed to them. The vast majority of ED admitted students, however, never even remotely think of declining their early decision acceptance, or if they do, the “buyer’s remorse” passes quickly.

An early action acceptance can also bring your college search to a happy ending. But under the terms of early action, you have until May 1 to formally decide whether you will attend. For students whose early action school is clearly their first choice, it is courteous (although certainly not mandatory) to withdraw other applications from the regular decision process and to refrain from submitting any new ones (especially if financial aid is not an issue). The reason is simple: the more applications in the college pipeline, the lower the percentage of applicants who can be accepted by any given college. If you know for sure where you will be going in September, share your good fortune by giving your fellow students (locally and nationally) a better chance for a regular decision admission at one of the colleges they would like to attend.

But an early action acceptance may not end your college search. You may be interested in other colleges as well and want more time to make a decision. You may also want to see what your other financial aid packages may look like when you receive other acceptances in the spring. In that case, you’ll have to wait until the regular cycle decisions are made. You can do so, however, knowing that you already have an acceptance from a school you would be happy to attend.