Early Decision day for college leaves some students both ecstatic and handcuffed

For hundreds of area high school seniors, December is the most nail-biting time of the year.

Joyous for many. Depressing for others. Expensive for almost all. And it has nothing to do with the holidays.

It has everything to do with a college placement strategy called Early Decision, which troubles many high school counselors. This week it has students either euphoric or scrambling for alternatives to the schools they were dreaming of attending.

Even winners of the Early Decision derbies may wind up losing, as they already have signed “binding agreements” that bar them from changing their minds or seeking better deals elsewhere.

That was no worry for David Ramos, who at 5 p.m. last Tuesday received the happiest news of his young life .

Surrounded by friends, he opened his laptop and logged onto the website where an announcement was waiting. He clicked on the words “View Decision Letter.”

And in the letter that Emory University sent to Ramos, a senior at Kansas City’s Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, the first word said it all: “Congratulations!”

Ramos yelled, jumped to his feet and embraced all around him. “I’m going to Emory!” he said after catching his breath. “I get to go to college!”

Choosing Early Decision, or E.D., was a no-brainer for Ramos, a Kauffman Foundation scholar who was guaranteed a free ride no matter which college admitted him.

He just had to sign a solemn vow to commit to a favorite school, to not shop any further and to enroll if his application was accepted.

Though E.D. is a growing practice among elite schools, area high school advisers say it’s not for everybody.

Only about 200 of the most selective U.S. colleges enjoy enough prestige to deny applicants a chance to compare other institutions’ financial aid packages and merit-based scholarships. The wrangling for those deals intensifies in early spring.

“If students aren’t absolutely certain of their first-choice school, I’d never encourage them to enter into a binding agreement” before the new year, said Debi Hudson, the director of college counselors at St. Teresa’s Academy.

Critics say the Early Decision process allows elite schools to fill spots for wealthy families who don’t need financial aid or less-advantaged students such as Ramos, whose tuition is covered through benevolence. By applying and committing to one school before November, they have a better chance of standing out among a relatively small and exclusive pool of applicants.

E.D. differs from a popular option called Early Action, which Hudson recommends for most seniors at St. Teresa’s. The fall filing deadlines are similar, but Early Action applicants can compare offers and don’t need to make a final decision until spring. They have more time to visit campuses, weigh competing schools’ financial aid and find what Hudson calls “that best fit.”

The spring process can save students tens of thousand of dollars, though they will have a tougher time getting into the top colleges on their lists.

Opting out of Early Decision paid off huge for James Bergman, a 2015 graduate of Blue Valley North High School.

“Honestly, I wasn’t organized enough early in my senior year to make a binding decision, but I couldn’t be happier today,” he said.

Bergman eventually chose Furman University in South Carolina, a school with an Early Decision plan. By waiting to make his decision in the spring, however, he received merit scholarships and grants totaling $62,000.

A few of Bergman’s friends committed to other E.D. schools and now pay in tuition, fees and housing what Bergman receives attending Furman. “I think some kind of regret not having looked at more options,” he said.

Super-selective

Because E.D. schools are rare within 300 miles of Kansas City, “you don’t see a whole lot of those applications in this part of the country,” said Kevin Kropf, the admissions director at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kan.

Baker doesn’t do Early Decision, nor do state universities in Kansas and Missouri or any college in the metro area. The practice is mostly exclusive to private schools that admit fewer than 40 percent of their applicants.

“Super-selective schools do it because they can,” Kropf said.

At higher-end preparatory schools such as Pembroke Hill and Barstow, a third of the seniors apply for Early Decision.

At private Rockhurst High School and St. Teresa’s, fewer than a dozen sign the agreements. Between 5 and 10 percent of college-bound seniors at public Park Hill South High School try the E.D. route.

If schools admit E.D. applicants, usually in mid-December or early January, the students must agree to attend unless they can demonstrate that their families can’t afford the price package they receive shortly after their admissions are announced.

Among E.D. schools closest to Kansas City are Grinnell College in Iowa and Washington University in St. Louis. Both colleges charge more than $40,000 in yearly tuition and reject more applications than they accept.

If families know where they dream of attending and are confident they can afford it, Early Decision ups their chances of getting there, said Joe Bagnoli, the vice president for enrollment at Grinnell. He said about half of the E.D. candidates who applied for the 2015-16 school year were accepted, compared with only 20 percent of those who waited until “regular decision” season.

Grinnell is among the elite schools that have two E.D. rounds — E.D. I and E.D. II — the latter having an early January deadline for applying.

The Iowa college’s goal is to secure enough binding commitments to form one-third of the following year’s freshman class.

“That way we can more intelligently shape the remaining two-thirds of the class through regular rounds” in the spring, Bagnoli said. If the school needs more music majors, for example, or must arrive at an equitable mix of genders, those goals can be set months before May 1, when all students must decide.

Early Decision is “not a great idea for students who haven’t arrived at knowing their top-choice institution,” said Bagnoli. “That would be like setting a wedding date if you haven’t yet found a partner.”

He’s not joking: E.D. schools are serious about applicants sticking to their binding agreements if accepted. At Grinnell, 95 percent do. (That’s above the national average of 87 percent enrollment, which Bagnoli partly attributed to Grinnell working merit-based aid into financing packages while other universities do not.)

“If a family arrives at the conclusion that what we offer them simply isn’t affordable, that’s the one condition we utilize for release from the E.D. agreement,” he said. “It doesn’t happen very often because the student is signing a binding agreement,” which also is signed by a high school counselor and the students’ parents.

“You must enter into that very seriously.”

Or do you?

What elite colleges don’t care to advertise is that E.D. agreements are binding only because the schools say so. They’re not legally binding, allowed Bagnoli and others.

“There’s no real stick that a college could hold against a kid” who changes his mind or sneaks around for better offers weeks or months after being accepted, said Joyce A. Smith, the chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Smith said she knew of no cases of broken agreements being taken to court or resulting in heavy fines. That’s because colleges don’t really want to force reluctant students into enrolling, and “no college would hold a high school accountable for (the actions of) a 17-year-old.”

But if they learn of admitted E.D. applicants who are negotiating better deals at other universities, they will swiftly rescind the offer, Smith said. “And someone from that college will let the (high school) counselor know they’re not happy.”

Some schools share lists of their E.D. pools to prevent students from “gaming the system,” which Bagnoli said becomes more tempting as the costs of a higher education escalate.

“Every year, I’ll be on the phone with a counterpart” from another E.D. college, he said. “That person will say, ‘I see that a student in our E.D. pool is also in yours,’ ” in clear violation of the agreement.

In those cases, admissions officials say, a candidate is apt to be struck from both colleges’ consideration.

More typically, however, cheaters will go undetected. After their acceptance into an E.D. school, they might pay an early deposit but then go silent. They don’t reply to emails urging students to arrange for housing.

“There are definitely families that will leverage for more scholarships,” said Barb Bruns, a counselor at St. Thomas Aquinas High School.

But that’s not why she and other counselors wrinkle their noses at Early Decision.

“I don’t like it because most kids don’t really know what they want,” Bruns said.

If you’re sure

For those who are certain, Early Decision can help many get there, said Scott Hill, a counselor at the Barstow School.

“My statistics show there is a competitive advantage” for E.D. applicants over those applying in the spring, Hill said. “I’d rather be in a pool of 3,500 applicants than 30,000.”

A December selection also settles things early, eliminating much of the stress that college-bound students tend to endure in their last semester in high school. Hill said one drawback is that students who win the E.D. game can get too complacent in the following months and post lesser grades than usual.

In that event, a college reserves the right to back out of the deal.

Unfortunately, E.D. schools do hold almost all of the cards, said David Cantwell, a counselor at Lincoln Prep.

“It really favors affluent kids,” Cantwell said. “If you’re middle class and don’t have the financial part in the bag, I’m not sure it’s going to help.”

Because most E.D. schools draw up financial packages based on a family’s ability to pay, lower-income students occasionally can strike gold.

Lincoln Prep’s Ramos, with a Kauffman scholarship in his hip pocket, certainly is thankful that Emory offered up Early Decision. Just two weeks before the signing deadline, Emory invited him and dozens of other low-income kids with stellar academic records to enjoy an all expenses-paid weekend on the Atlanta campus.

They got to know Emory student mentors who, like Ramos, were the first members of their families to attend college.

As for Ramos slacking off now that he’s been accepted? Not on his life.

“I’ve been working so hard since I was a freshman to achieve this,” he said. “No, I’ll finish strong.”

This story was originally published December 21, 2015 at 1:17 PM with the headline "Early Decision day for college leaves some students both ecstatic and handcuffed."