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I've read from schools that it does not affect their aid packaging...Common sense says they wouldn't give me anything....Is the real answer somewhere in the middle?

P.S. I would be doing ED for a reach school so I guess I probably wouldn't get much money no matter what.

Thank you

I think the consensus is yes, it does impact your MERIT SCHOLARSHIP (not financial aid) prospects.

But if its a reach then go for it.

People typically get money in one of two ways:

1) Having high numbers that the school pays to bring in.

2) Turning small scholarship offers into bigger ones through negotiation.

People in category 1 don't need to ED. And if you apply ED you can't end up in category 2. If money matters, don't ED.

I've seen people at some schools like Michigan and presumably Duke get financial grants despite an ED. This info is really hard to find though because most people who would qualify for financial grant money do not ED and people who are richer tend to ED at a much higher rate. Self selection in that way. Thus the fact that ED applicants on LSN do not seem to get any aid in most circumstances could be misleading data.

So I was unable to find enough data to risk an ED to a school that I could otherwise expect to get 50k in aid from. If you're willing to take that "financial aid grant" risk and take their word for it, its your call. It might end up being the right call, but I'm just saying that there doesn't seem to be enough information to make a certain call either way.

You might get some grants. But as it was stated above, scholarship money comes from high numbers or a negotiating position. ED candidates ED because they don't have those high numbers and they're locked in so they can't negotiate. Assume paying sticker..and if you're really lucky, the school might toss you a crappy little bone in the form of small grants.

Game theory would say definitely yes. The usual reason that schools offer merit aid to incentivize qualified students to choose their school above sticker at a higher-ranked school. There is no reason to do provide a student with this incentive if he applies ED.

I definitely think so, its why I didn't apply ED simply because I want to have the option to juggle offers later down the line since it pretty much comes down to money. however I think some schools are realising this and making up for it, e.g Boston University now offers you an automatic full tuition scholarhsip if you apply ED. if you know you wanna go, thats a pretty good deal!