1Aggie99 said:
Wow, ok... What an arrogant system!
Wonder how often another school would say "OMG Sally declined CM even after binding early admission so we need to rescind our offer out of spite"
For the record, in this little hypothetical, I would be rooting for Sally to go to some state school, become a US Senator, and absolutely hose (politically) any school that followed suit.
ED is an interesting system. It's all about protecting yield at private schools really and giving people with means an advantage getting in. In the end schools have to protect their yield which is tied to their ranking and they also need to make sure they can have a significant number of kids that are coming that are paying full price. Of course most schools still will allow for whatever financial need you have to qualify for but you have zero leverage so kids that aren't sure they can afford it are unlikely to apply ED.
I know when we visited Rice they made it very clear that if you were ED you had a big advantage and if you weren't ED you need to really show why you want to go to Rice specifically. They don't like being used as a backup for Ivies and their Yield is in the 40s, realizing that anyone ED is essentially 100%. Then you have schools like Tulane that admit the overwhelming majority of their class ED leaving only a relatively small number of spots for Regular Decision. That way they can maintain an illusion of exclusivity but in reality if you are ED you could have a 40 percent chance of getting in and if you are Regular it's less than 10 or even 5. The same thing applies with most of the Private schools outside of the Top 5 and into the Top 50 or so to varying degrees. It's not unusual for applying ED to increase your chances of admission anywhere from 2 to 10x depending on the school.
What happens is you have a LOT of kids that apply to 1 school ED (or 2 schools with ED2) but if they don't get in to that school they apply to 10 or even 20 schools RD. So suddenly the competition level for a school like Rice or Tulane goes up exponentially because lots of kids that were putting Ivies or similar as ED that didn't get in are now applying. So if you aren't careful you can get in trouble. If you get too aggressive with your ED choice you could get denied there but then suddenly be in a far more competitive pool for schools you otherwise would have gotten in to because you are in the RD pool. If you aren't careful you could get shut out.
The Top 5 (Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Princeton) and a few others like Cal Tech offer Restricted Early Action. With that you can get an answer sooner but you can't apply ED elsewhere but they have varying restrictions. For instance you can usually apply to Public Schools and you also aren't bound like you are with ED to go to the school. Those schools do it because they still want an indication of being a first choice but they don't have to be as protective as they Yield rates around 80 percent.
It's all different games they play but if you are going to play you need to really know the rules. Play it well and you can definitely increase your chances but play it poorly and you can really screw yourself. You do not want to mess around with breaking an ED commitment, as double b said there are severe consequences to doing so. Those schools communicate and it's extremely rare for someone to break an ED agreement without cause. If you do they are likely to find you and tell the school you are attending and they could rescind your offer as an honor violation.
As to the OP if you applied ED to Carnegie you are obligated if your son is accepted. You can try and plead ignorance but that's not likely to be received well.
