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How do they check you're a student. . .

W

whaaat

macrumors newbie
Original poster
When you get a student discount on products online?

I would like to get an iMac with Student Discount, but I'm not currently enrolled at a school

Does this really matter, or will I need to get my cousin's Student information?

Thank you so much 🙂
 
it depends on who you are buying from
most legitimate merchants will required some form of student or teacher id
after you get past that part
i have heard that the software cannot be used for business purposes
but idk how they would check that
 
redwarrior said:
it depends on who you are buying from
most legitimate merchants will required some form of student or teacher id
after you get past that part
i have heard that the software cannot be used for business purposes
but idk how they would check that
Click to expand...

This is so confusing. On the Apple Online Store, you will need to pick a school and accept Apple's terms for that store. Then you can shop at the reduced prices. Some apps will be academic though which will have some restrictions. I recently purchased Aperture Academic but I wont be able to upgrade. Not a problem for me, Ill just buy it academic again and still save some money. Hope this helps.
 
yes, definitely read about the particular software you are buying
dreamweaver is full-blown and does allow updates
as does my microsoft office 2008 suite
but both state that they cannot be used for profit
i have read about several other packages that don't allow updates
 
whaaat said:
When you get a student discount on products online?

I would like to get an iMac with Student Discount, but I'm not currently enrolled at a school

Does this really matter, or will I need to get my cousin's Student information?

Thank you so much 🙂
Click to expand...

It's basically the honor system when you're buying hardware from them online. It's all spelled out in the Terms of Service for the School Store. Basically they include parents of children enrolling in higher education to buy at the discount. There are restrictions as others have noted with regards to software selection. Also, you can only buy one desktop computer and one laptop in a given calendar year via the School Store (iPods and iPhones don't have this provision and thus don't have any discount tied to them). So if you're not going to be buying more than one piece of hardware from them per year, I'd say go for it - there's really no way they can check.
 
Enuratique said:
there's really no way they can check.
Click to expand...

There are ways, and they do check. Randomly. How do I know? Because I've been checked. Twice, actually.

Once, when I ordered my maxed out 15" PB, and again when I ordered an iPod Shuffle.

I received a call from Apple asking for proof of enrollment. They provided a fax number and asked that I either fax a copy of my tuition bill for the current semester, or a copy of my student ID.

I've also known a few people who were checked when all they bought was a cheap media card reader. Apple does check, and defrauding them will only cause problems for the legitimate users of this program.
 
redwarrior said:
it depends on who you are buying from
most legitimate merchants will required some form of student or teacher id
after you get past that part
i have heard that the software cannot be used for business purposes
but idk how they would check that
Click to expand...

That depends on the software. My GF is working as an Art Director for an Ad company and going to school to finish her Masters. She just picked up CS3 (I think that is the newest Photoshop..sorry I am not fully in the know about that stuff) on a student purchase. She wondered if she could use it for work, so when she contacted Adobe, she was told to go ahead and use it for work, no problems, the pricing is just that student pricing and there are no restrictions on its use. I do believe (and I could be wrong about this but i dont think so) that Microsoft Student pricing does not allow you to use it proffesionally only scholasticly.

Cheers
 
RBMaraman said:
There are ways, and they do check. Randomly. How do I know? Because I've been checked. Twice, actually.

Once, when I ordered my maxed out 15" PB, and again when I ordered an iPod Shuffle.

I received a call from Apple asking for proof of enrollment. They provided a fax number and asked that I either fax a copy of my tuition bill for the current semester, or a copy of my student ID.

I've also known a few people who were checked when all they bought was a cheap media card reader. Apple does check, and defrauding them will only cause problems for the legitimate users of this program.
Click to expand...

That's funny because I had a friend who was buying a new iMac for his wife.

The guy in the store asked if either of them were teachers. They are not.

Then he asked if they were planning on taking any classes at a university or going back to school. They are not.

Then he said, well do you have any kids? They have a son.

He said, well, do you ever plan on using the computer to teach him anything? Before they could answer, he said, "Eh, I'm sure you will. I'll give you the education discount."



Regardless, you can get a refurb and save more than the student discount anyway and not worry about scamming Apple.
 
GroovyLinuxGuy said:
... She just picked up CS3 (I think that is the newest Photoshop..sorry I am not fully in the know about that stuff) on a student purchase. She wondered if she could use it for work, so when she contacted Adobe, she was told to go ahead and use it for work, no problems, the pricing is just that student pricing and there are no restrictions on its use...
Click to expand...

I don't know who she spoke to, but it wasn't Adobe. You can't use the student edition of any of their apps for profit. They're happy with you learning with it and using it for your own stuff, but once you start selling the fruits of your photoshopping labour you have to buy the full version.
 
earnjam said:
Regardless, you can get a refurb and save more than the student discount anyway and not worry about scamming Apple.
Click to expand...

I only buy refurbs and it is indeed cheaper than the wife's discount.

Alternatively, once Amazon starts offering rebates again - it's the best deal around since the discount + no sales tax is almost always better than .edu + tax.
 
I'm a staff member at a Canadian university, and when I buy my iMac using the educational discount, I have to proveide my employee number. I'm assuming that they can verify it at any given point, which isn't a problem. It looks like the honor system upfront, and a possible check afterwards, and if you are fraudulently attempting to get an educational proce, you might find yourself hit with a charge for the difference 🙂

In my case, the 3.06 ghz iMac is 2299 Cdn non edu, and 2099 edu.

Tom
 
J@ffa said:
I don't know who she spoke to, but it wasn't Adobe. You can't use the student edition of any of their apps for profit. They're happy with you learning with it and using it for your own stuff, but once you start selling the fruits of your photoshopping labour you have to buy the full version.
Click to expand...

I love that...you weren't within 100 miles of the phone conversation and yet you magically know that it wasn't Adobe. You should sell that skill and make some money. Actually, yes she did talk to them, and they did say that it was okay for here to be doing that. And I never said student edition, I said student purchase, which just means a discount in this case as in not full retail value. If I was unclear about that, then my bad. 🙂
 
I was just told by my bookstore that you would a) be on the hook for the difference in price, and b) never be allowed to use the edu discount again.

So, thems, uh them apples.

Tom
 
David G. said:
Exactly. Don't ruin it for the those of us who can use this in a legit fashion. They have already reduced benefits most likely because of this before.
Click to expand...

Then they really should be investing in a system to check your status. I'm not saying its right to do, but Apple is partly to blame for offering discounts that are completely unverifiable. They basically encourage the behavior.
 
elcid said:
Then they really should be investing in a system to check your status. I'm not saying its right to do, but Apple is partly to blame for offering discounts that are completely unverifiable. They basically encourage the behavior.
Click to expand...

Trusting people shouldn't encourage this behavior. It's the same reason OS X doesn't have a CD-Key. They trust people. Although I'm still not sure why iWork does although that may have to do with them having a full free trial on their site.

I'd rather have a company that trusts people then have things like CD-Keys and some of this DRM like Secur-ROM that tends to only hurt the actual purchasers of the product.

They don't need to fix their system. We need to fix our human nature of cheating in my opinion.
 
SilentPanda said:
They don't need to fix their system. We need to fix our human nature of cheating in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Amen. That is the quote of the day right there.

Do onto others as you would have others do onto you. We wouldn't want people scamming our businesses, so why do it to Apple? They make great products, let's support them by not cheating them.
 
sometimes it's easy. you have an .edu account, you go through your schools apple partner store, etc.

sometimes it's harder, and you have to fax or mail a copy of your student ID (i've had to do this before I used university email system). and apple partners with countless institutions to provide a "custom" apple store online for students - how much harder to send a quick inquiry to check on a student's status (or lack thereof).


either way, they do check. and of course, the refurbs are cheaper than the student discount - so just get a refurb machine and save $ w/o cheating.
 
you could use the online discount trust thing to fraud or just to have the discount when you should have but they don't agree... i'm a student from Brazil, and here we don't have apple stores. But i'm still a student, so i should get a discount. I haven't tried the discount yet, and i don't know if i'll get (actually my father is in the U.S. and he'll try it for me). If i don't get it i'm willing to buy it online with the discount, 'cause i don't believe, in my case, that this is a fraud.
 
They've checked my ID 3 out of 4 times. Two were at different retail stores and once was online and I had to fax a copy of it. The one time they didn't officially check, I was purchasing from my college bookstore where you have to slide your ID if you're a student anyways when you pay (Co-Op situation...we actually get a bit back at the end of the year). I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have an ID.
 
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