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Where to buy new G5 with educator discount
- Thread starter maliburon
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AS far as I know, the only place to get the edu discount is directly through Apple via the Apple Store or its website. Simply go to the Apple website and go to the store and click on educational store. Be prepared to provide proof of educational affiliation when you buy, as Apple does check periodically.
Where to buy entirely depends on what sort of educator you are. To be clear, higher education is covered by the Apple online store, as well as a number of Apple Higher Education Resellers, usually located on college and university campi. If you are a K-12 Educator, the only official option is the Apple online store.
However, problems can arise in either of these categories if you want to obtain the item immediately. Some Higher Education Resellers (primarily if the store is owned by the school itself) may refuse to sell to those who are neither a student, nor faculty at that institution. The easy answer is to find a private business that is a school's Apple Higher Education Reseller. As a private business, they're less demanding with regards to what school you belong to.
I work at an Apple Higher Education Reseller in Canada, and since we're a private business, we don't have a problem selling to K-12 educators, or students from other universities. If someone wants to give us money, and it wouldn't cause us to be in violation of our contract with Apple, then there's no reason to turn them away. Other Higher Education Resellers in the city will refuse students who don't attend their school. As such, we tend to pick up more business.
However, problems can arise in either of these categories if you want to obtain the item immediately. Some Higher Education Resellers (primarily if the store is owned by the school itself) may refuse to sell to those who are neither a student, nor faculty at that institution. The easy answer is to find a private business that is a school's Apple Higher Education Reseller. As a private business, they're less demanding with regards to what school you belong to.
I work at an Apple Higher Education Reseller in Canada, and since we're a private business, we don't have a problem selling to K-12 educators, or students from other universities. If someone wants to give us money, and it wouldn't cause us to be in violation of our contract with Apple, then there's no reason to turn them away. Other Higher Education Resellers in the city will refuse students who don't attend their school. As such, we tend to pick up more business.
As long as you qualify for the education discount, and take proof of eligibility (either college ID or teaching certificate and your driver's license), you can go and buy it from your local Apple store. Note: this only works for stock configs, I don't think that they'll do any BTO (maybe RAM?) Also, if there is no Apple Store in your state, you shouldn't be charged tax if you order online.
stoid said:
Not true. Apple technically does business in every state, so it does in any state that charges tax. The only places to use the educational discount are Apple Online, Apple retail stores (and only with hardware), and your school if it offers it. There are some places that may give you a $50-$100 discount, but it's usually not exactly the education discount Apple offers.
No offense, but there are a bunch of threads on this. Just use the search button above.
stoid said:
Actually the stores only carry computers with standard options. They will direct you to the website if you want BTO. And yes they charge sales tax as stated above. according to the sale tax your state charges
but also as stated i would buy through apple for the education discount. thats what i am doing and will stand to save over 200 on a 12" powerbook with the 80gb drive. that takes care of sales tax and then some.
At our store, we have stock machines on hand, but we'll order a BTO machine if the customer wants us to. It actually makes it faster for them, because our store's orders are higher in the queue than individual educational orders.
i work at the apple store at fashion island, and you can almost do what would be considered a BTO. you can't swap out the hard drive, but you can add airport extreme and memory. we will install it for you for free in about an hour. for the new imac, the only thing we really can't do is put in the internal bluetooth module. again, all of this can be completed easily by any novice user, as the imac is completely user serviceable. you could buy all of the components you wanted to add on and install them yourself. the education discount applies in store for hardware only, as mentioned before, or online at the apple education store. you need proof that you are either a college student or teacher (K-12 teachers can get the discount as well) as well as a state-issued photo id to get the discount. on the imacs, the discount is $100, but the discount is a $ discount depending on the product. good luck with your purchase and have fun with your imac. they look and run great 
really? cause our store here told me they wouldnt even order a bto for me and that i should go to the website! bastards!