<p>My dd has almost finished her college visits. Her favorite school (which came as a surprise to her) is Dartmouth.</p>
<p>She will also apply to Northwestern, Rice, BC, Georgetown, Tulane, UVA, and in-state options. Her second choice is Georgetown; third choice is BC.</p>
<p>She is very well qualified, and has no parts of her application that are not stellar, but she has no really compelling hooks (legacy, recruited athlete, etc.) either.</p>
<p>Her Dartmouth chances are better if she applies ED - the math is pretty clear. However, the likelihood of deferral is still high, and she loses the option to apply to BC and Georgetown early. While there is no advantage from an admissions perspective to applying to either of those schools early, she would forfeit early notice and the chance to compete for merit scholarships at BC.</p>
<p>Based on the NPCs, Dartmouth is clearly the best choice financially. BC is about $10k more. But, if she did get a scholarship, it would be the best. (We can afford it either way.) </p>
<p>Do you advise your child in this situation to apply ED?</p>
<p>I am not sure about Dartmouth, but when applying early to Stanford, for instance, you are allowed to also apply early to any public schools as well as private schools that have early deadlines for scholarship consideration.</p>
<p>Most early decision programs put no restrictions on early action applications (even at other privates) because they know they have first call rights on the student. </p>
<p>ETA: The issue here is Georgetown. It won’t take an EA app from a student who is in an ED pool elsewhere. </p>
<p>When you say “scholarships” do you mean merit awards? How plentiful are merit awards at BC?</p>
<p>ETA…if finances really are NOT a consideration, and her top choice is Dartmouth, I would let her apply ED. But I would have all of her other applications submitted RD as early as possible. No waiting until yes/no for the ED school.</p>
<p>If finances are an issue…I’d wait and do them all RD.</p>
<p>I^^^^
What is the advantage to getting the RD applications in before ED decisions are released? That would mean the RD apps are going in early December.</p>
<p>Are you basing this solely by looking at the admit rate ED vs RD? Because the ED rate is typically inflated by athlete and legacy admissions. Many recruited athletes, whose acceptance rate is 100%, apply ED, and that raises the overall rate.</p>
<p>There is no easy answer to your question. If Dartmouth is really, truly, your daughter’s first choice, and money is not a factor, then she should apply early. She doesn’t need to make her decision now. She should work on all her applications, and can make a decision sometime in October. It’s amazing how much their minds can shift over a period of one to two months (or even one to two weeks). </p>
<p>Op,
Is BC EA or RD with scholarship info?
I have not read the specific rules for BC, but usually, you can apply ED to Dartmouth and EA to BC. However, if you get accepted ED to Dartmouth, then you are required to enroll unless the FA doesn’t work for you. Depends on when BC gave the results of merit scholarships. But if she got deferred from Dartmouth, she would still have her EA app in at BC and would still be a contender for merit scholarships.</p>
<p>You could look at the Naviance results at your HS and see what the stats were for ED from your HS to get a better idea of her chances.
Yes, ED does give your kid’s application a greater chance of getting accepted. EA and SCEA is less clearcut for the amount of admissions boost.</p>
<p>One of D’s classmates went to Dartmouth and she was not any of the top students, she was just a good student. Another went to Georgetown, he was not at the top either. D’s school was timy private HS with 33 kids in her class. Many went to some top schools, but not my kid. She went to public state and still had great memories of her experiences there. Many top kids just do not want to spend money on UG. Good number of D’s HS class are in Grad. schools now or thinking about it. Affording paying tuition for 4 years is not the same as affording paying it for 8 years. Most top kids want to got to Grad. school, I am sure that your D. is planning on it now. Well, you might be OK with shedding some $500k - $600K on her education though. “Finances not an issue” might mean very broad spectrum.
I do not think that anybody with the stellar application will have trouble getting into Dartmouth if this is the only concern. </p>
<p>The BC and Georgetown rules for EA state that you cannot apply EA to them, and also apply anywhere ED1. It is a philosophical position for Jesuit schools. They want you to keep your options open.</p>
<p>BC has very limited full tuition scholarships - they offer 25 per year. You must apply EA for consideration. The likelihood that she would receive one is small, but she would be at the top off the applicant pool there, and there is a chance that she would.</p>
<p>We are low income - two teacher parents in a very low teacher pay state - but have some resources to pay our EFC. We are looking only at financial fits - either scholarship schools, or meet full need schools, and do not anticipate paying more for a private than we would for a state school. (D1 currently attends Wellesley, and our EFC is about 5% of the cost.)</p>
<p>We are also in low export state - only about 2000 students form the state leave to go out of state. Most stay on the West Coast, but we also aren’t from a zero export state.</p>
<p>I am not a fan of “gaming” the early admission process.</p>
<p>If your D loves Dartmouth and if you believe you’ll be able to afford it based on what you know, I’d tell her to apply to Dartmouth early and see what happens, knowing that there is a strong probability that she will be deferred.</p>
<p>If you can afford BC and Georgetown based on what you believe your need based aid would be, then you’ve lost nothing by applying to Dartmouth.</p>
<p>If she has a clear favorite and will attend if admitted, apply ED. If she is ambivalent? Don’t.</p>
<p>For the sake of people reading, financial aid applicants seem to be best advised not to ED, though Dartmouth is one of those schools that gives a lot of money and might be an exception to the “compare aid offers” advice given by those who know.</p>
<p>My advice would be to EA BC and Georgetown and others that allow EA and RD Dartmouth. This puts her in the best position for money at BC and also gives her the possibility of having some choices already open to her in December. Her early results will also let her know if there are any issues with her applications (early deferrals or denies might make her rethink her essays etc.) and let her put her best effort in for Dartmouth. This will also let her use admitted student days to truly decide which school is best fit for her (these days often sway students).</p>
<p>I think Hanna’s question is the key one in this instance.</p>
<p>If I have it straight, the only school where she is giving up the possibility of applying for a major scholarship by not applying EA is BC, but BC is currently her third choice. Am I also correct in saying that a number of the other schools on her list are affordable according to the NPCs, without winning a major scholarship?</p>
<p>If this is the case, I would apply to Dartmouth ED. Dartmouth has superb FA, as I can testify from personal experience, and since it sounds as if you have a fairly straightforward financial situation there should be no unpleasant surprises. You also have a good read on this by the amount of FA given your elder D at Wellesley.</p>
<p>I agree that D takes most of its recruited athletes ED, and that since legacy is only considered if ED most legacies are probably admitted then, so the ED odds for the unhooked student are not as good as they might appear. Nevertheless, it does indicate a commitment on the part of a highly qualified student that can only help. And frankly, there is some speculation that D may be more inclined to take top candidates ED right now in order to improve its yield, given the negative publicity of the last few years.</p>
<p>The D parents thread is full of posters whose daughters adore the place. :)</p>
<p>Son’s financial aid offer at Dartmouth was very similiar to his from p’ton, penn, and swat. He applied RD though since FA was his top priority. He used his EA at MIT, Cal Tech, BC and Georgetown amongst some others. And applied RD to quite a few. The ONLY school he was deferred and waitlisted at was Georgetown. He was in everywhere else and did receive BC’s large scholie mentioned above. However the meet full needs schools offered better FA packages. With son’s low EFC (0) Georgetown probably did not want to front the whole amount.</p>
<p>Seniors do change their minds over the year. Son’s #1 was MIT and after acceptance and visiting it was no longer in the top schools for him. His top 3 choices ended up being P’ton, Penn’s M &T program and West Point, he ended up at p’ton.</p>
<p>Dartmouth however went out of their to bring him on board. He liked it so much they were on of his top 3 choices for med school!</p>
<p>Seems to me that this is an ideal year for the OP’s daughter to apply to Dartmouth ED. My guess is that they wiill go heavier on admitting ED at Dartmouth because relative to peer schools, their numbers have been poor. Their overall number of applications fell markedly-and this is the 2nd year for that. The yield is up but only because it increased the number of ED students accepted. The PR about Dartmouth has been horrible for the past several years and they are seeing decline in interest as a result. My guess is they will try to maintain a high yield by relying even more heavily on ED next year.This is probably an ideal year to have Dartmouth as a 1st choice.</p>
<p>We were in a fairly similar situation as you all this time last year. Son decided in the fall that Dartmouth was his clear #1 choice. Like your daughter, he had stellar credentials but no hooks. Out of a handful from his school to apply to D ED, he was the only one accepted (no athletes were recruited this year) and no other kids were accepted in the RD. These were all very qualified kids who ended up at other top schools, incl. Georgetown. Now, unlike you, we live in the Northeast, which is overrepresented in the applicant pool. All of this is anecdotal, so take it as such. But son was very happy to have this acceptance mid-December; he truly enjoyed spring semester of senior year (didn’t slack off, just felt he could branch out in ECs and socially). From what we’ve observed from his class mates and our friends’ kids this year, the RD round at selective schools was very tough & angst-ridden. The conclusion: if there is a clear first choice that works financially, ED may be the way to go. Good luck! Whatever you decide, though, your daughter will end up at a wonderful school! </p>
<ol>
<li><p>It’s a lot easier to submit applications before a potential rejection. If this student is deferred or rejected from Dartmouth, it will be nice NOT to have to worry about getting application done.</p></li>
<li><p>Some colleges have an early application (not EA or ED…just an early date) for scholarship consideration. The kid would not want to miss those dates.</p></li>
<li><p>My kids’ opinions…senior year for them was MUCH nicer NOT having to do college applications during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday times.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>One option is to make (or at least encourage) your kid to prepare all the RD options before the ED decision, even if you wait to submit them. Then you save the fees if you get in ED, but don’t run into the problem of having to do apps after being rejected.</p>