Right…this student can apply to Duke RD. Use the SCEA option for one of the preferred schools.
Honestly, it does not sound like Duke is this student’s number one choice period. That being the case, I can’t imagine locking into Duke.
Counselor or no counselor, she should not apply ED to a school that she has reservations about. It sounds as though she has reservations about Duke.
I’m not saying that she should necessarily use her one ED or SCEA bid on her favorite school. Sometimes, it’s strategic to choose a less selective school if the student’s chances of getting in to the favorite school are very low. But whatever school she chooses (especially if it’s binding ED) should be one that she’s 100% willing to attend.
Yes, but that wondering is very different for a student who actually likes Duke compared to one who really doesn’t like it all that much.
My daughter, who might have had a shot at the very top schools, chose to apply ED to Cornell instead, was accepted there, and attended. She will never know whether she could have gotten into one of the very top schools. But she can live with that. She really liked Cornell (and still does). She was 100% willing to go there. She had no regrets.
I don’t think that the OP’s daughter feels about Duke the way my daughter felt about Cornell.
She can only pick one. Not a situation that can be controlled 100%. There is risk involved.
Also, remember that these schools are not necessarily stacked linearly. Hypothetically, she might get accepted to Yale SCEA and rejected from Northwestern ED (if there were some way to have a crystal ball to know what the ED/SCEA outcome of both would be). IMO she should apply ED/SCEA to the school that is her #1 choice and have an ED2 back-up (Tufts, Emory, Colgate, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Pomona)
If Yale would be her clear first choice then she should apply there. Duke and Northwestern both accept and reject LOTS and LOTS of qualified applicants, so she really isn’t killing her chances by not applying to either of them early.
As long as she goes in knowing her overall chances aren’t great at any of these schools, but it’s better to try.
I agree with the consensus that it makes no sense to be locked into a school she has reservations about. Has she visited Northwestern? Personally, as a Harvard student who had a nephew at Rice I think the residential college system makes a big difference. Every kid I know whose been to Yale recently has been extremely happy there. (Nice middle class kids, not rich kids BTW.)
If she’s rejected from the SCEA school she could certainly consider a place like Tufts that has ED2, if she’s deferred, that’s a more difficult decision. Unfortunately schools are pretty coy about how many deferrals eventualyl get accepted. At MIT many years ago they gave enough information it was possible to calculate that about 25% of the deferrals turned into acceptances.
It’s perfectly possible to get into a very selective school and rejected from a less selective one. Happened to both my kids.
…and monkeys fly out of my butt.
All the school’s “she’s” considering are risky. If I were her mother, I’d tell her to go with her gut instead of trying to game the system.
I take this seriously, especially since the full quotation is:
I take this to mean that Mom has reservations about Duke because her daughter does not seem to like it much, and that Mom would not discourage the strategic use of ED/SCEA to enhance the daughter’s chances of getting in to a school she would actually like to attend.
And all of that makes sense to me.
Marian – you are right on target. This is my first time through this process and I am concerned that if she does not game the system that she will end up unhappy with her choices. So do you apply to an ED school that you are less excited about, but more likely to get in, instead of a far reach. The college advisor definitely wants her to take this approach – as someone else here said – go to someplace you are 100% ok with and apply early, rather than reach and miss out.
By the way, I went to Penn, and was very happy there, but she refuses to apply(too pre-professional and Wall Street oriented for my northern california gal) so is not being particularly strategic in her current thinking.
This seems like a good reason not to apply ED to Penn, despite Penn’s blatant favoring of legacies who apply ED. The question is whether she feels that Duke is as wrong for her as Penn seems to be.
The other question is where her other parent went to college and whether she might want to take advantage of the legacy preference there.
Has she visited Duke? If she is a Nor Cal foodie will she enjoy living in North Carolina? Not sure how the SCEA works but my son is applying to MIT EA plus a few other EAs that are good fits, 1 tough one EA but have the legacy, and 1 should be a safety with some level of scholarship. If he doesn’t get into MIT then he will submit Stanford and Princeton last minute for RD. He’s not applying to any of the schools he had any reservations about.
Will he take a gap year or where will he go if he does not get into those three schools?
He actually is applying to 5 total EA and will be happy at any of those if he doesn’t get into MIT, Stanford, or Princeton. He’s gotten a few application fee waivers too so he’ll probably apply to a few of those too if MIT doesn’t go his way.
At HYP, an SCEA applicant agrees not to apply EA to other private schools or ED anywhere.
But it’s not all or nothing; your kid has remarkable numbers. She will get in somewhere terrific. I think if you push her to go somewhere her heart really isn’t engaged in, she’ll always wonder what if.
If it were me, I would re-frame the entire way I was approaching it and have her shoot for the moon, and then have some solid other choices that she thinks she’ll be satisfied and contented attending if the dice fall that way. I’m just not convinced that gaming the system leads to happiness.
With respect, that’s not true. DS was as unhooked as one can be, no major recognition, not even local recognition (didn’t get cum laude recognition at his HS), didn’t have 4.0 (damned French!), didn’t get 2400, etc.
What he had was an honest desire to attend Yale and the ability to write honest essays. I sent a thank you note to his regional AO a while ago because she really had to read deeply into his essay, the rec from his HS GC who adored DS for his non-grade grubbing love of learning, his teacher recs, etc. Holistic admissions is why DS is at Yale. He is very happy there (it being a foodie town doesn’t hurt).
It sounds to me like your DD should throw an EA application at Yale. It’s a reach for everyone, so be sure to have a range of schools to apply to. Good luck.
I completely get trying to reduce the risk of disappointment for your D- and wish that it was possible! as other posters have indicated, there is no linearity to admissions: I think most of us know kids who have been both accepted to tippy top schools and at the same time been rejected by less tippy-top schools.
This is your D’s big jump into making choices for herself, and the reality is that the risk in this decision is incredibly low: she gets in or she doesn’t. As painful as that moment is (been there, btw), it is a moment- if she has a good range of alternate colleges, the long-term consequences are minimal. Actually, it is probably one of the lowest-stakes big decisions that she will make in her life, simply b/c if she applies to a sensible range of colleges she will get into a great college and it will not slow her down or disadvantage her at all in the longer term. Like boys, there is no one ‘right’ soul mate - there are lots of them that could be very very happy matches 
And if she does game the system, the same thing could happen. She might not get into her ED school, or she might be disappointed by it.
Although I had a kid who gamed the system (by applying ED to a school that was more of a match than a reach (and at which she was a legacy), I think that the majority of kids don’t feel comfortable doing this sort of thing.
@lxnaybob: As you implied, holistic admission means there are no “set rules” and it is practically impossible to make absolute conclusions/statements. However, “by definition”, the difference between SCEA and ED is that the former only admits those the school decides as clear winners, those when put in the large pool in regular round would still be hands down admits and those they don’t want to lose to a peer school. The “big hooks” is a common characteristicstic of those admitted in early round. Are there “outliers”? You bet. It’s called holistic admission right? Practically howeve, if I were a candidate with “honest desire to attend and good writing skills”, and I decided to apply SCEA, I’d bet I would NOT get in and start prepare for regular applications instead of holding my breath for an admit because I know my type of applications are “dime a dozen”.
OP’s situation is not unique. Each year many students face this dilemma. From counselor’s point of view, since Duke ED likely will give the student a boost, 9 out of 10 counselors will advise not to jump in SCEA because it is that hard to get in as a non-hooked applicant in early round. Why risk losing a top school like Duke for a high reach? That is a decision the applicant has to make. If she loves Yale, and she is willing to take that risk, she should give herself that chance. She’s clearly has the profile of a Yale admit, but if she feels Duke is “almost” as perfect as Yale and she is not ready to give it up for a chance to Yale, then her counselor is right after all. Life is not always about pursuing the best options that seem reachable. We make a lot of decisions based on our risk tolerance level.
She’s a very strong candidate for Duke and NW. She does not need the ED bump for these schools and if she would really prefer HYS (and she has just as good a shot at those schools as any other qualified candidate) then she should apply early to one of those.
Frankly I think she’s a “match” for NW (not even a reach). She does need some more match and safety schools thought.