<p>hello champs2004 my answer would be “no” I don’t think you should overrule your son’s decision if that is his decision. However, I agree with others that you should talk through the decision and possibly include the college counselor in the process to make sure that he has considered all the pros and cons.</p>
<p>Neither of my kids did ED, but I will say that it certainly simplifies the process and I can see why some kids want to do it. If there is no clear first choice school, but several that your son likes equally, I can see where he might simply decide that since X, Y and Z school are very similar, why not pick one to apply to ED, to get that admissions advantage, as well as have the process over early and reduce stress by having an early acceptance/early choice made rather than waiting for decisions until April then having to decide by May.</p>
<p>I would also trust that your son knows himself and what he is looking for in a college…while we think that usually “mother (father) knows best” I think it is not always true in the case of college admissions. </p>
<p>There is also value in respecting your son’s decision making ability as a step forward in maturity and not attempting to control his choice.</p>
<p>Champs2004 - When did he visit the school that he wants to apply to ED? Was it recently or in February? Are the schools that you like better for him, some of the earlier schools? Is it possible to go visit the schools again? We visited the school D applied to ED 3 times before she applied. We felt it was important for her to see the school a few times to make sure it was “the one”. </p>
<p>I think it is important to visit a potential ED school more than once if possible. A 4 year decision shouldn’t hinge on a 3 hour visit. </p>
<p>That’s true, if the list includes several schools that are a bit reachy and that advantage could make or break the decision. If there’s a risk of being shut out across the board in the RD round, I could definitely see that passing up the ED option would seem scary/risky.</p>
<p>My daughter had only one school that was reachy–she didn’t do ED–and she got waitlisted. Would she have gotten in if she’d applied ED? We’ll never know. It wasn’t her clear first choice, so it didn’t make sense to commit to them just to find out if they’d take her on those terms. All her other schools were in the low match/safety zone, so there wasn’t a huge risk in applying RD.</p>
<p>champs, D1 applied ED. As part of our agreeing to the ED path, we got to play devil’s advocate, asking her about everything and anything that we could think of as a reason for her to wait for RD. Imagine if you wait for RD, and your S is admitted to the schools you think are a better fit and the school he’d consider for ED: he’d have to go through the same process of weighing pros and cons. </p>
<p>If you tell him upfront that your job is to think of all possible ways to dissuade him, and you then choose to spin things as you wish, I feel you’ve given him fair warning. If he can be so easily dissuaded just because the arguments in favor of the other schools come from you, then I’d say he hasn’t thought things through enough to be “allowed” to apply ED. My two cents. </p>
<p>Our case was different than yours in that we thought her ED school was a good fit for her (and it has proved to be so), but I think the same principle applies.</p>
<p>Champs, what a hard position! For my dd, there was no ED at the school she wanted, but it was clear that she wanted to go there and she applied early (rolling) got in in December and did not want to follow through on any other apps she had out. We felt as you do, that maybe it was not the best choice, but she kept saying it was what she wanted and answered or at least listened to all of our concerns. She is there now and loves it, although, of course, it has only been three weeks of classes.</p>
<p>I love the idea of sitting down with your son and saying that you are playing devil’s advocate and that you are going to go through all the concerns that you can see about the school (and maybe a couple of others). I would not necessarily say that you have all of these concerns, just that they are out there! </p>
<p>Once your ds and you have gone through this exercise, I would most likely let him make his decision. It is one of the first independent acts of our children and it may be one of the hardest for us. </p>
<p>On another note, while we all hope that this is a four-year decision, it is not irreversible; many kids realize they made a mistake and change schools without any problems in their graduation. And, like my dd at art school, if she changed, she might lose some time, it honestly would not be the worst problem in the world. So, I think if it were me, and I did not have any gut wrenching reason or economic reason to stop the ED idea, I would let it go forward. </p>
<p>I’ll give you another ED story. My S1 wanted to study business in college, most likely Finance. His grades were top. (Again, I post on this thread for my S2). Anyway, we looked at top schools that had undergrad business majors, which there aren’t that many of. Cornell, CMU and UPenn are some of the top, also JHU, Brandeis, UChicago, URochester…you get the idea.</p>
<p>Anyway, I mentioned MIT to him since they also have undergrad business. He said no way, MIT and CMU are too Science oriented and he wanted a more well rounded education. That got us into a discussion about possibly majoring in Economics at a more Liberal Arts type of University. He mentioned Tufts. I said, we’ll go look, but Tufts does not have undergrad Business. </p>
<p>By then we had looked @6-8 schools and I was convinced he wanted undergrad business! He LOVED Tufts, so much so that he worked on his “Why Tufts” essay and the other Tufts essays over & over again until he perfected them. He was perfectly content in studying Econ and then going on to a graduate program in Business.</p>
<p>I honestly never thought he’d end up there. I liked other schools more for him, but in the end he felt a strong connection and I could see it all over his face & body language. It was very clear to us that there was a definite first choice.</p>
<p>Thank you Thank you Thank you. You have shared lots of interesting thoughts, stories and suggestions. Just to remind you - I like the school a lot. If I had strong feelings against it, I would certainly speak with him. It’s more that I’m not convinced it’s number 1 in comparison to the others. I appreciate all the advice, and I plan to speak with him to ensure that he’s considered everything - devil’s advocate approach. And mdmom, I think you gave a good suggestion to visit again. The problem is that I wish we had time to revisit other schools (that we saw last Feb), but realistically I know we can’t. So thanks for all your time considering this for me!</p>
<p>Another thought–
If the motivation for applying ED is that the school is a bit of a reach and there’s a sense that ED gives an edge in admissions (and you haven’t said that this is the reason–just giving a hypothetical): Consider delving into whether this is a school where that is the case. </p>
<p>Schools who generally have to admit many more students than ultimately enroll (low yield), I believe, are the ones who genuinely make the bar a bit lower for those students who are willing to commit to enrolling if admitted. I think American U may be one of those–their overall yield is in the 20% range. So you could see how being willing to be a “bird in the hand” is worth extra points to the admissions office. (This MIGHT be true as well at schools like Columbia or Penn that want to get their mitts on the valedictorians before Yale makes them an offer.)</p>
<p>The apparent high admit rate in the ED round in many highly-selective, usually high-yield schools, I am told, is a spurious result of all the recruited athletes (and other recruited applicants–people that the school really knew already that they wanted) applying early. It’s not that they lower the bar for the early round and a random kid jumping into that pool increases his chances of admission.</p>
<p>It can be hard to know how ED functions in admissions for a given school.</p>
<p>Champs, you’ve gotten a lot of good advice here. Both of my D’s applied ED and were very happy to have an acceptance to their first choice in December. I think that you should definitely visit the ED school once more and try to get below the surface by having your son attend a class, dine with a student and/or meet with a professor. When my D’s were trying to decide I asked them “If you got into all the schools on your list, would you pick this one?” If the answer is yes, then I think it’s safe to apply ED. </p>
<p>I’m glad to hear about all the successfull move-ins. My D2 is very happy to be back at BU.</p>
<p>DeskPotato and Champs. Just wanted to share our experience. As for ED, my dd’s high school is one of the top 5 public (and maybe all schools) in Pennsylvania. Most of the kids that applied ED got into their desired school. Others who applied to the same schools (many with similar grades and scores and sometimes better) did not get in. These was not counting the athletes etc, just the normal kids–whatever that means. Because of this happening this last year, many of the new seniors have talked about applying ED if they really like a school enough to go there.</p>
<p>Obviously, this is just one school and one person’s story. And of course, one should not apply ED if they don’t know what they really want, and applying ED does not guaranty acceptance.</p>
<p>Champs, I would agree that if it is possible to visit again and get a real understanding of what your S likes about this school it would be worthwhile. I also don’t see any reason for you not to express your concerns about the choice. But if your son still wants to apply ED and you aren’t opposed to the school and aren’t afraid of what the cost may turn out to be, I would think it is his decision. Its just important that he really understands the binding nature of ED and he doesn’t have a tendency to flipflop. We personally never did ED due to concerns about FA.</p>
<p>Hi Everyone - Thanks everyone for responses. The school is BU. I didn’t mention it because I wasn’t looking for opinions on BU. I really wanted to address the “mom intervention” issue. I thought if I mentioned which school, I would get opinions, pros, cons, etc. on BU. And I feel like I’ve read, visited, etc., so that was not my goal. Rather it was merely my dilemma regarding allowing my S to make such a commitment, when I did not feel the same.<br>
Thanks all.</p>
<p>It might just be that the regular applicant pool is stronger than the ED applicant pool, but BU appears to have a lower admission rate for ED applicants than for regular applicants:</p>
<p>At least based on this, there isn’t an admissions advantage to applying to BU early. I don’t know if there is anecdotal evidence otherwise. (It might be nice to know you got into your first choice school so perhaps that’s another reason to apply early. Weight that against the ED commitment.)</p>
<p>Good point, quakerstake. I think that a lot of high stats kids apply to BU regular decision as a safety, so as you guessed the regular applicant pool is stronger. I do think that ED would still give an admissions bump to a borderline student.</p>
<p>Champs, I know that you don’t want opinions on BU, but feel free to PM me with any questions if you’d like. My D is a very happy sophomore at BU.</p>
<p>It seems like Early Decision is not a very popular option for applicants to BU, with only 883 applications vs. over 40,000 applications in the regular decision pool. That might indicate that it is seen more as a safety school than a first choice?</p>
<p>BU’s website states the following concerning its ED program: “The advantages? Early Decision students have their applications reviewed first, are notified of our decision early and receive priority consideration for housing.”</p>
<p>@champs now you know everyone will be curious what are the two other schools that are in the mix … what are the other contenders?</p>
<p>I was looking back at some of your old posts and now I remember that Pitt was also on your son’s list at one point. Is he aware that Pitt has rolling admissions (and with his 32 ACT I think he would easily be accepted there)? So if he applies to Pitt he should get an early reply and I wonder if that would take some of the appeal away from applying ED to BU? </p>
<p>As you may recall, my D is currently a sophomore at Pitt so if you have any questions let me know. Obviously, Pitt would be a lot less expensive than BU, even if you are out of state.</p>
<p>momjr - Thanks for the offer, I may end up pm’ing you, if my S seems like this is the route he will go.<br>
And yes, pamom - Pitt is definitely in the mix, and the atmosphere reminds me a lot of BU (my S feels the same way). S and I both liked it a lot when we visited. Is your D still very happy there, I remember it was going well last year.
I personally think a smaller school is a better atmosphere for my S. (But this is my opinion, not necessarily his.) Quinnipiac in the mix - I like the size/nice school. I keep wondering if S’s motivation is two things, although he says it’s only about how he feels about the atmosphere at the school: 1) location not too far from home 2) get this over with early</p>
<p>Yes she my D is still enjoying Pitt! It was a great choice for her. Although it is a big school, you can make it feel smaller by joining activities and/or Greek life. Also, depending on the major, it can feel smaller. What is your son interested in studying?</p>
<p>Quinnipiac seems like it would be a super safety for your son do they have a particular program there he is interested in studying?</p>
<p>Please tell your S not to want to “get it over with” early! Imo it’s easy to want to do, but it’s still better to apply and discuss the choices once accepted!</p>
<p>We know three people whose children are at Quinnipiac and very happy. I think we will be looking at many of the same schools as your S (except Quinnipiac, no engineering, right?)</p>
<p>We were in the Drexel area this past summer, so looked while we were there. First college other than his summer program at WPI we looked at. REALLY smack in the middle of the city…not a good option for my S, imo. We will also be looking at Northeastern (another city school), but I read that they had the most applications of any other college last year, so not sure my S will be accepted, although we really don’t know any testing scores yet. (Junior)</p>
<p>We knew two kids at Pitt at separate times…also loved their experience…you know your S better than anyone else…I like the “pros & cons” charts to make the decision process easier…we thought of looking at BU too, but huge school in the middle of a city…will show S that and see what he thinks…closer to us than Drexel if he likes that city atmosphere…</p>