Congrats! I’m really interested in this specific issue…your child was accepted ED but then subsequently was accepted elsewhere with a pathway to return sophomore year. Is he considering transferring to Georgia Tech? Do you have to “accept” the pathway to confirm possible interest?
I ask because my child is in the same boat at different schools…accepted ED and committed to attend at one school, and received a guaranteed entry sophomore year elsewhere. Honestly excited about ED so no question that we will uphold that commitment to enroll. But I’m wondering if it’s “allowed” to hang on to the non-binding sophomore pathway at another school. There is a specific reason my child might be interested in the other school, but at this point definitely planning 4 years at the ED school. Our school counselor says we should drop the sophomore pathway option because accepting it is “not in the spirit” of ED. I get her point but I’m also torn and hadn’t really heard about this possibility before.
Is your son considering keeping open the option a sophomore transfer after enrolling at his ED for freshman year?
You do not need to accept pathway to GT. Your child can go study, take required classes and credits per year for tranfer to GT and get needed GPA, and then decide in a year. No strings attached.
Ga Tech does not require us to accept the pathway. As far as I understand, their pathway means the student is applying as a transfer (and I know it is the same transfer application), just that there are very specific requirements in order to be accepted as a transfer, but no commitment to apply. It’s assured one direction (school will take you) but not the other (you will apply).
As far as the ethics of going ED but planning to do a pathway, I’m not sure. I would say no student knows they will stay for 4 years at any college since so many things can change. I’m not sure if timing makes a difference. If you ED and then get a pathway, is that bad? We got the pathway and then applied ED2, and our intent is for him to attend 4 years at NU. But would doing the pathway affect future applicants from our high school? Yikes…
In your case since you don’t have to accept the pathway, and it’s just a future option, I’ll bet it doesn’t have a negative impact on future applicants from your school. All good!
In our case we would have to “accept” the pathway even though it’s non binding. So it seems like accepting it could be viewed negatively in light of ED.
Not Georgia Tech. Completely different schools than the other poster is discussing. And, yes, we would need to accept the pathway to keep the option open through next year but accepting it is non-binding on us.
Did the guaranteed soph transfer acceptance come before or after the ED acceptance? If before, technically the student should have declined once they received the ED acceptance. And once accepted ED, should have pulled all other applications.
I understand this thinking, and if your student does decide to keep open the transfer option they will have two choices a)get the counselor on board or b)accept the transfer option and not tell the counselor, which is obviously not great.
The soph transfer option came after ED. My child pulled other apps after ED acceptance but in the case of this particular school they had just submitted the application an hour before receiving the ED acceptance elsewhere and did not have a portal yet. They sent an email to the general admissions email requesting to pull the app but clearly never followed up. Just set up the portal last week when she received an email about the decision. Upon setting up the portal we found that the application is incomplete because she never sent first semester grades…because she thought she had withdrawn.
Anyway…will probably drop the option because she was never even thinking about it. It’s tempting though to have an option of another school she really likes just in case.
