<p>Responding:</p>
<p>ucb - Oh dang. I was afraid that might be the case about ED. Just hadn’t looked up the details yet. I’m going to leave it up to the family to decide if he’s ready to make that potential commitment. Also, he will have safeties in the state schools. We will look for merit schools/safety schools in a similar pass, although I understand these will not overlap altogether.
lookingforward & twoinanddone - His family is comfortable with applying to 20 schools. That’s how they do things, I’m not going to advise differently. They have a lot of energy:).
GreatKid: I am absolutely passing along the recommendations for a counselor to focus on the essays. His grades have a back story, given the divorce, the move to Europe with a stepfather, etc., albeit not a terribly dramatic one.
quietdesperation: We need to look into EA/ED/ED2 at the next level of detail. I am waiting to review the list at a high level first, so the boy develops a little more clarity as to what he really wants.
calmom: Xiggi has made the point that if the boy can raise his CR score (700) up to something like the level of his M score (780), that does change the picture. I asked my son the boutique SAT tutor for advice, he said the kid is smart, no secret strategies to impart, just study the SAT vocab and sit the exam one more time to see what happens. This makes sense to me, the boy has not been a reader of big word books so far, and could without a doubt enhance his vocab with a little sustained effort. The issue isn’t sheer word knowledge, but the reading paragraphs usually include several more complex terms, and if you don’t know those you don’t read the paragraph correctly.</p>
<p>Also, yes, he really needs to look at the essays now.</p>
<p>xoxo everyone!</p>