except how is any of this actionable?
Even a kid “at the tippy top” of the deferral pool needs matches/safeties! A deferral doesn’t mean “you’re next”. It means “we’ll take another look”.
Being “seriously considered” really doesn’t help going forward. Best case, you get good news in the RD round. But that’s not a strategy.
@sbvbab , while most of the very selective schools that offer ED, which is binding, say that there is no advantage to applying early, I believe that there probably is a slight advantage. If a strong student meets some institutional priority, it would make sense for admissions to nab them. Essentially, a first mover advantage.
For non-binding early admissions, which are on your list, I believe there is no admissions advantage. And as mentioned, it takes ED at other schools off the table. Still, for an applicant, it may be valuable. If successful, they may not need to apply anywhere else (although realistically, the dates will require that much of the work for other RD applications will need to be done by the time the early decision arrives) or they may eliminate schools from their list. They may decide, if they are rejected, to tweak essays, add schools to the list, etc.
In my opinion, the biggest decision is whether the student will possibly have a stronger application on the later date. Strong ED applicants deferred to the RD round have the opportunity to add to their file while a rejection in the REA/SCEA round is the end of the road. There is no reconsideration. If a student wins a major competition or award, gets published, earns a higher score, etc., it cannot be added to the application. Because so many of the students applying to these schools are high achievers and unlikely to simply check out after they’ve submitted their applications, that can be a downside to the early round. It doesn’t have to be, but you may want to consider what you may be leaving off the application by applying early.
Good luck in navigating this!
So if my kid were deferred from Yale/Stanford, I would not pull back from other reaches in the RD round. I might also not opt for ED2 if that had been a consideration. Sure, we would still have some targets/safeties, but would be comfortable going reach heavy, so as an example, out of 10 apps, 5 reaches, 3 targets and 2 safeties vs having a more balanced RD list.
If my kid were rejected from Harvard, if the academic stats were borderline, we would increase the number of targets and safeties and reduce the reaches. If the academic stats were at or above the median, we’d take another look at the essays or possibly LoR’s if we think they could be stronger from another teacher.
Fwiw, several cycles ago, a friend was rejected by Stanford in the early round yet got a likely letter from Yale in the RD round. Another got into Yale in the early round and was rejected by Princeton where they were a double legacy. Different schools simply have different priorities. Unless you are the kind of legacy whose donations merit a call to your CC with the decision (which few of us are), you won’t learn much from a rejection or deferral.
If the college uses “level of applicant’s interest” in admission, ED is the strongest possible expression of applicant’s interest and therefore would increase the chance of admission.
As I mentioned, each application will have a separate determination. We can all point to instances of “got into Harvard but rejected by Brown” stories. But if I pull out anecdotes, most of my son’s friends and admitees he met at Bulldog Days had multiple acceptances of T20 schools (like him). Almost all the kids I interviewed and who got in similarly had other T20 choices. Of course there is no certainty until admit day, but it is clear there is some sorting going on. You can ignore REA/EA results, but I think it is helpful in grouping the application generally.
How can that be the case when Yale receives 48,000+/- applications in RD round. Chances are that at least a quarter of these are fairly strong applicants.
I am not doubting “multiple acceptances”. I am doubting that getting deferred by Harvard or Yale is meaningfully predictive when it comes to Penn or Columbia. You are suggesting a rack and stack hierarchy which has led many a kid very reluctantly to the gates of their safety school come August…not a terrible outcome if the school was thoughtfully chosen, but Penn doesn’t care that you were deferred at your top choice…
I’m pretty comfortable dealing with imperfect information, probability distributions, and Bayesian logic, so to me it isn’t a problem that early decisions are indeed highly imperfect information.
That said, I also think people can ignore it if they don’t feel comfortable with that sort of reasoning.
You misunderstood my math. If 5,000 applicants are already out of contention, you are competing with 48,000± + 1,300 deferred applicants. If more applicants were deferred, say to 80%, then the RD pool increases by another 4,400± applicants (5,700 -1,300). Of those 5,000 REA rejects, I suspect a majority are strong candidates.
Speaking just for myself, I would say someone deferred by Yale is likely competitive for Penn or Columbia, and someone rejected by Harvard might not be competitive for Penn or Columbia.
Competitive as applied to these schools to me means an individualized probability somewhat higher than the general observed admissions rate, but still well below 50%, and not competitive means it could be as low as negligible (but this would require further reflection). And then “likely” competitive and “might” not be competitive add a second layer of analysis, sometimes known as “ambiguity”, which reflects the uncertainty associated with the qualify of the information we are using.
If the OP is not comfortable with this sort of logic, including the fact those are inherently probabilistic sorts of propositions, again they can ignore this sort of consideration.
But if they are comfortable with this sort of logic, which includes understanding how those are ONLY probabilistic sorts of propositions, and ambiguous ones at that, then that could be something they consider when selecting an REA/SCEA college, absent a strong established preference.
I’d agree with this as I think they reject the majority of kids who are accepted into HYP anyway. As others have said, because Harvard defers so many, a deferral there is not helpful. But at Yale or Stanford it does at least tell the applicant they are pretty strong. The problem with so many applicants with strong scores (75% of Yale applicants are academically qualified according to Yale) is they don’t know how strong their applications are in the non-numerical factors. Being deferred would suggest that the other qualities are strong but not strong enough for REA.
So for the original poster, their child might have a good chance of being admitted to UCSD, UCSB or maybe Berkeley and UCLA. Knowing this might be reassuring enough to avoid the panic ED2 that some families often succumb to. My S24 was deferred REA to Yale and we definitely considered ED2 to strengthen his chances. But after thinking things through and knowing Yale defers a relatively small number of applicants, it gave us the confidence that he’d get into one of the 6 UCs he already applied to instead of rushing to ED2 somewhere. He applied to another 5 schools RD. Ultimately, he got into Yale and many other schools that we were very happy with - including Penn.
If we are trying to gauge relative strength of your application, getting a deferral from Harvard I agree is meaningless. Getting rejected outright in the early round should however throw up some yellow flags. If you get deferred by Stanford or Yale, there is no guarantee you will get in anywhere specific, but does confirm a relatively strong application. Whether you get in is subject to institutional needs and how the AO’s gauge you, but it is not a random process as there is a lot of commonality in what selective colleges are looking for.
I’ll admit because I am not a huge fan of the one-sided terms of ED to begin with, I have a natural bias in favor of strong applicants not EDing anywhere for just strategic reasons. Fine if they actually have a clear affordable favorite, not ideal in my view if they are afraid they won’t get in anywhere they like if they don’t ED somewhere, and so they ED somewhere that isn’t a clear affordable favorite.
So yes, to the extent a deferral from a low-deferral-rate REA/SCEA college helps them have the confidence to not strategically ED2 somewhere, I think that is a good use of that sort of information. But I did sort of check this theory with the SCOIR data at my S24’s feederish private HS, to make sure it wasn’t pure bias on my part.
And, it did seem to hold up pretty well. Certainly not that everyone deferred by a college like Yale got into Penn specifically, but when I could track individuals (which was possible with distinct enough GPA/test combinations in a given year), it did seem like they almost all did get into some sort of “Reach for everyone” sort of program.
Again, it would be reckless to suggest this means you can safely abandon all your Likelies and Targets. But I was persuaded it was not reckless to suggest they did not have to strategically ED2 somewhere out of fear.
But I really want to emphasize this is all just for the OP’s consideration. I would never suggest anyone MUST think this way when choosing an REA/SCEA school. I just think it is one reasonable approach a person could take.
In my opinion…there are only a couple of reasons to ED at all.
AND
In terms of applying EA, I would do so for any school that offers EA on your application list. Get those applications done and out of the way.
For SCEA, you need to know the rules the SCEA school has for applying to other colleges in the early round.
USC, Wash U, MIT - but not very convinced with the first two, we will apply for sure not sure if it should be EA.
Early Admission (EA…just regular EA) unless the student is applying SCEA or REA and there are restrictions on applying EA, my opinion is the student should apply EA for any school on their application list.
Both of my kids had their college applications complete by October 15…and were able to then enjoy their senior year.
DD applied to two EA schools and one rolling and had admissions decisions from all three by early December. She did add a reach school later, but that was just one application more.
DS was a music performance major. He was able to do two early audition dates, and one special early audition date (arranged by his private teacher). He had those admission decisions by Christmas. His other four audition schools were regular decision. But he had all of the applications done by October 15. As a senior musician, he knew he had to get these done because of music festivals, and the need to schedule auditions.
My opinion…if EA is available, do that…if you aren’t restricted from doing so. Your senior year will be so much nicer once your applications are all done.
While it used to be common a generation ago for EA decisions to arrive before Christmas, OP should keep in mind that that’s no longer the case at many schools — especially popular, competitive public flagships.
I do agree that students should apply EA when possible, but not because they can expect to have all of their EA decisions before the RD application deadlines.
I guess my point was missed…both of my kids applied to as many EA schools as they could from their lists…and quickly realized that they should just do the RD ones as well. They were in the “application swing”, so just got them done.
There is no need to wait until after EA decisions come out to submit your RD applications. You can do them all at once….early. And then enjoy your senior year.
Yes, submitting as soon as you are confident you have your best possible application to submit is quite reasonable.
But different kids reach that point of confidence sooner or later, and that is OK.