<p>^^How could she not be? 'cause “If you’ve made this effort to be in this room, how could you be asking such a basic question about the school/the process?” Right? Seriously, how many 11th graders in boarding school don’t already know the big name schools are VERY selective. And even if you don’t, it doesn’t take long at all once you start the process to become aware of it. </p>
<p>@2prepmom: I’ve heard about the CC policy at Exeter as you described. Not sure how many BS have a similar policy in place. I know Andover doesn’t although I’ve been told that CCO in such cases would discourage the application to apply to more of the very selective colleges. They just wouldn’t go so far as “forbidding” them from doing so. I think it’s fair to ask these students to at least give the situation some serious consideration. Winners taking all is not the goal here, which does sometimes take away your classmates’ chances and it’s not helping you either because you can only go to one college in the end. While the financial aid consideration is legit, most of the SCEA schools are known to be the most generous to begin with. Although in reality HYP may not give a family exactly the same amount of financial aid, if you believe all of them are reasonably generous and would meet 100% of your financial need, I guess you just have to risk taking some “loss” for applying and getting in your dream school through the EA program!</p>