<p>There are kids and families whose goals are to get acceptances from the very best college possible. ED is used as an additional tool to that end, and the actual college is not important. In such cases, if the chances of acceptance at Princeton are truly abysmal, but that, say Duke or Johns Hopkins chances start looking possible at the ED stage, but would be so good RD, weighing the numbers, an app to Princeton would be a throwaway, or lottery ticket, and trying to decide the pros and cons of schools in that next category would be the focus.</p>
<p>That’s a whole other story than one gets with someone who has been a Blue Devils fan for a while and fervently wants to go to Duke. </p>
<p>This is a discussion worth having with counsellor, parents and student as to what the goal of all of this is. </p>
<p>Not something that has ever come up with my family, as my kids absolutely did not want ED. They wanted the choice later on among a number of schools and could not pick any one school that they wanted to consider any commitment to early in the process, though it could have benefitted them stats wise for acceptances at some schools.</p>