Hardly anyone breaks EDs of Top 20s except for financial reasons, and that’s acceptable.
Most reneges are in T50-100 where applicant/parent apply ED only to get an unfair advantage knowing well that it’s not there dream school, but just to have a backup in case they don’t get into their top 2-3. This has been a common trend this year.
MODERATOR NOTE: This thread was split from the following:
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/university-of-wisconsin-early-action-fall-2025-admissions/
Can you share this data please?
I’m sorry you feel this way. Kindly/gently…you can’t know why your D may or may not be accepted to a given school.
Again, you can have your opinion. I have a different opinion…because I wouldn’t behave unethically.
It’s less of an opinion and more of frustration. Behaving unethical is out of question for us as well, and hence the reaction when seeing people do it without any fear of consequences.
That’s exactly why I am saying AOs do blacklist schools notorious for soft stand against ED offenders, just that you’d never know it.
As for my D, I do have some idea where she will be accepted/rejected (even though no guarantee). She has to be near/over 75% of the admitted student’s GPA/scores to be competitive; We conservatively planned her targets and reaches accordingly, and so far 100% strike rate on the targets.
Congratulations - sounds like she has some great options!
Thank you. We had to reset expectations that schools like Wharton, Ross etc are massive reaches (in fact near impossible) for us, even with stats in range of their typical admitted profiles. I was really inexperienced and used to think that if my kid has stats within range is enough to have a good chance … lol…
I see so many parents crying on FB groups that they are really sad at being rejected/deferred by every college, and I feel bad for them, but then I know exactly why that happened.
This holistic admission theory is overrated. You just have to know what “holistic” means from a college’s POV, and if it’s going to help/hurt you, and for the most part you’d know your chances.
“Holistic”: nice sounding college admission mechanism, used to gain the maximum personal data to discriminate between students according to unidentified institutional priorities.
This definition is approved by the President of Disgruntled Parents Association … lol…
I’m waiting for a certain admissions professional to correct me.
I think that we’ll see more “holistic” acceptances in RD. EA acceptances are typically a more traditional demographic. But let’s touch base end of March to test that theory. 
This is my first and only child going through college admission. So, yeah, still learning.
I’m already amazed at my own level of ignorance about college admissions through the better part of my DD’s high school journey.
Closed at OP’s request.