One reason my son applied ED to one school and EA to several others at the same time was to get more than one FA estimate. The college noted that the student must accept the offer if the FA award is given and makes the college “financially viable”. We had other FA to compare to because of the EA applications.
If for example one EA and the ED school were switched, we would have likely still had him go to where he is attending because the FA was 15K different per year (due to merit aid based on SAT scores at the college he is attending). He also was borderline honors (based on stats from CC posters) for that EA school, and one would expect that his FA would have been a lot more - possibly 25K more per year - if he was accepted to the honors program at the EA school.
Of course, we also had in our back pocket a rolling admissions school that was far cheaper but lower reputation (but still ABET-accredited in his major, so would have been okay). Good friends attended his college so that was a factor as well; the financial viability of the college is in question as there are significant health issues and job issues in the family, so time will tell if he can stay four years.
(we have warned him, that although if nothing changes, he can attend four years, if something does change financially due to health or job issues, him changing colleges will be on the table)
starting this process with D18 soon. He is already starting to think about where he would like to look. He is thinking schools with less than 10,000 students in the midwest. Grades are good. 3.85/4 UW after freshman year, he will have good EC’s and a job. My guess is he will end up with about a 30 on the ACT. 26 freshman year without getting extra help for math yet which will we will do. He is thinking a history major maybe go to law school maybe teach. We were thinking of looking at Butler, Dayton, maybe Denison, Hope College and Hillsdale? Any other ones we should be looking at?
@wrights1994 - how small does he want to go? Other good options would be Grinnell. Mcalester, Carleton, Depauw, Case Western (I know it’s mostly engineering/pre-med but great school and good scholarships), St. Olaf, Kenyon, Wooster - these are all pretty small - under 3000 (except for Case Western) . Of those we visited Butler (really liked) and Depauw (liked but university and town too small and CWRU (really liked). Not a lot of options between 3K and 10K size.
Grinnell has a good rep, even here in the Northeast. Great your 2018 is on the ball, mine has no idea what he wants to do so we are sort of planning for a gap year (or years) if he isn’t settled. My 2015 pretty much knew freshman year what he wanted to do.
@singermom4 and @rhandco, I will put those on our list. I don’t think he would get into CWRU… two of s15’s friends were WL there with 33 and 35 ACTs. I knew you all would have more ideas for me! We recently traveled to Spokane and looked at Gonzaga and Whitworth. He loved Whitworth and really liked Gonzaga. We have family there so that is the only reason he would consider going that far away.
@wrights1994 - CWRU is a bit odd in that high stats kids are often waitlisted because it is known to be an Ivy back up plan. They also take many kids off the waitlist - did s15’s friends accept a spot on the waitlist and if so, what was the outcome? My S15 had a 33 ACT and unweighted GPA of 3.5 (weighted was 4.3 - he had a lot of AP classes) and he was offered a 22K scholarship so I wouldn’t take it off your list. Also, consider what type of environment he wants (urban, rural, small college town). S preferred urban and that ultimately ended up being a deciding factor.
@singermom4… we will probably visit and see what he thinks. Thanks for the heads up on the stats. Both of S15’s friends are going to the University of Michigan - AA (in state for us)
So S just returned from orientation at the University of Michigan. It went really well, he had a great time and he is happy with his schedule. 16 hours, though he may add a research hour or two if he can get in. He is currently on the WL for the research program.
Driving home we talked about what he had learned and what I had learned in the parent portion of the orientation I attended on Monday. We talked about the career counseling and how he needed to get in there right away when school starts to try to get moving on internship opportunities. They told us that more and more companies are coming in wanting kids after their freshman year to get them hopefully coming back several summers and then employing them out of school. I felt like we are already pushing on to what’s next without even hardly taking the time to enjoy the here and now! Crazy! I know that these four years will fly by too!
For schools like CWRU they may want to keep their yield (number of students attending out of those admitted)…so they may say if you are a good match they might admit you…but then if have a 2400 SAT they may think probably you might go somewhere else, so they might waitlist you…but then if they do want you they would say “If you got off the waitlist, would you attend?” if you say Yes, then they get another admittee that turns into a attendee so that helps their yield.
My son’s friend had something like a 4.4 GPA and was deferred from EA at UMich. He sent a letter about how UMich was his first choice and how he was born in Michigan and his extended family lives there. He did get accepted and is attending.
Looking for the right college is like shopping, but it is shopping from both sides. They are shopping for the “best student body” and have to put it together from individual students. The student is shopping for the “best college experience”. The reasons each side is shopping are many - the college wants money from enrollees, but they want to maximize their reputation as well. The student wants the best value - if they pay more, they want more - but they may want the best education or they may want “the best fit” which could be a balance of education and extracurriculars.
My son never went on a tour for a college he was deferred for, and they specifically asked on the Common App if he did (we assumed they had lists, so although we went on our own tour, he never went on an official tour so didn’t want to lie). I believe that may have been why he was deferred, though accepted at a better school ED.
It would be VERY interesting to know one specific thing - do all schools triage applications - and how do they do it? For example, if an Ivy admits 50% from the Northeast, do they look at students from the Northeast first, pick the top students to get to that 50% number, and then put the rest aside, and THEN look at applicants from other areas? Or do they have the ability to look at all 2300+ SAT students together, and admit only a certain percentage of them (comparing students to their own “cohort”)?
Very interesting when you think about it. That is, it may be 100% true that being rejected - or accepted - may be more a function of something beyond your control than of your application, abilities, and experiences.
I think it might be even more emotionally taxing to know the exact process behind each school’s admissions decision. In some cases, not knowing is really better. It’s aged me, watching my daughter go through this, and it was hard to focus on the highs when the lows were so wrenching. I hope 2018 Son’s journey will be somewhat smoother now I’ve seen many things to avoid.
With the number of applicants increasing, more schools are now accepting a much higher percentage ED. For example, this year, Northwestern accepted just over half their freshman class ED so RD was particularly competitive. It makes sense of course to admit students who not only meet the university’s criteria but also are willing to commit early. I think in future, if a student has a strong desire to attend a specific university and can afford it then ED (where available) will need to be the strategy for a reasonable chance of admission.
@albert69, there are actually fewer graduating high school now than 10 years ago (from the US), according to demographers. The number of college applications submitted per candidate is increasing; and the schools are looking to rise in the rankings with low acceptance percentage and high yields. I believe that all of this plays into the shifts in how schools use waitlists and ED, as well as “demonstrated interest”.
More advice please: How should a student answer the question on a college’s own application about where else the student is applying?! D16’s inclination is to leave to blank.