<p>Oh, one more thing about ED. Back in the dark ages when my kids applied to colleges we learned that merit scholarships tended to be awarded to those who applied for regular admission. There were fewer EA schools at that time and they really varied in how they distributed merit.</p>
<p>herandhisMom, others who have gone through this more recently than me will have more info, but on the question of applying early decision, I dont think things have changed much.</p>
<p>There are both advantages and disadvantages to applying early. One advantage is that a student is more likely to be accepted. There are varying rates for different colleges, but this year the Ivies aceepted a range of 14% (Yale) to 29% (Cornell) of next years freshman class from early admits. [7</a> of 8 Ivy League Schools Report Lower Acceptance Rates - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/ivy-league-college-admission-rates-2013/]7”>7 of 8 Ivy League Schools Report Lower Acceptance Rates - The New York Times)</p>
<p>I saw an article in the Daily Beast a year or so ago that listed a number of good schools that ranged from (IIRC) 30% to 45% acceptance rate for ED applicants. </p>
<p>But youre at a definite disadvantage with FA, at least when its ED (early decisionits a binding choice) as opposed to EA (early actionnot binding) or SCEA (single choice early action). First, because they know they have you, and, second, you cant compare financial aid offers. Financial reasons are a legitimate reason to turn down an early decision (I believe), but when my S was applying, the conventional wisdom was not to do it if FA was essential.</p>
<p>I Just Drive, sorry I’m dense. I’m not getting the point about the unique applicants? Are you saying that the application rates are inflated due to the multiple applications? No doubt. Even so, does this really matter if there are also multiple acceptances? You said the applicant can only attend one school. I assumed you were referring then to the waitlist issue I raised. But if you are saying that no, the waitlist never really materializes (though it does in some years), then are you saying schools overaccept to account for the multiple applications? If so, it doesn’t seem to be evident from the acceptance rates. </p>
<p>If the schools are good about predicting their yield (though I think this is getting more and more hairy!) and waitlists aren’t really an issue, how does the number of unique applicants affect our analysis? I mean, I get that it’s helpful to know how much overlap there could conceivably be in application numbers in order to understand the application rates more realistically but I’m not sure it has any meaningful impact.</p>
<p>In any event, I do think it’s important to look at the acceptance rates within your child’s school. Naviance is really helpful in giving a broad sense of trends even though, of course, it can’t tell the whole story. </p>
<p>Agree that test scores and grades are a starting point. What I was saying is that all the kids walking through the door appear to have the whole package and there’s always a kid who takes your breath away…and often doesn’t get in. Obviously I can’t describe the attributes of specific kids without violating the privacy of those kids. I also agree that bad behavior in an interview would be a huge negative. I’m not sure how much H’s school cares. On the other hand, H would never tank a kid for showing up late so it may be that he’s never weighed in too heavily on the negative side.</p>
<p>My D overheard an interview being conducted for Dartmouth in her school library. The kid was describing his multiple varsity sports, clubs, outside ECs etc etc etc. I told D I’d ask exactly how he managed all those activities, not to challenge him but to gauge his true involvement. She said that the interviewer asked that very question and the kid sidestepped it. Interesting. My older D had an interview with a woman who really liked her, told her she was a perfect fit for the school and a strong candidate. When D related how it had gone, it was clear to me that the woman had laid out a roadmap for D. I could see that this interviewer knew that she didn’t have any real power to get D admitted but that she was telling D if she didn’t get in but still wanted to go how to manage the transfer! Seriously!</p>
<p>Thank you! You’ve answered a lot of my questions already.
I think early summer visits probably will happen, even though I do wish we could have time to go in the fall when the campus is full. But re-visit might be the answer. </p>
<p>One of D’s friends (junior) spent her spring break visited a whole bunch of ivy schools. After the trip, she learned her SAT score was 1680.</p>
<p>Herandhis- some people are not realistic and end up being very disappointed in the end. My neighbor’s son was rejected from all of his schools. I have a friend who truly thinks that her daughter is getting a lot of merit aid to a particular school. The school awards money to students who are in the top 5% of their HS class, and this student is closer to the top 20%. Oh well- they will learn.</p>
<p>All schools over-accept. They have a really good idea how many kids they need to accept to get the class size they want. There’s some flexibility, but not a lot, and they don’t really WANT to go to their waiting lists.</p>
<p>My point is that the Common App makes it really easy for kids to apply to lots and lots of schools, and the most common discussions about college applications scare kids into applying to more and more schools. This would be a good thing if it made parents and kids more realistic about their likelihood of acceptance (and thus identify more appropriate schools) but instead it seems to make people think that college admission is like the lottery, just the ticket is a lot more expensive. So kids apply randomly to schools that may or may not fit them and where their record may or may not make them a match. </p>
<p>It’s mostly just scare tactics, and I find that annoying. It makes some really good candidates under-estimate their desirability (and thus not apply to appropriate, highly selective schools) and many, many others to apply way beyond where they have any chance. Neither of those things are good.</p>
<p>It also means that a lot of the systems get bogged down. DH has complained that because he’s interviewing kids who have no chance whatsoever of attending his alma mater, there may be kids who are NOT getting interviews where it would make a difference to the application. Since not everyone can be interviewed, it would make some sense for someone to do some filtering. That doesn’t seem to happen.</p>
<p>But mostly these large numbers add anxiety to an already anxious process, and it’s just not necessary.</p>
<p>I agree that Naviance is key to getting insight to how your kid’s school is evaluated, particularly if there are either LOTS of data points or very few data points (where you know the kids well).</p>
<p>IJD, what is Naviance?</p>
<p>I Just Drive, thanks. I completely agree.</p>
<p>Naviance is a system that high schools use to give data about their student’s college placement. School’s upload their own data (GPA and SAT/ACT info, typically) into their Naviance database, and it will spit out scattergrams for each college showing the successes and failures (and waitlisted students) that that high school’s students have had at that undergraduate institution. Some systems will show the difference between early apps and regular decisions, depending on what the school wants. It doesn’t show “hooks” of any sort. All you get is GPA vs. test score and an X, W, or +(triangle) for outcome. For large schools, or schools that have been in the system for a long time and generally have kids applying to the same schools, you can see the patterns and know if that school is a reasonable admissions chance for your kid. If there aren’t many data points, it can’t help. If there are very few data points, depending on how your school uses the data, you can sometimes tell which kid matches which data point, so you can base your kid’s chances based on other info. Some schools will not upload data where you are able to identify data points, and if you’re really tapped into the school gossip, you probably don’t need that sort of Naviance data. Naviance also generates a percentile likelihood of admission, but I think it’s not very good at that sort of risk assessment (or I’m not very good at truly understanding what that risk assessment means).</p>
<p>Does that make sense?</p>
<p>Naviance is a great tool and I am looking forward to getting it again soon. It actually becomes quite addicting, just like CC!!</p>
<p>IJD, Thanks. I went to the webpage and got so lost! :eek: will have to figure it out!</p>
<p>I think one helpful feature of Naviance is the college comparisons–comparing numbers of students from a particular HS, how many have applied to a given college and what kind of score ranges they have. I logged in as a guest and really want to get the login for D’s HS to see what kind of stats there are for that particular group of students.</p>
<p>My daughter has decided she wants an urban school in Boston or south of that-it must be in a city where there is shopping. She also is interested in the West Coast. </p>
<p>Any suggestions? She isn’t going to the West Coast I know her-I am thinking North Carolina and Virginia and Maryland-any thoughts? I gave her the sign in info from College Board and told her to start shopping. She absolutely refuses to consider anything in our home state-I am picking my battles here and have encouraged her to shop away but I feel like the frying pan (those of you who know me from the 2011/2015 thread may remember that) will soon be making a return. UGH!!!</p>
<p>Well there is a lot of shopping in Boston, NYC, and Philadelphia. There are also a lot of schools in these areas. What are her interests and what type of school is she looking for? I am not familiar yet with Maryland, Virginia or North Carolina. Mine has not mentioned shopping. She wants a " rah rah" school up and down the east coast and perhaps slightly west.</p>
<p>@pepper, The first school that comes to mind is Northeastern in Boston. This school was on my Ds list this year. We were impressed with the school and I hear they offer decent FA.
It’s a good school to have on her EA list.</p>
<p>NE is a very nice school and they are generous with merit and aid. I was not impressed with the tour that we just went on during spring break. They crammed too many people into the info session and tour. There were not enough tour guides to accommodate so many people, which resulted in very large groups where it was impossible to hear what was being said. We are planning to make a return visit at some point in the near future.</p>
<p>pepper - I can help you with UMD. S1 did undergrad work there and S2 is currently a freshman at UMD. Generally speaking, it’s a “typical” large research state school. I have seen a wide range of rankings if you care about rankings – world ranking ranked it pretty high but U.S. ranking was as low as 50 or so, if I remember correctly. </p>
<p>In terms of admission/merit scholarship, I think it’s mostly numbers driven process - test scores, APs, GPAs…etc. For IS kids like ours, it’s an attractive option - only about 20k/year (tuition and R&B) and kids get pretty good education. For OOS, obviously, it’s not as attractive because of the cost. In terms of shopping/things to do, it’s very close to DC - metro is near campus and (free UMD) shuttle buses run all the time. </p>
<p>BTW, CC has pretty active UMD forum so your D may want to check it out for more info. If you D is interested in smaller private schools near DC, Hopkins, Georgetown, GW, and some other schools are nearby. If she wants a quiet LAC school, you may want to check out St. Mary’s College of Maryland which has a beautiful waterside campus and reasonably priced. </p>
<p>Let me know if you have specific questions.</p>
<p>Her brother is at Northeastern so that is out!</p>
<p>I am interested in UMD I visited years ago when I was looking and found it beautiful. While not in the city it is easy to get into via the Metro.</p>
<p>I found a school for her that she is smitten with-NC State! I am smitten with it too-the price is right! 
She then looked at the ranking and it wasn’t high enough-told her don’t even start with that! ;)</p>
<p>She is all of a sudden very involved in looking at schools-who knows why but it will make prepping for those SAT’s a little easier?</p>
<p>Just booked the SAT/ACT tutor to start at the end of August. He told me that he is almost booked solid for the fall. I live in an area where everyone gets tutored… Not happy but it is what it is. I told my daughter that I expect her to do a bunch of practice tests during the summer. Up until recently my daughter was obsessed with a school’s status and I really had to bring her down a bit. She now recognizes that our top state school is outstanding and we can’t beat the price. For that, I am grateful. For a long time she kept insisting that she works too hard to " just" end up at this particular state school. Now she realizes that kids with Ivy League stats go there because it’s affordable. She is learning.</p>