@HiToWaMom Yes, I believe the main reason for EA is to have a decision back earlier. Many are also tied to merit scholarships. For other schools, EA probably provides an advantage for acceptance over the RD round, but I’m not sure how you find this out with certainty. Getting decisions early, including FA and merit decisions, provides you with more time to compare offers.
That’s my understanding anway…
@LMHS73 Sure. Politically I would have loved my D17 to go there. But I read it’s heavily Greek, 75%?, kids dressing up for class, at least nicely dressing I guess I’d say. My D17 is a tree hugger. Won’t wear a speck of makeup. Could care less what she has on. It’s jeans, tshirts and hiking sandals everyday. She doesn’t care at all about ‘fitting in’, she’s her own unique individual, somewhat socially naive. It’s been fine in h.s., I’m concerned about her feeling out of place. She’d be 1300 miles away and she’s going through QuestBridge, so she can’t change schools, and we can’t just fly up there, or fly her home.
EA- you will be evaluated and compared against a smaller # of applicants. The school knows you are interested and organized.
Schools claim a better yield with EA applicants.
You get an answer by the holidays and can think about the final decision a bit longer.
Relieves stress. Peace of mind that you got in. Or you can apply to more schools RD if you are not happy with EA results.
@HiToWaMom For us it all ties to merit scholarships. By far the majority of the schools she is applying to have Oct 15-Nov 1 deadlines for scholarships. Only a few have Dec 1 deadlines.
@HiToWaMom For us, except a lottery school ( to know answer early), all other EAs are merit driven…My impression is for those schools (potential have Tufts syndrome), apply early help with demonstrating interests as well as merit.
If we’re sharing earliest computer exposure, mine was from the days I spent at my uncle’s workplace in the late 70s, playing with PDP-11s. Our first computer at home was the TI-99/4A (right after it came out as an upgrade to the TI-99/4)—I still can’t believe they lost their market war to the less advanced Commodore VIC-20.
I should add that I want her to be done so we can simply enjoy the rest of her sr yr.
QOTD: So my daughter has re-vamped her CA essay, and went with safety prompt #1. In it she describes her unusual use of a tampon as a small child. She is not a very inhibited kid. It’s a pretty funny anecdote. Should she keep the term ‘tampon’, or tiptoe around it with some other euphemism? Or just leave it out?
I told her to keep it in, but thought I better consult with the group.
Can you tell it’s lunchtime here?
@HiToWaMom – here is my reasoning on the advantages of EA. I will use my older son’s app process as an example.
He applied ED to his top choice. It was a bit of a reach, and could have resulted in a deferral or rejection. If that were the case, I wanted more than one data point so that I could know how his application is viewed by a few schools. Having more data points would help inform our next decision: should he apply ED II somewhere during the RD round or just hold out hope that his deferral would convert to an acceptance in the RD round?
As others have said, some schools have scholarship deadlines. Also, nice to remove some of the sting of rejection by having EA acceptances in hand. I realize that I was just adding to the endless cycle of students applying to too many schools…
Can the common app essay be used for all applications if they accept the common app
then just do the supplamental essays
@HiToWaMom, for us the EA is really helpful just to get the ball Rollin in many different respects…
surely at least one will come through and may buffer the rawness of an ED denial/deferral
having some answers back from EA schools may alter (read LESSON) the work load of remaining apps to do if ED doesn’t work out (who knows what the attitude will be by mid-to-late December
for S14, it was excellent indeed (especially with the ED denial) to have acceptances in hand around the holidays (to Uof M eng, Purdue, CWRU with $25K, Centre with $20K, and Tulane with $25k and Honors college admission)…it completely (well, almost) negated feelings of worthlessness related to the ED No. [-O<
@rtidwell …oh I think she should go full on and use the T word! I think at first she should describe it as what she thought it was when she was little and then use the actual word later on in the essay when she realized what it truly was?
Thank you for your input! I totally forgot about EA for merit scholarship. We are not chasing for merit so the only reason to apply EA is to get the decision early. Some schools seem to give little bit of a boost for EA applicants, so I will look into it in Common Data Set.
@rtidwell. The tampon story could be funny but if all it focuses on is something that happened as a small child, that’s not exactly answering the prompt. If it works into a larger narrative, it would be funny and interesting.
@itsgettingreal17 Yes, the reference is just a very short blurb that kind of is exemplary of how she has always ‘been a certain way’. She kind of starts off with this image, and then launches into how she is today.
@rtidwell…opening sentence to S14’s common app related to eating dirt…I say go for it, if it works…
ok you guys got me a little worried about dates for merit consideration. I think I know the following:
Boston U 12/1
USoCal 12/1
How about any of the following?
Fordham LC
Smith
WUSTL
Rice
Chicago
For long-distance college travel, many schools handle this well with a special holiday bus to/from the airport. My D has a 45 min bus trip to a major airport followed by a 2.5 hour flight home at the holidays. Now that she’s a sophomore she has friends who drive her to the airport, as well. I can drop her at the airport here and she’s back in her dorm in about 4 hours.
One of S’s schools on his list would have a similar travel situation. Ironically, some of the schools on his list are closer to home but would take longer to get to.
@HiToWaMom we are doing EA for a few reasons. One is to have decisions in hand earlier but our primary reason is for increased chances of better merit offers. For both FA and merit, EA can have an advantage depending on the school. For S17’s schools, EA does have an admission bump across the board though in most it’s not a huge difference.
In an ED scenario I can see your D’s point. However some do EA to lessen the blow should ED not work out from an acceptance standpoint and the EA’s are more likely.