<p>I’m thrown for a bit of a loop. Since my son isn’t looking at Ivies, I didn’t worry about Ed. However, Baylor has just added it… What are the pros and cons of ED. He will also apply to TCU, LeTourneau, Louisiana Tech, and possibly UT Dallas. I’m leaning toward just doing Early Action for both Baylor and TCU but not early action single decision for Baylor. Here are his stats:</p>
<p>White male
Baptist
Homeschooled
GPA 3.9
AP Stats 5
Currently taking AP Gov and AP Chem
Dual credit for Spanish I and II this year
Dual credit for Spanish 3 and 4 as well as English
34 on ACT</p>
<p>Has played piano since 1st grade.
Runs sound/power point for church
Mission trips
Youth group
Flag Football
Will be on a bank advisory board next year.</p>
<p>He should avoid it in his situation. With his grades and test score, his probability of admission to all the colleges you list is very high without resorting to ED. Non binding EA without single choice restriction would be the better course. For a school like Baylor, which usually admits about 50% of its applicants, you need ED only if your heart is set on going to Baylor AND your grades and test scores are borderline for admission, which his definitely are not and his stats are likely in the upper 25% of those usually usually admitted to Baylor.</p>
<p>Agree with Drusba, with the exception that if your son knows Baylor is his top choice without question, then ED can also be nice because you learn the decision in early December, which takes some pressure off the last few months of senior year. </p>
<p>The usual use of ED is for those students who love a school that is a low match/reach (ie the 2150 SAT student who wants to go to Penn) or the borderline legacy student at Duke. Then ED makes lots of sense because the admit rate ED tends to be 2-3 times higher than RD–of course some of this is due to athletes etc, but I think there is s still a huge advantage ED for the unhooked student regardless of what the college admissions offices say). </p>
<p>Also, for some Ivies (Dartmouth, Penn, Columbia, Cornell) plus others Duke, Vandy, Hopkins, Wash U, and many of the LACs (Williams comes to mind), these schools are increasingly admitting 1/3 to 1/2 of their first-years ED, which can make getting into these schools RD very difficult for even the best students.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t advise your kid to do ED at those schools with his stats. Even if you don’t qualify for FA, there is good chance of him getting merit aid from those schools, but not if he should apply ED. The down side of not applying ED to his favorite school is he may be rejected because he is overly qualified, but I think the probability would be very low if he could write some great essays to convince those schools that they are right for him.</p>
<p>cortana: you can renege on an ED deal but you won’t have the luxury of comparing financial aid offers like in an RD pool. That’s the freedom you give up when you agree to do early decision.</p>
<p>Have you looked into Trinity U, Tulane, U Tulsa, or Rhodes? All are reasonably close, offer EA, and are a bit stronger academically. More importantly, they’re all smaller than the colleges he’s considering; I think it’s good for students to have at least one LAC/small university on their lists in case they decide a smaller school would fit them best.</p>
<p>@swattiechick Yes i know. You said a con is “cant change your mind” which is not true. That is what i was referring to; i thought it was pretty clear.</p>
<p>^But you aren’t the one making up your mind, the aid package is. Sure you could lie and say the aid package doesn’t work for you when it does, but otherwise no, you can’t change your mind. And no I don’t think that someone who says no to a school they loved so much that they applied ED because of money is making a decision. They’re just doing it because they have to. </p>
<p>Oldfort, they would not reject an ED student because they are over qualified. I think you are referring to tufts syndrome, which is when a school waitlisted or rejects candidates who seem too qualified to protect their yield rate. There is no yield rate for ED- for the most part they’re all coming. </p>
<p>OP, your son should do ED to Baylor only if it is his absolute number one choice and finances are not an issue. Otherwise, he will still have a really good change of getting in and can compare aid/merit packages later.</p>
<p>But you need to withdraw your other applications. Which means that if you get in ED and the aid package doesn’t work then you decline attending Baylor. You can’t decline ED and then just become an RD applicant and then choose based on the other packages. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>^ Oldfort did have it right. He was saying that there could be tufts syndrome applying RD but not ED so that would be a potential reason why an overqualified applicant should do ED to their first choice school. Most would agree that there are stronger reasons not to follow this path.</p>
<p>You need to withdraw your other RD applications after you send in the ED deposit. I got into a school ED and kept my regular decision applications active ( they were already submitted with my ED application). When the financial aid didnt work out i simply withdrew the acceptance.</p>
<p>Thanks. You confirmed what I thought. He will apply to TCU and Baylor on their Nov 1 early action. I just don’t think we need to do the single decision. I just wanted to make sure since I haven’t investigated the decision stuff before since it didn’t apply. I know that TCU isn’t Baptist. Neither is LeTourneau.</p>