<p>A friend recently told me that her daughter had applied to Lafayette ED and no other schools. Her daughter is ranked in the top five of her class, most demanding schedule, high gpa and reasoably good SAT - 1350. I think she has a very good chance at admittance but was suprised that daughter didn’t apply anywhere else. Then she said that another senior who I also know applied to the University of Penn ED and no other school after scoring 1400 on her SAT. This person is known to be in the top ten of the class, etc.</p>
<p>Is this smart, to apply ED and then if deferred apply to other schools? Our school has a policy that all transcript and guidance counselor referrals need a 3 week lead time. Just because of that and the small chance of being accepted at Penn would make me advise student #2 to apply at a couple of other colleges now. I barely know the parents of student #2 but do know that she has the one incompetent GC at our school. We have two good and one bad GC. For future reference, are they doing the right thing by waiting to apply elsewhere?</p>
<p>I can’t tell you what the “right” thing is to do. My D applied SCEA to a school last year which is not the same as ED but in any case, she sent all her apps out as she finished them and most were done and sent before she heard from the EA school, and maybe two were done after that only due to spacing the work out all fall. </p>
<p>I would not do what those kids are doing. I would do one of two things:
as my D did, do apps and send them as you finish them all the way through until they are all due
do apps and hold them and not mail them until you hear from ED school</p>
<p>IN both scenarios, the kid is doing the apps before Dec. 15</p>
<p>Just my take on it. I would not want to be dealing with a rejection or deferral on Dec. 15 and rushing to do 7 more apps in two weeks, let alone under those “conditions”.</p>
<p>In my opinion no…There is no room for administrative gymnastics. Schools make rules, many don’t follow them and expect the school staff to just work for them. If something goes wrong they compain about lazy school officials.</p>
<p>Well, I wouldn’t be sleeping at night, but I’m not sleeping now, so what’s the difference?!
I guess the answer is it depends, perhaps everything is together in the GCs office waiting (as some of DD’s applications are), that’s seems OK. But if nothing has been done it seems a little risky, even if the child is a legacy.</p>
<p>The should certainly have the high school send necessary materials to other schools, assuming they even have a list. Unless they know somethign you don’t about their daughter’s chances at Penn (big donation, athletic recruit), it is clearly a gamble to have no other schools’ apps ready to go. Certainly some colleges do have later deadliens, such as Jan 15 or Feb 1, but usuallyl the later the deadline the less selective the school, so one would assume that a girl with strong credentials will have deadline no later than Feb 1, and probabyl earlier than that. Of course a hgih school needs some lead time to send transcripts, and as Christmas break approaches things will be quite hectic; for example, our high school does in fact wait to send RD materials out until after applicants get their ED decisions, but the materials are prepared in advance and is ready to go as soon as it is known that additional apps are needed. Students are told very clearly to get rec requests in early, as well.</p>
<p>I do not think it is a wise thing to do for this reason. Last year my son got all his RD applications in quite early, late October and applied to none ED. He received EA acceptances from Case and RPI with generous merit offers if 17k and $10k(+$15k Rensselaer Medal) respectively. I don’t know about the $10k RPI offer, but people posting here indicated that those who applied late to Case with comparable or better “stats” were not offered merit aid.</p>
<p>It seems that the early applications may have given my son a bit of an advantage in receivieg merit aid.</p>
<p>originaloog, You’re probably right about that. In fact, many schools my daughter has looked at are pretty upfront about actually saying that you need to apply early action or at least by a certain date in order to be considered for the larger merit awards.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s a truly bad idea. If the ED application is rejected or deferred, the kid will have to hurriedly prepare RD applications (assuming that’s even possible without having first lined up recommendations, transcript requests, etc.). Even worse, he or she will have to do it under a huge cloud of disappointment. Not the best frame of mind to approach the important work of applying to colleges.</p>
<p>My daughter has faced the same issue, as she is applying ED. She is applying to a school where it seems her chances ED are very good (as in the Lafayette example above), and will be notified around Dec. 17.
It seems there are two parts to the question of what to do about other applications. First, getting the school to send out the transcript and recommendations on time. Second, submitting the applications written by the student on time if the student is not admitted ED.
Our school used to require that all applications to go through them (3 years ago when my son applied) and they need a long lead time for sending things out, which creates a problem. Now with online applications being so common, they will just send the transcripts and recommendations out if the student says they are applying online (and they wouldnt know if it was mailed instead, if you want to do it that way).
I insisted that my daughter have the school send everything out to all schools she might possibly apply to, as it doesn’t cost anything and they will start a file on her.
As far as her applications, she submitted a Part 1 to the one school which wants it to start the file, and also is applying now to a school for which merit aid seems to be better for early applicants.
All of the other applications are due Jan 15 except one due Jan 1, and all accept the common application with short supplements. It seems that it should not be too much trouble to send these out if she is not accepted to her ED school, although we hope this won’t be necessary.</p>
<p>Thanks all. I didn’t think it made sense but since my daughter didn’t do an ED, I thought I’d run it by this crowd. Now I have to figure out how to get this information to these students without seeming like too much of a buttinski. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Penn applicant did not have back up applications filled out. Her guidance counselor actually told me the other night that apparently the updated profiles are not back from the printer yet but it won’t make much of a difference. He might be right but when kids are applying ED to competitive schools, I would want the total application package to look good and reflect well on our school. Thanks!</p>
<p>At the very least the students should ask for recs and get all the forms together for the RD schools. If the ED school uses the common app, and a good proportion of the RD schools do too, holding off on the essays might be okay. Otherwise, a start on the Common App essay would be recommended.</p>
<p>Penn’s Median SAT scores are:
SAT I: Verbal 660-750
SAT I: Math 680-780
So, the student with the 1400 is below the median. Penn has a reputation of taking a much higher % of Vals and Sals. However, only 47% of Vals were accepted last year. A 1400 SAT student should consider deferral to be a real possibility unless there’s more to the package. You never know. </p>
<p>Did these parents tell you that they were not going to apply to any further schools OR that they had not yet applied. Big difference. Your Ds schools sounds like my son’s in that they work around a predetermined schedule for apps. Keep in mind that students who have applied to an ED school already have their recs written and transcript package prepared because it has already been sent out once. There’s nothing more for the school to do but duplicate the package and perhaps add Q1 grades. </p>
<p>In our case, the amount of responsibility taken on by the school makes the apps much less time consuming for the student. My son will need to submit his list of RD schools to his GC by Nov 30 (is this your school’s deadline?). The school handles sending out his teacher, GC and outside source recommendations and transcript. On his end, he only needs to complete the app (not hard or too time consuming) and write the essay (hard and time consuming). </p>
<p>It sounds like you’re saying that these parents have indicated that their kids will not work on other apps until hearing from the ED school. Penn’s ED decision comes out on Dec 10. As long as the high school has the transcripts and recommendations/evaluations ready to go, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal to wait until 12/10 to work on other apps. </p>
<p>I was thinking that maybe the school GC had conveyed a high confidence level about the ED apps. If the GC is familiar with the ED school (such as you being in PA and Penn being one of the schools) and the ED school is in regular communication with the GC, then there could be a feel for how the student stacks up against other ED applicants from your school. If the ED school takes kids from your school every year and the GC knows that a particular kid has the strongest/second strongest app of the lot, the chances are pretty great that Penn will accept (as long as they fit the academic profile). </p>
<p>My son has decided to work on his Common App essay between now and 12/10. But, he’s not going to work on the apps or the supplemental essays unless he is deferred from ED. Maybe this is what those other students are planning.</p>