<p>Most athletic recruits apply ED and that will skew the higher ED acceptance rate higher, especially at smaller schools. Personally, I still believe there is a slight advantage to applying early decision for many schools.</p>
<p>It IS states in the college counseling “handbook” that ED instead of EA does increase chances. How big of increase for the super selective ones is another story.</p>
<p>It’s interesting, though, that one can look at EA admit rates and ED admit rates and see that they produce similar “bounces” in the admission rates, but EA admits are generally reserved for the superstars – the people that the college wants to connect with as an admitted prospect as early as possible so that these students will commit to attend ahead of April or feel too strong of a connection from mid-December through March to accept other colleges once the RD round decisions are received in the mail.</p>
<p>Yet, when the ED figures are posted, people assume that there’s an advantage to be had that would make it more likely for them to be admitted if they apply ED versus RD. Only at those colleges where they track applicant interest does it give the AdCom a sense that “this applicant genuinely wishes to attend our fair institution of higher education” – but, even so, there are myriad other ways to convey that to the AdCom (like visits, scheduling overnights, a “Why [This University]?” essay that shows the applicant “gets” us, sending score reports early or, if applicable, sending one of the two complimentary PSAT score reports in May, etc.)</p>
<p>I think we can all agree that the whole system of ED1/ED2/RD is there for the benefit of the colleges, not the applicants. And I think we can also agree that there is no intentional (or even unintentionally desirable) impact to a college creating a back door mechanism by which less-qualified applicants can secure admission to a highly competitive college that they otherwise would be denied. Any bump that exists is both undesirable for the college and something they would actively try to guard against. And that means any bump that does exist, IF it exists, is going to be negligible and it should not give an applicant cause to believe that they can reach a little further and a little higher and get admitted to a college that they normally would be advised against applying to.</p>
<p>That said: if it IS your first choice and your application is complete and totally awesome by the Nov. 1 or Nov. 15 deadline, you should absolutely send it in. But if you’re waiting on an award or haven’t quite completed a senior project, if you’re hoping your grades will improve a little more, or if you could stand to polish your essays just a little – STOP! – because even if there is an advantage to be had, you’re probably giving it all away and then some if you’re sending in an application that is going to be even slightly less excellent than the one you would send in by the Dec. 31/Jan. 1 RD deadline. </p>
<p>It is very easy, I think, to outgame yourself if you try to game the whole ED/RD situation. Don’t look at the ED numbers and think, “Oh my God! They fill up 40% of their class with ED applicants…I’ll never get in if I wait!” because – if your application isn’t totally amazing as of the ED deadline – you’re probably decreasing your chances of admission by not waiting. Panic should not be your guide.</p>
<p>D’Yer Maker, I don’t think that the early rounds grant admission to “less-qualified applicants.” If they don’t have a chance at admission in the later rounds, they won’t be admitted in the early round, either. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think it benefits the applicants, too. It is ridiculous to hear of high school students applying to more than 10 colleges. The early round gives some students the chance of applying to one (1) college. It also clears the pool of some of the most competitive applicants–the amazing athletes and scholars. The student who gets into Harvard University has great chances at every other college in the pecking order. The student 0.00015 grade point lower might lose acceptances to all the competitive colleges she applies to, if the Harvard kid applies RD. It’s possible to gain 15 acceptances, but you can only attend one college. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In our extended family’s experience, the FA awards for ED applicants to colleges are generous. After all, if the awards aren’t sufficient, the applicant can apply in the normal round. </p>
<p>As a thought experiment (because they’ll never do it), I think it would help matters if some boarding schools were to offer early decision rounds. I find the entire “1st choice letter” practice difficult to swallow. Does not submitting such a letter put an applicant at a competitive disadvantage? Yet do the candidates really know enough to write a 1st choice letter? Isn’t it the parents’ opinions, in the main, which would dictate such letters? Why not do it out in the open, and give all candidates, not only the Greenwich, CT applicants, the chance to state a first choice on equal footing?</p>
<p>I agree with all of that. </p>
<p>When you said you didn’t believe the AdComs who say that it doesn’t matter what round you’ll apply in and posted the admission statistics from the NYT “The Choice” blog…I thought you had fallen into thinking that individual applicants boost their chances of admission at a particular college by applying early. So I agree that “If they don’t have a chance at admission in the later rounds, they won’t be admitted in the early round, either.”</p>
<p>When I said that the ED1/ED2/RD system is there for the benefit of the colleges, I spoke to the raison d’etre. I didn’t exclude the fact that there is some benefit for (ED-admitted) applicants in terms of peace of mind, reduced effort, shortened admission season, and fewer applications fees paid. And your point about ED1 removing stars from the picture, keeping them from competing in the RD rounds is well taken – and it’s another reason why waiting for the RD round isn’t so awful (although I do think that admission offices compensate for that fact in their anticipated matriculation algorithms, understanding full well that superstar applicants will have choices to make and it won’t necessarily be their college).</p>
<p>But I think you misread my point about financial aid. I agree with you as to need-based aid awards not being impacted by the timing of an application. My warning was to families hopeful of obtaining merit aid as ED applicants from those colleges that offer merit aid. I suppose it does occur, but they don’t need to throw merit aid money to convince applicants to attend when they’re contractually bound to do so. The exception to that would be for applicants who are in that middle area where the need-based award may be insufficient [to justify a decision by] the family to walk away from an early decision admission to the applicant’s first choice college and the college realizes that it needs to supplement the need-based award, outside of the financial aid formula, to keep that applicant in the fold. That would be a very narrow exception and one you wouldn’t want to gamble taking if you think merit-aid will be important to the college selection.</p>
<p>Correction/clarification (in brackets): “The exception to that would be for applicants who are in that middle area where the need-based award may be insufficient [to justify a decision by] the family to walk away from an early decision admission to the applicant’s first choice college and the college realizes that it needs to supplement the need-based award, outside of the financial aid formula, to keep that applicant in the fold.”</p>
<p>The article @winker425 referenced is being hotly discussed in the College Parents forum as well (As A Broader Group Seeks Early Admission, Rejections Rise in the East). I just don’t understand all the college angst. Isn’t this journey just about our kids getting a great education? There are so many colleges and universities where that occurs, I can’t believe that all of our children (especially BS children) wont get a seat at a perfectly fine table. Why all the number crunching over the spots at just a handful of schools? Is this really what people care about? If a great education is the goal, there are plenty of seats. If prestige is the goal, I guess Im on the wrong board.</p>
<p>Sorry–didn’t mean to sound snarky. Just hoping we’re all not so concerned about the shrinking odds at a few schools that we miss the goal of this amazing journey.</p>
<p>College angst is pretty easy to understand. I know this view willl not be popular, but I do believe that the limited number of seats at top schools (say top 50 schools, not just HYP) is troubling particularly for BS students. Frankly, these kids get a tremendously rigorous and high level education in BS, and I for one, want to see my kids to continue being surrounded by top students on the college level. I want them around intellectual, motivated and interesting kids. Yes, there are likely some of these at all colleges, but harder to find everywhere. Let’s just say that many colleges (including those the BS talk about for “fit”) are not bastions for intellectualism. At $200-300,000 for a college education, after paying $160,000 plus for BS, you betcha I care very dearly about my kid being at a school surrounded by stimulus and opportunity beyond drinking.</p>
<p>Erlanger, yes, but you have said before that your child is at an “Acronym” school. Every kid that we knew or that my children were friends with in (two different graduation years) got into schools in that Top 50 category- I’m not sure where the angst is coming from.</p>
<p>They didn’t all get into HYP (but frankly some them weren’t interested in those schools) but certainly had many other good choices from any ranking list out there.</p>
<p>Bingo @baystateresident! I wouldn’t have sent my son so far away if I weren’t concerned about the quality of his education and how BS compares to what we have locally, but there were many, many excellent boarding schools to choose from, not just five. Same logic for college. Anyone who thinks that the pool of intellectual stimulation is drastically less just 50 schools down the list is mistaken. I even think 50 is a short list. So, if you add up the available seats at just those 50, you have a pool that will more than absorb all of our BS kids and provide all the intellectual stimulation they seek/can handle. When you start narrowing the list to “just those few”, I’m afraid a great education is probably not your main goal.</p>
<p>Even at Acronym schools it is not 100% at Top 50–closer to top half of class. My DC is going to be okay, but my point is that the anxiety is understandable even for students at top BSs.
[Boarding</a> School Stats : Matriculation Stats](<a href=“http://matriculationstats.org/boarding-school-stats]Boarding”>http://matriculationstats.org/boarding-school-stats)</p>
<p>To erlanger’s point, as a parent you know that many of these schools are crap shoots and then you see the numbers and you start to worry that if your kid has (humor me about these numbers being reliable) a 80% chance at his or her top 5 choices, there’s still the possibility that the 20% outcome will hit 5 times. You do these things to yourself as a parent, because you want your kid to get into the college that your kid has identified as a great place…whether it’s an Ivy or not. For a BS parent, you just spent a lot of money to make sure your child has options – whether they’re Ivy or not, you want your child to be doing the choosing and not be boxed in. So you care about these outcomes.</p>
<p>The whole Ivy/Top 50 thing is not even a factor at this stage of the game. These numbers freak people out after the choices have been made for applications. At this point in the admission cycle for high school seniors the universe of possibilities has been narrowed to a fine point and you’re looking at only a handful of colleges. And if you’re looking at this particular “early decision” chart from the NYT “The Choice” blog, it’s probably because your child was NOT admitted during the first early decision round (possibly on account of not applying ED anywhere, but definitely not admitted). So the numbers that jump out at you are all the slots taken from the next year’s class. You understood that it would be competitive. Maybe you’ve got that 80% number in the back of your head. And now you see that 1/3 of the spaces for next year’s class were just gobbled up before your kid sent in the RD application. Nevermind the fact that the odds account for (or build in) the early admits…you’re looking at it this way:</p>
<p>25% overall admit rate – yikes.
1/3 of the slots spoken for now.
My kid’s application is now in a much larger RD pool and only 2/3 of the seats remain in play.</p>
<p>That’s not comforting. There’s a certain mathematical bumbling that’s going on there, but it’s difficult to step back and be realistic – partly because the Common Data Set and other admission statistics don’t give you the information you need to process this early admit data in an honest way. You have no choice but to speculate and let your imagination fill in the blanks. And when is that a good thing?</p>
<p>So why speculate? Why even bother with all these numbers? You can’t control any of this. All of our kids will get an excellent seat somewhere eventually. I haven’t seen any threads about BS kids who never got into college at all. The angst appears to be over parents/kids worrying about getting into their top choices, whatever they are. I can understand dissappointment if that doesn’t happen, but there are so many other seats available for those kids at other excellent schools. I trust they all eventually do find a place and go on to lead well-educated, productive lives. What good can possibly come from all this useless analysis? We’re paying $200K for a great high school education. We’ll pay $<whatever> for that great college education, wherever DS ends up. That he’s happy and well-educated is all we care about. Heck, he’s happy and well-educated now. ;)</whatever></p>
<p>Choatiemom- yes, exactly! A lot of the fretting I heard last year was along the lines of “My kid has to go to Johns Hopkins instead of Yale.” Oh, please! They are all great schools! I don’t think that anyone from our rural local high school had ever been admitted to either of them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Stop trying to inject rationality into the process.</p>
<p>Having just watched my daughter go through the college apps process, I agree with ChoatieMom that there are lots of great colleges and decent students aren’t left out in the cold. When I saw her list, I knew I would be thrilled for her to go to any of them. </p>
<p>I’ll add that the numbers are less troubling than one might think looking at the Matriculation Stats link that Erlanger posted. I think it’s a very well done, interesting site, but plenty of strong schools that don’t get counted: e.g., Holy Cross, Trinity, Olin, Dickinson, the service academies, as well as European universities in the home countries of some of the internationals. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, while it’s no tragedy for a kid to end up at Hopkins when he had fallen in love with Yale, but we all want our kids to get their heart’s desire when they’ve worked so hard. Plus, our kids are at school with (1) kids whose parents don’t have the same sensible attitude as ChoatieMom, baystateresident, etc., and thus have pressure from home and (2) kids who are getting into those dream schools. High stress all around!</p>
<p>ChoatieMom, why the angst? Well, decades ago, a cousin of mine applied to two colleges from his boarding school. (I have this story from his sister.) I would guess that this was his fault, not his school’s–he’s always been overly impressed with himself. He was very lucky one of his two colleges accepted him.</p>
<p>His brother, attending the same BS, was a second semester admit to his backup school. As I know him, I’d say there was nothing in his record which would have led one to think he would have found himself in that position. </p>
<p>In short, smart kids at good schools can make strange decisions, and the process can be rocky, even if it ends well for most.</p>
<p>@Periwinkle, I doubt any of our kids will be applying to only one or two schools, but even the kids in your tales did go to college. How many seniors from our kids’ boarding school, who did not opt for a PG year, did not get admitted to any college last year? Or the year before that? If the overall matriculation stats were low, I’d be concerned, but it appears that all BS kids end up well-placed eventually. Let’s face it, the real issue here is dissappointment over not getting into your first or second choice. I would argue that most of those choices are pretty arbitrary, and there are plenty of seats at excellent schools for all of our children.</p>
<p>Drinks anyone? ;)</p>