Sr. Parents: Question about ED

jamimom
Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:26:12 +0000

Jmmom, your story is great cautionary tale. I too have seen kids who have applied ED, EA and rolling to a number of schools and found that the non ED schools courting of them, and the fact that they are young and we all can change our minds, make them decide that they would rather go elsewhere. And if a huge merit award from the non ED school comes rolling in or notification of some dream program at a non ED school comes, it can be a true conflict. Always happens when you don’t expect it. And you cannot always get out of the binding ED agreement. There are some schools that are just more strict about it than others, some highschool more rigid about those rules, and sometimes the two top choices are colleges that are both big on keeping ED rules intact.

And yet most of the time kids who apply ED are not doing so because it is their one and only to the heart choice, but a school they would be happy to attend and would not mind giving up the other choices. In cases where kids decide to apply early to Brown though they may like Wesleyan as much or maybe even a little more, it is a strategic move, and though not perfect, really pays off in the admissions odds and the relief of having all of this over by December. To be honest, in my case this year, I think I would have gone nuts if we had had to drag our process out to April, given the many problems and issues that have cropped up. At least some things were pretty much established by December and we had that direction mapped. And my son wavered all over the place. He literally changed his ED app to NYU on the way to the post office, and decided to go the SCEA and rolling route.

My older son chose to go multiple EA and rolling without a binding ED because he had no idea where he wanted to go. Whether you go ED or not, it really is a relief to have some school in your pocket in December, that I can tell you. The kids and families who had the most miserable senior years were the ones rejected ED, and were at loss in December as to what to do next, their confidence shaken whether any school would take them.

Also some schools reward ED/EA kids with regard to merit and financial awards (early bird gets the worm) and others penalize them. For BC, for example you HAVE to apply early to even be considered for merit. For Johns Hopkins, ED kids are not considered for a number of grants. Both of these schools are upfront about their policies but many do not mention them, and it is something you may want to directly ask.

The other problem with an early acceptance, which does not seem to be an issue for you, is that senioritus is often a problem with kids, but for those for whom the college process is done in December, it can be exascerbated. The college counselors have told me that so many kids are just psychologically done after first term that it’s like dragging a mule to get them through the school year, to the point that they endanger that early acceptance. I am living this on several fronts at this point.