Understanding the pros and cons of applying Early Decision

Parent Cafe
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<p>mommabear,
You D should definitely apply to attend one of Amherst’s Diversity weekends in the fall of her Sr year. Get on their mailing list, you apply in June/July and there are two weekends in Sept & Oct. Trips are fully paid for by Amherst. 75% of the students that attend the weekends apply and of those, 75% are accepted. On top of that, if you are also requesting FA, they will give you a waiver for the application fee.</p>

<p>Hopefully this will both give your D an opportunity to see if she likes Amherst, and it will boost her chances for acceptance enough for her to have less concern about applying RD.</p>

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<p>ED is great. AS long as the school choice is in the ‘good enough’ category–ED makes all the sense in the world. If your D likes the A locaiton, A is certianly in the ‘good enough’ category, LOL.</p>

<p>Your D sounds like a great candidate–with a passion for several ECs. Be sure to do a bit of CC research on the best way to present those EC passions. ECs can make or break applications at the top schools.</p>

<p>If your D can score over 720 on CR on the SAT I, her Math score will not be as important although 1450 combined Math and CR is the break point for many of the top schools. With her LD and her strong passion for writing, she may be able to minimize the importance of the Math score. Make sure she gets a Princeton Review list of SAT words, crosses off the ones she knows and memorizes the ones she does know–three or four weeks ahead of the test.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, to play the Fin Aid and Merit Aid game–she probably needs to go into the Regualr decision pile. However, I think she will end up with a myriad of wonderful choices. There is no downside to RD for your D.</p>

<p>Be sure to research the schools known for the best merit aid too–sometimes those packages come with fewer strings/loans attached.</p>

<p>Welcome and good luck!</p>

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<p>For the same reasons your D is intrigued with Amherst (creative writing, diversity, LAC…) she might also look at Oberlin College. I sent one kid to Amherst and one to Oberlin. Both are excellent schools, and there is a good long list of “excellent schools” to consider.</p>

<p>Amherst keeps its ED admission numbers “capped” so they have more to choose from at RD. Oberlin appreciates people who are specifically desirous of an Oberlin education and are ready to say so in their essay, “Why Oberlin?” Both have need-blind admissions policies. Oberlin has a creative writing major but it’s hard to gain admission to it (by portfolio only at the end of soph year). She could take courses as a freshman and soph to help prepare pieces toward the portfolio. Amherst has wonderful creative writing courses, as well as a playwright-in-residence (Connie Congdon) who was my S’s greatest teacher and inspiration. She “could” write full-time but is one of those who adores the teaching process that much and truly nurtures students. Her attention is on her students, in other words, along with her own work. My S applied RD to Amherst, my D applied ED to Oberlin because it was her absolute, undisputed first choice. Both received similar aid packages, atlhough Amherst with its stronger endowment did a shade better than Oberlin. </p>

<p>There are many other differences between these two colleges that will be readily apparent when you begin to research, but both value diversity.</p>

<p>You mentioned her not enjoying maths/sciences. If that was a reason to favor Amherst (open curriculum) I’d suggest a deeper look at that issue. My D also didn’t do well with maths and therefore science. Oberlin has a distribution requirement but also
has formulas for taking “Quantitative Proficiency” credits in certain courses (such as “musical acoustics” or “geometry of architecture”…) that help achieve the required distribution. My D managed to get through her math requirement without having to take the standard College Algebra or Statistics, in other words. I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but it’s an adaptation. Try not to let a Math/Science distribution scare her away or force her hand into an open curriculum LAC (Amherst, Brown); instead, look carefully at how each LAC handles that distribution requirement. </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

<p>I know the most about these 2 colleges, but surely others can suggest a menu of choices where ED applicants could fare well. In sum, I’d say if she becomes dedicated to ED, that would go further for her at Oberlin than at Amherst. Either way, she should apply where she wants to attend, and never ever never apply ED to anything except an over-the-top first-choice “love.” April comes soon enough.</p>

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<p>Mommabear, Welcome!</p>

<p>ED worked for us. My son’s first choice was a substantial reach, they appeared to give advantage to ED applicants, he had visited and was reasonably confident that it would be a good fit academically and culturally, we knew that we wouldn’t qualify for need based financial aid and could get by without merit. So he applied, was accepted and we all had a great Christmas!</p>

<p>In retrospect (he just graduated) I’d do it again in a heartbeat.</p>

<p>Financial uncertainty is to me the major objection to applying ED. It’s fairly black and white – either you can afford to risk it or you can’t. If you qualify for need based aid, you will most likely get it with a ED acceptance. The difference – and this is where the risk factor comes in – is that you won’t be able to compare and negotiate with other offers.</p>

<p>If you’re interested in (or actually must have) merit based aid, then forget ED. You won’t get it.</p>

<p>I think the risk of change of mind between November and April is minimal. Of course it exists, but kids transfer all the time, even those who carefully weigh several offers. Visiting is key, though, especially for small LACs which have distinctive personalities.</p>

<p>There also may be a bit of buyer’s remorse in April when all the other kids are getting multiple acceptances and a sense of “maybe I should have tried X.” For my son this lasted about 10 minutes. As I said, he never looked back.</p>

<p>Risk is the operative word here. You have to bear in mind that risk works both ways. The risk of NOT applying ED also exists. If you child doesn’t get accepted to his/her #1 choice will you and s/he always ask yourselves “could it have worked out differently under ED?” I think this is the key tipping point: Will you forever kick yourself for not allowing her to apply ED?</p>

<p>Many people think EA is a better arrangement. I don’t entirely agree as the whole beauty of ED is that it’s a mutual first choice contract between the college and the applicant. Anyway it’s a moot point if your child’s choice only offers ED.</p>

<p>One other personal anecdote: my son attended an obscure international high school in an obscure third world country. Although the school regularly sends it graduates to top U.S. colleges, no one had gone to Williams for several years. The year he applied and was accepted ED, one of the top students (and I mean TOP in every way – perfect grades, scores, varsity sports, multi-lingual, AND he plays the trombone) decided to apply RD to Williams and did eventually matriculate.</p>

<p>Though my son’s profile was completely different, I strongly suspect that had he applied RD, the college would have made a choice between the two applicants from this high school. So, indeed, not having any control over the RD pool is another risk to consider.</p>

<p>I ardently second the advice not to slough off the other applications while waiting for ED news. Just put the ED application in the mail and pretend it doesn’t exist. In the event that the results are negative, you don’t want to be overseeing 11th hour essays with a miserable teenager on your hands. :)</p>

<p>Good luck and let us know how she does.</p>

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<p>Mommabear, I just re-read the whole thread. As an African American, I’d say your daughter’s motivation to apply ED would be less compelling, especially if she’s interested in small liberal arts colleges. LACs, notably those in rural areas, actively recruit unrepresented minorities. If she’s willing to consider the so-called “second tier” which means less selective but still excellent academically, then she could most likely garner merit aid as well.</p>

<p>Some other schools in the same general feeling as Amherst: Williams, Hamilton, Middlebury, Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Skidmore, Conn College, Kenyon, Grinnell, Colby, Smith. All good LACs have excellent English departments and most have reasonably good creative writing with prominent writers and poets on the faculty. Skidmore especially comes to mind in this area.</p>

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<p>Another welcome.</p>

<p>I agree with unless D is absolutely sure she wants to attend Amherst and you are willing to live by the school’s FA decision, then don’t apply ED.</p>

<p>I agree with entomom that your D should try to apply for the diversity weekend at Amherst. It is probably a modifided application (short essay, transcript, SAT scores if available). IF D gets selected for the weekend she would have a great chance of being admitted.</p>

<p>I also agree with the posters who said that kids grow a lot and change their minds between junior and senior yeat. I first took my D, who is also african american to see Amherst spring of her junior year. When we went, she was like look no further, this is the place. She applied and went for one of the weekends in the fall senior, came back , still loved it but there was also other schools that she loved to. Money was an issue and I needed to be able to compare packages (as momrath stated if your D is a high achieving URM student she is still going to be attractive to a school like amherst during RD).</p>

<p>D applied Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, Barnard, Tufts, Bryn Mawr and Mount Holyoke. Was accepted to all of them. When D took the her final visit she went back to Barnard, Amherst, Williams and Dartmouth. In spring senior year, she said she felt the difference in a school that had under 2000 and a school with 4000 students so Amherst came off the list.</p>

<p>When looking at the package there was about a 10,000 range in the FA package (factoring in out of pocket cost, and I considered loans out of pocket cost because they must be repaid). For us, the Amherst package was significantly lower than the packages from all of the other schools. </p>

<p>Momrath gave you a pretty good list of schools to start with. I also would not sleep on the women’s colleges: Barnard, smith & mount holyoke which are part of the 5 college consortium with Amherst, Wellesley & Bryn Mawr.</p>

<p>good luck and learn to take deep breaths :)</p>

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<p>I just read and appreciated two fine posts from momrath and sybbie, above. A small point of clarification, as it can be confusing: a “Five College Consortium” includes Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst College, Hampshire College and UMass at Amherst. All 5 are located within l0 minutes of each other, connected by free shuttle buses and mutual open course enrollment with a few exceptions re: UMass. In that 5-College Consortium, 2 of the 5 remain all-women’s colleges (Smith, Mt. Holyoke).</p>

<p>On the other 3 colleges Sybbie mentioned (Barnard, Wellesley, BrynMawr), I would guess they are part of academic networks and consortiums, for example, Barnard is closely associated with Columbia. But I didn’t think (and please correct me if I’m wrong, please) the term “Five College Consortium” applies right there. Once there was the “Seven Sisters” when there were 7 all-women’s colleges each associated with an all-male Ivy college, pre-1970’s before some went coed. So maybe that’s also a term now also used for the five all-women’s colleges, located in different northeast communities? I’d like to know how the remaining “sisters” call each other today! (or do they just text message?;)</p>

<p>I’m sure I’m correct about the first paragraph in my post, but find myself uncertain re: para 2!</p>

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<p>I believe the Five College Consortium applies only to Amherst, UMass Amherst, Smith, Holyoke and Hampshire. That’s actually the formal name for their compact, and it’s used extensively on their websites. I don’t think it has anything to do with the former “Seven Sisters”.</p>

<p>I have to second sybbie’s comments, too, about size. My d (not a URM) geared her college search to small schools of about 2500-3000 undergrads(about the size of Amherst). Several people she respected kept touting a small university with about 4200 undergrads. She applied and got into some smaller schools and the university. When she went back to the schools for her overnights, her view had changed from “Will they want me” to “Can I see myself here for 4 years.” She finally decided that, no, she couldn’t see herself there for 4 years; they were too small. She didn’t want to know everyone by the end of her sophomore year. She’s going to the small university.</p>

<p>But asking the “4 year” question was something she couldn’t do during the search process - it was too far away in her life and hadn’t become real yet.</p>

<p>Again, that’s not to say, Don’t do ED. It may be the perfect choice for your D. There’s a lot to be said for being done by Christmas - but of course you’re only done if you get in.</p>

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<p>Chedva’s last point reminds me of another possible benefit of ED: Even if you’re not done by Christmas, there may be some benefits.</p>

<p>One of the admissions horror stories in my daughter’s cohort was a young woman who was thought to be one of the most attractive candidates at her prestigious private school: good athlete, great grades and challenging courseload, 1450 SATs, a record of social service work that was both long and deep, and an understated but luminous personality. She was advised to apply SCEA to one of HYS, but instead chose to apply ED to a well-regarded non-Northeastern LAC that is not as competitive for admissions as SWAP. Her counselors thought it was a safe match. Everyone assumed that she would be accepted ED.</p>

<p>Instead, she was deferred. That was a huge wake-up call for everyone. She had been working on other applications, of course, but they were all roughly at the same competitive level as her first choice. She had a chance to expand her list to include a couple of safeties. The counselors knew that they had to put out some effort lobbying for her.</p>

<p>Obviously, something about her application gave off negative vibes. When the dust cleared in April, she only had two acceptances: one of her safeties (not both) and . . . her first-choice college to which she had applied ED, which she is happily attending. I don’t think you could convince her that she would have gotten in had she applied RD only there, especially given what happened at numerous similar schools.</p>

<p>That said, I agree with the previous posters about the OP’s daughter. The kind of LACs she seems to like do not attract as many top African-American applicants as some of the larger (and more urban) universities. While an ED application could seal the deal, as a practical matter her chances in the RD pool will likely be very good, especially at schools that are only slightly less selective than Amherst.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Just concurring with Entomom, Sybbie and the other posters. This was the single most surprising aspect of the FA process. We thought based on the FAFSA, SAR, and the 568 Group that there would be more commonality in the FA awards. That was not our experience. I loved Amherst, and my non-urm S was an RA early-write, yet the LAC awards were packaged differently than the larger Uni’s that cap home equity in their formulas. Affordability was our concern in not applying ED. Still love Amherst.</p>

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<p>Other mid-sized schools to consider are: WUSTL, Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt and UNC-Chapel Hill. All of these schools have diversity weekends and/or substantial merit scholarships.</p>

<p>If you’re interested in details, PM me.</p>

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<p>“My d (not a URM) geared her college search to small schools of about 2500-3000 undergrads(about the size of Amherst).”</p>

<p>Amherst is actually substantially smaller than that. Its total offerings in creative writing and English are fewer than those to be found at Smith, and I think at Mt. Holyoke as well. </p>

<p>“We thought based on the FAFSA, SAR, and the 568 Group that there would be more commonality in the FA awards.”</p>

<p>We thought so, too, and it was clearly not the case, and ours was a pretty easy FA application (no outside businesses, low home equity, no farm income, etc.</p>

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<p>Kenyon College is a LAC with a strong English Department and Creative Writing program. I know that they seek to attract more students from minority groups, and have merit scholarships designated for such students. I believe they also have a special visiting program for minority and first-generation college students, and they may provide travel funding for this.</p>

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<p>Just a point of clarification about the women’s colleges – I’m sure Sybbie simply was in a rush when she posted & misspoke (or mistyped) – Smith & Mt. Holyoke are part of the 5-college consortium,which also includes Amherst, Hampshire, and U.Mass. The term “consortium” generally refers to a group of colleges that have entered into an arrangement that includes cross-registration for their students. </p>

<p>Barnard is 170 miles away, in Manhattan- and is an affiliate of Columbia, meaning that while the school is very distinct with its own housing, profs & curriculum, course enrollment is through an integrated process with Columbia (with many courses and departments operated jointly) and Barnard students are awarded degrees from Columbia University.</p>

<p>Bryn Mawr is part of a consortium with Haverford and Swarthmore, in Pennsylvania. </p>

<p>The one remaining womens college among the former Seven Sisters is Wellesley, which participates in an exchange that allows cross-registration with MIT. </p>

<p>(I realize that most CC’ers know all this – but Mommabear says she is new to the process, so I am just trying to give a quick overview).</p>

<p>So basically each of these colleges does offer significant study opportunities beyond their own gates. They also can be very competitive in terms of financial aid and some, like Smith & Mt. Holyoke, also offer merit aid to some of their students – so for Mommabear’s daughter, RD applications to Smith & Mt. Holyoke in addition to Amherst might produce results that could make college very affordable, even if the d. ends up at a college a few miles down the road from her former first choice of Amherst. </p>

<p>I am with those parents who think ED is a very bad idea in this case – Mommabear’s d. is likely to be a very attractive candidate to many of these schools. The recent ADHD/LD diagnosis is irrelevant to admissions – it does not require disclosure, so it can’t possibly hurt the student’s chances – and if anything, it is one more reason to go slow about making an early commitment. Given the circumstances, I’d be skeptical of the diagnosis anyway – it looks like there is a well-meaning psychologist who is offering up a label for a math-challenged kid to make her eligible for some accommodations, but I don’t quite see here it all fits in the college application process except as a possible explanation if math performance is particularly weak. But truthfully, the colleges are used to seeing women who are strong in arts and languages and weaker in math – they accept them all the time. </p>

<p>Finally, I don’t think ED is all that much of a boost to “chances”. ED pools are much smaller and they are filled with recruited athletes and legacies, both of whom are under some pressure to apply early and may lose whatever advantage their athlete/legacy status confers later on. I think those factors are enough to account for higher admit rates. I think beyond that, most of the other ED admits are probably students who would have a good chance of admission in the regular pool.</p>

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<p>Seven Sisters:
Radcliffe (merged with Harvard)
Barnard (associated with Columbia)
Wellesley (cross-regsitering with MIT)
Mt Holyoke (part of 5 College Consortium)
Smith (as above)
Bryn Mawr (part of consortium with Swarthmore and Haverford)
Vassar (went coed).</p>

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<p>thanks Calmom!!</p>

<p>It should have been something like this:</p>

<p>Smith & Mount Holyoke (which are part of the 5 college consortium with Amherst), Barnard, Wellesley & Bryn Mawr.</p>

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<p>calmom brings up a good point about small schools. Your D should look at the course offerings in her areas of interest. All of the courses are posted online.</p>

<p>The trick is to try to get her to picture herself as a junior–not a freshman. The freshman experience may be quite similar for many college students. It is in junior and senior year, after the core courses are done, that the colleges begin to take on very distinct personalities. In my opinion/experience.</p>

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<p>Thank you Calmom for addressing the ADHD/LD issue. My D will be a second generation college student. I was first although I commuted to and from a local city college. My D has several college level writing courses under her belt as a result of her participation in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth Summer Program. Does anyone know whether female colleges are more accepting of applicants who are weak in math?</p>

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<p>D1 went through RD, it was torture on her; her senior year was frought with tension.</p>

<p>D2 learned the lesson, did her homework in advance, made the tough decisions. So she was in position to pick an ED school; did so and got in.
It made a huge difference for her senior year. Of course, if she’d been rejected it might have been even worse; at that point you have like a week to make the deadlines for your RD schools. She’d done some of the work, but would have had lots of essays to write, while dealing with intense school work that same week. Yes she knew to do all the apps in advance just in case, but it’s tough to get that motivation when you’re hoping ED.</p>

<p>One refreshing moment during the college search was when, at the info session, in response to a direct question the adcom at one selective LAC just out and said, </p>

<p>“yes applying ED materially helps your chances of admission here. Most schools will deny it, and the stats for both RD and ED pools will look about the same. But at a school like ours, stats are only a small part of what it takes to get admitted. I read these applications, and I can assure you that the bar is substantially higher in RD than in ED”.</p>

<p>We did not expect to get much financial aid, and unfortunately we were not disappointed. There are probably ways to assess your likelihood of getting much aid beforehand. If, after researching, aid seems quite unlikely then maybe, like us, it’s worth it to do ED to get what admissions edge there may be and potentially materially improve one’s senior year of high school.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if financial aid is both reasonably expected and needed then I would go the RD route; aid awards seem to differ vastly.</p>

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<p>I just want to share our recent experience with ED.</p>

<p>D1’s requirement for college was small and not in a an urban location. She applied ED to a LAC in Massachusetts after spending a summer there in a program, 2 open house visits and an overnight. The overnight was the last visit, about a month before the ED deadline. After coming back from that visit, she said that she felt at home there. That was all I needed to hear from her to know that the “fit” was right and ED was appropriate.</p>

<p>We had already played around with the FAFSA calculations and knew that we would not get any FA so we did not have to factor that into our decision. Although our understanding is that the only way to back out of an ED acceptance is if their FA does not meet your needs. I don’t know if any one has any experience or information to confirm that.</p>

<p>As described in other postings, the stress level was pretty low around Christmas when she got accepted. There was a bit of buyers remorse in April, but that didn’t last long for her either. She just completed her 2nd year and she’s very happy with her choice.</p>

<p>D2 also went ED based on D1’s experience and also made many visists before locking in on her choice.</p>