When should I apply?

College Search & Lists
1

Hey everyone! I am a rising high school senior and I have a question about applying to competitive schools with EA, ED I, ED II, and RD.

I am a relatively good student, a 32 ACT superscore and composite and a 4.7 GPA (on a 5.0 scale), with slightly basic ECs: ballet, voice, and lots of volunteering. I have taken ballet since I was two and I have performed principal and soloist roles in classical and neoclassical ballets. I have also attended ballet summer intensives such as Joffrey and ABT. I have been singing since I was in kindergarten and I have attended All Region Choir every year since 7th grade. I sing in my church choir, a local youth choral, and my school choir. My volunteering consists of: tutoring in math, science, and painting at a local elementary school, front desk work at the hospital, serving dinners and sack lunches at the food pantry, perofrming the Nutcracker each year at the children’s hospital, and singing for a Alzheimer group. I have taken 4 AP classes, all with test scores of 4s and 5s, and I will take 5 more my senior year. By the end of my senior year I will have completed: AP Bio, AP Comparative Politics, AP Calc AB and BC, APUSH, APHUGE, AP World, AP French, and AP Lit. My school is very small and does not rank its students. In my school, I am the president of French Club and a member of Model UN, Young Democrats, Interact, Amnesty, and Green Club. I am writing my senior thesis on the Evolution of Genetic Analysis and its far reaching impacts and I have done a summer research project about the Stonewall Riots. I have won my district’s NHD and received the highest grades in my class for French 1-4 and Microbiology.

I am interested in apply to competitive schools with good dance, French, and service or outreach programs such as Barnard College, Tulane University, Emory University and NYU (my top 4).

I would LOVE to go to any of these schools, however I am unsure of my chances. Which schools should I apply to in which term to have the best chance of getting in? I understand some of these schools don’t have EA or are single choice EA and a student may only apply to one school ED. I also know that there is a lot more to being accepted to a competitive school than my small biography above, however, I would appreciate some extra opinions on the matter. My current plan is to ED I Barnard College, EA Tulane and NYU, and RD or ED II Emory since it is single choice EA. Thank you so much!

2

I totally forgot some things that would help someone answer this thread! So sorry, I did not have enough coffee while typing this morning.

For some more ECs:
I am an intern at a local telemedicine company that helps reduce hospital admission rates and helps produce more beneficial student to student nurse ratios. I help type documents and papers and search for federal and state level grants that the company could use or apply for.

I am also working at a really cool summer camp that helps introduce children to the arts. I am teaching yoga, zumba, pilates, jazz, and ballet.

I do over 32 hours of ballet each week during the school year. At my studio I also help with teach the “babies” (3-10) every day except Friday and Sunday.

My volunteering hours are honors (30+ each year) and I won a bronze award for community service (80+ hours) my sophomore year. By the end of this summer I will have over 200 hours of service.

Demographics: I am a white female from a small rural state. My family has an income of over $100,000 a year and my older sister is an incoming freshman at the state university.

I would love to major in French/biology at these schools and eventually progress onto medical school. My end goal is to become a Pediatric Cardiologist and work for Doctors Without Borders.

So sorry again.

3

I think you are almost certain to get accepted to Barnard, but with a $100K family income you can’t expect much financial aid, and Barnard is need-based only. Is your family prepared to pay full cost? You can try the NPC on the Barnard site, but that’s an estimate only. Barnard will consider the fact that your sister is also in college at the same time, but they will look at her actual COA, which probably isn’t too high given that she is attending your state u .

You may do better to skip ED (for any college) - with your stats, you might get good merit-based aid from other schools and you could do better for yourself with the ability to compare offers in the spring. Don’t be afraid to reach even higher and include a school with Ivy-caliber financial aid policies–and also to expand your search to schools that are slightly less selective but likely to be more generous with merit aid.

Bottom line you are going to get accepted to a great college… but you need to sit down and have a very serious money talk with your parents. Don’t lock yourself in ED to a situation that is going to create a hardship for your parents.

4

With $100K and not much assets she could maybe receive over $40K in FA? It’s far from full cost but it still leaves $30K+ to be payed each year.

OP, run the net price calculator…

5

Thank you so much, I greatly appreciate it! I’ve spoken to my parents earlier in the spring when I made an excel sheet of my colleges and they said that they would be willing to pay for a great school such as Barnard or possibly Tulane. I am very thankful. Do you know if there is a different admissions rate for Barnard from ED to RD? I’ve read some schools accept more students during ED than RD and I want to make sure that that wouldn’t bring down my chances. Thank you again!

6

Thank you!

7

Tulane is well known for offering pretty generous merit based aid. They also have an unrestricted EA. I know several people who got an early admit with merit money from there, so definitely worth considering unless you decide to apply ED somewhere else.

8

Wonderful! Thank you so much!

9

The admissions percentage is higher ED than RD, but it’s not a random process so that really isn’t particularly meaningful in your case. You are an exceptionally strong candidate for Barnard and likely to be admitted either RD or ED — the ones who really benefit from ED are probably the students who have strong stats but not particularly impressive ECs. But a lot of ED spots go to hooked applicants including recruited athletes-- the info you have posted about yourself makes it clear that you will be strong in the RD round. Your stats are great. The strong ballet background is a definite plus, – combined with strong community service record and the interest in studying french/biology as a likeliy pre-med student pretty much paints a picture of the ideal candidate for Barnard. Small rural state helps too – adds geographic diversity.

The main beneficiary of ED is the college, not the applicant – the college can lock in mostly full-pay students early in the process – and students like yourself forego the opportunity to compare offers in the spring – and even the opportunity for a little more growth and development over the course of your senior year, because you are essentially making a potentially binding commitment in October rather than on May 1. And most 17-year-olds are a work in progress.

NYU gives terrible financial aid to 90%+ of its students, but it gives generous merit-based aid to a small fraction, and your stats are strong enough that you could be offered one of their more generous scholarships.

By applying ED, you are basically buying into fear of rejection that really shouldn’t be a part of the equation for a strong candidate like yourself. If your heart was set on Barnard above all else, that would be one thing – but you are thinking you will be equally happy at any of the colleges. It is good to apply to Tulane EA – I believe that early applicants have improved chances of getting the best merit offers --and if you applied ED to Barnard and EA to Tulane, you could also find yourself with an extremely attractive offer from Tulane that you had to turn down because you were committed to Barnard.

Your parents statement that they would be “willing to pay” is not enough – parents have a tendency to say that to the kids they love without actually understanding how much they would have to pay – so that’s why you need to have a serious dollars-and-cents talk. Did your spreadsheet include info about cost aof attendance? Do you even have a clue what your family’s FAFSA EFC will be? I am sure that your parents want to pay for the best for you-- all of those years of ballet lessons and summer intensives weren’t cheap – but they earn too much to qualify for really generous need-based aid but probably too little to have been able to put away all that much money in a college savings plan. And stuff happens that can also change the financial picture – so again, I think you will be happier in the long run if you keep your options open. You are going to get into great colleges and it might very well end up that your choices in the spring are different from what you are anticipating now – but you will have good options and choices.

10

Thank you. My high school only gives a brief 15 minute college talk during our lunch time because most of the students go to local schools or have an older brother or sister already in college. There’s some information we discovered with my sister, but a lot I do not know. Thank you so much for your help!

11

We see an awful lot of students out here in the spring whose parents said they would pay, but then are staggered when they see the actual costs. Especially if you are applying ED anywhere, please work with your parents to run the net price calculator on the school website for each college on your list. These days there is no reason to go into applications without any idea of what kind of aid you might get. And while you are technically able to withdraw from an ED acceptance if the schools is not affordable, it is really considered bad form if you didn’t even bother to run the NPC and discuss the costs with your parents.

12

Okay. Thank you so much for your help.