Best use of ED

[Anonymous]

Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

This was my DDs experience at UVA

[Anonymous]

We're in a similar position and I think my daughter is going to be cautious.
She is very top student at a DC private. She's likely going to ED for Barnard. She'd prefer Columbia but it's a lottery ticket at baseline plus there will be far more kids from her school EDing there (legacies, URMs, unhooked smart kids, etc).

[Anonymous]

Struggling with this. My DC is very stats at a DC public/strong applicant but knows many others are too. Does not have a clear first choice; but does think there are few (that are pretty different) that he would be happy with that range from lottery Ivies to slightly less competitive SLACs. Hard to know whether to randomly choose one of these to ED at (or two to ED 1 and 2 at).

[Anonymous]

Used it for a high target/low reach SLAC that was my DS’s top choice. He got in. He is not an athlete but I noticed on the school’s parent FB page that almost all of the other ED admits were athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Used it for a high target/low reach SLAC that was my DS’s top choice. He got in. He is not an athlete but I noticed on the school’s parent FB page that almost all of the other ED admits were athletes.

My kids were recruited athletes (1 at D1 Ivy and 2 at D3 NESCAC; all were required to apply EA/ED. Legacies are also told to apply EA/ED if they want that hook to count. For these reasons, the EA/ED stats can be of little relevance to many applicants.

[Anonymous]

I think the “clear first choice” prerequisite is bad strategy.

It may be that ED rates are not as good once you back out the athletes, etc. It is also true that every school is different.

That said, as a rule, your chances are better for ED than RD and EA. Many schools fill up 80% of their class with ED. Of your kids goal is to find a spot at a top school that he can be happy at, then ED at place where you’re a high match or slight reach. Do not blow it on an Ivy unless you have hooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're in a similar position and I think my daughter is going to be cautious.
She is very top student at a DC private. She's likely going to ED for Barnard. She'd prefer Columbia but it's a lottery ticket at baseline plus there will be far more kids from her school EDing there (legacies, URMs, unhooked smart kids, etc).

That would be a great decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

This was my DDs experience at UVA

This was DS’s experience at Duke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

This was my DDs experience at UVA

This was DS’s experience at Duke.

So Duke (and schools of that sort) can be considered high matches?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A family friend in CA whose DD went through the process last year is an example of what not to do.

DD was 4.0 UW GPA, 1590 SAT, 10+ APs, and Asian, full pay, Duke and Michigan legacy.

DD applied ED to Brown because that was her dream school and was denied.

However, if it had been my own DC, I would have pushed for Duke in ED and be done with it, as that would have been the best strategic use of the ED. Brown was a reach for her.

She was admitted in RD to WashU, Amherst, Georgetown, Duke, Michigan, UNC, Carleton and went to one of these schools on a full-ride merit scholarship, so I don't feel bad for her outcome. But the process was very stressful for a few months.

Disagree. I agree with the earlier poster that you should do ED only if you have a clear first choice. Sounds like she had enough stats for Brown to buy a lottery ticket and see what happens. Brown is a reach for everyone but I wouldn’t push my kid to apply ED to Duke if Brown was their dream school and they had a shot, especially because are very different schools.

Brown is a reach for literally everyone. If it’s a reach for 4.0 UW and 1590 SAT, then who has it has a target? And I think using someone who got to chose among WashU, Amherst, Georgetown, Duke, Michigan, UNC, Carleton is not exactly a cautionary tale that sends people running for the hills. Not getting into your sole “Dream School” is nothing to cry over when you 5 top 30 universities and 2 top SLACs to choose among.

The real tragedy would be someone who blew their ED on a Ivies and had made the likes of CMU, UChicago, Hopkins, Notre Dame, Rice, Cal/Michigan/UNC/UVA/W&M their targets and and get shut out RD too. Basically, every kid in the top 10 of their HS class needs to find at least 3 or 4 colleges in the 50-150 range in the rankings that they’d be very happy to go to. Everything above that is a reach, not a target, for the vast majority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A family friend in CA whose DD went through the process last year is an example of what not to do.

DD was 4.0 UW GPA, 1590 SAT, 10+ APs, and Asian, full pay, Duke and Michigan legacy.

DD applied ED to Brown because that was her dream school and was denied.

However, if it had been my own DC, I would have pushed for Duke in ED and be done with it, as that would have been the best strategic use of the ED. Brown was a reach for her.

She was admitted in RD to WashU, Amherst, Georgetown, Duke, Michigan, UNC, Carleton and went to one of these schools on a full-ride merit scholarship, so I don't feel bad for her outcome. But the process was very stressful for a few months.

Disagree. I agree with the earlier poster that you should do ED only if you have a clear first choice. Sounds like she had enough stats for Brown to buy a lottery ticket and see what happens. Brown is a reach for everyone but I wouldn’t push my kid to apply ED to Duke if Brown was their dream school and they had a shot, especially because are very different schools.

Brown is a reach for literally everyone. If it’s a reach for 4.0 UW and 1590 SAT, then who has it has a target? And I think using someone who got to chose among WashU, Amherst, Georgetown, Duke, Michigan, UNC, Carleton is not exactly a cautionary tale that sends people running for the hills. Not getting into your sole “Dream School” is nothing to cry over when you 5 top 30 universities and 2 top SLACs to choose among.

The real tragedy would be someone who blew their ED on a Ivies and had made the likes of CMU, UChicago, Hopkins, Notre Dame, Rice, Cal/Michigan/UNC/UVA/W&M their targets and and get shut out RD too. Basically, every kid in the top 10 of their HS class needs to find at least 3 or 4 colleges in the 50-150 range in the rankings that they’d be very happy to go to. Everything above that is a reach, not a target, for the vast majority.

Top 10% I meant

[Anonymous]

I'd add to watch what the schools are doing with ED. When they announce that a % of ED was URM, first time university students and athletes, if your kid is none of those then the odds are actually much lower than they look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

This was my DDs experience at UVA

This was DS’s experience at Duke.

So Duke (and schools of that sort) can be considered high matches?

It was a low reach for DS. That was based on his stats and lots of research into who Duke admitted in years past for which major. DS is a humanities major, which we thought factored in.

We ended up calculating 50-60% odds for Duke ED and about 20% for Brown, his favorite Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd add to watch what the schools are doing with ED. When they announce that a % of ED was URM, first time university students and athletes, if your kid is none of those then the odds are actually much lower than they look.

Totally agree!! Every school uses ED or SCEA differently. For my high stats (3.98 UW, 12 APs, 1560 SAT) unhooked boy, we found about 6-8 colleges that use ED to grab up high stats kids. He found one of those colleges that he loved. Result: he’s going to a Top 10 school that he certainly would have been shut out of in RD.