If you were deferred ED1, what was your strategy for ED2?

[Anonymous]

You mean my kid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid got in ED1, but it could have gone the other way and we didn't have any kind of ED2 plan. We were going to take a psycho road trip to see as many schools as possible over the holiday break (prior visit opportunities were constrained by Covid.) I was pushing for a more competitive school for ED2, which I now know would have been nuts.

Whatever you do, don't leave it until you hear from the ED1; definitely push your kid to pick an alternative, if only to avoid getting too fixated on one school.

Why were you thinking going more competitive for ED2? What was the rationale?

Agree about ED1, then ED2 (or not strategy). One DC had an ED1, ED2 strategy with the second option at more of a high target while the ED1 was at a low to medium reach, which CCO thought was a high probability of admit. Second DC had an ED1 strategy, but would not agree on an ED2, which was interesting as this DC is usually more organized and gaming risks than the other one. This DC also probably a little more self assured as their CCO was saying they would be fine with applications to 30% admits and below. Fortunately both DCs got in ED1. I can't imagine what would have happened if the second DC would have ended up with WLs/rejects due to the CCO's possibly bad advice.

PP here - my kid was applying to LACs but not the absolute top ones. His ED1 was a reach by virtue of the fact that it accepts about 15% of all applicants, but his stats were firmly in the middle 50 percentile. He also had a bunch of EA applications including one that he was fairly excited about. He was due to hear on that one a week after the ED1 came out; if he'd gotten in to the EA school but not ED1, I was pushing for rolling the dice on a slightly reachy ED2.

Fwiw we discouraged the idea of a dream school or falling in love with any one place. And kid was accommodating or mostly just sick of the process; he had a few criteria that he cared about (esp weather) but otherwise didn't have intense passions around any one school. He did ED mainly because we knew it was a good tactic for getting ahead of the RD pack at small schools.

[Anonymous]

My kid did ED1 and got in. Likely would not have done ED2 only because the other schools he would be ok committing to did not have ED2. Also did EA at whatever schools had it. Was good to have gotten into 2 of those before the ED1 decision.

[Anonymous]

mine applied ed1 to slam. lottery for anyone. get deferred. ED2 to one notch down accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mine applied ed1 to slam. lottery for anyone. get deferred. ED2 to one notch down accepted.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:mine applied ed1 to slam. lottery for anyone. get deferred. ED2 to one notch down accepted.

make that slac. not slam!

[Anonymous]

OK let's do this with some hypotheticals. Suppose your child wants to attend a mid-sized college on the east coast with a business school. (I'm using all Catholic examples here to make it more apples:apples.) Your choices are (in order of difficulty of admission) Georgetown, BC, Villanova, Fordham, Providence. Let's say GU and BC are reaches, Villanova is a match, and Fordham and Providence are likelies.

Student decides their top choices are Georgetown and BC. Decides against Georgetown due to its EA policy. Decides BC is too much of a reach, so decides on Villanova for ED1. They love Villanova and, while they *like* Fordham and Providence, far prefer Villanova.

If deferred by Villanova in ED1, would you tell them to apply to Fordham ED2? Or roll the dice on BC as an ED2 pick and keep their Villanova dream alive?

This is the scenario we may find ourselves in (although, none of these five schools.) I am trying to help manage my kid's expectations -- for example, by finding more "target" schools.

[Anonymous]

Mine applied SCEA to a school that matched full need, was deferred. She did not apply ED2 anywhere because, unless I am wrong, most of those schools do not match need, and she was already accepted to Pitt with a scholarship. She then waited for RD, and was accepted to her SCEA school as well as several other Ivy(+) universities. It is generally well known that ED1/2 is for rich families and recruited athletes, while RD is for students who need to compare finaid offers. We knew that and did not budge for ED2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK let's do this with some hypotheticals. Suppose your child wants to attend a mid-sized college on the east coast with a business school. (I'm using all Catholic examples here to make it more apples:apples.) Your choices are (in order of difficulty of admission) Georgetown, BC, Villanova, Fordham, Providence. Let's say GU and BC are reaches, Villanova is a match, and Fordham and Providence are likelies.

Student decides their top choices are Georgetown and BC. Decides against Georgetown due to its EA policy. Decides BC is too much of a reach, so decides on Villanova for ED1. They love Villanova and, while they *like* Fordham and Providence, far prefer Villanova.

If deferred by Villanova in ED1, would you tell them to apply to Fordham ED2? Or roll the dice on BC as an ED2 pick and keep their Villanova dream alive?

This is the scenario we may find ourselves in (although, none of these five schools.) I am trying to help manage my kid's expectations -- for example, by finding more "target" schools.

I see the logic here. You are applying to BC ED2 just for the heck of it because you don’t want to foreclose the possibility of getting into Villanova RD (unless you got lucky and got into BC).

I think you would need to have a realistic probability in mind as far as getting into Villanova having been deferred as well as the risk of not getting into Fordham or Providence RD and ending up somewhere even worse.

In my DC’s case we were worried DC would end up with some not so great options if it came down to RD (because we went 0 for 2 swinging for the fences in ED) so we aimed a little lower ED2 and it worked, no regrets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK let's do this with some hypotheticals. Suppose your child wants to attend a mid-sized college on the east coast with a business school. (I'm using all Catholic examples here to make it more apples:apples.) Your choices are (in order of difficulty of admission) Georgetown, BC, Villanova, Fordham, Providence. Let's say GU and BC are reaches, Villanova is a match, and Fordham and Providence are likelies.

Student decides their top choices are Georgetown and BC. Decides against Georgetown due to its EA policy. Decides BC is too much of a reach, so decides on Villanova for ED1. They love Villanova and, while they *like* Fordham and Providence, far prefer Villanova.

If deferred by Villanova in ED1, would you tell them to apply to Fordham ED2? Or roll the dice on BC as an ED2 pick and keep their Villanova dream alive?

This is the scenario we may find ourselves in (although, none of these five schools.) I am trying to help manage my kid's expectations -- for example, by finding more "target" schools.

I see the logic here. You are applying to BC ED2 just for the heck of it because you don’t want to foreclose the possibility of getting into Villanova RD (unless you got lucky and got into BC).

I think you would need to have a realistic probability in mind as far as getting into Villanova having been deferred as well as the risk of not getting into Fordham or Providence RD and ending up somewhere even worse.

In my DC’s case we were worried DC would end up with some not so great options if it came down to RD (because we went 0 for 2 swinging for the fences in ED) so we aimed a little lower ED2 and it worked, no regrets.

You understand me That's what I'm worried about -- getting to RD with some not-so-great options. I guess I need to make my kid be not so in love with their ED1 pick.

Do schools typically provide the percentage of students who are deferred ED and then accepted RD? I wonder if those rates are approximately the same as the RD acceptance rate, or better (since they know the child is likely to accept their offer, since they initially applied ED1.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK let's do this with some hypotheticals. Suppose your child wants to attend a mid-sized college on the east coast with a business school. (I'm using all Catholic examples here to make it more apples:apples.) Your choices are (in order of difficulty of admission) Georgetown, BC, Villanova, Fordham, Providence. Let's say GU and BC are reaches, Villanova is a match, and Fordham and Providence are likelies.

Student decides their top choices are Georgetown and BC. Decides against Georgetown due to its EA policy. Decides BC is too much of a reach, so decides on Villanova for ED1. They love Villanova and, while they *like* Fordham and Providence, far prefer Villanova.

If deferred by Villanova in ED1, would you tell them to apply to Fordham ED2? Or roll the dice on BC as an ED2 pick and keep their Villanova dream alive?

This is the scenario we may find ourselves in (although, none of these five schools.) I am trying to help manage my kid's expectations -- for example, by finding more "target" schools.

I see the logic here. You are applying to BC ED2 just for the heck of it because you don’t want to foreclose the possibility of getting into Villanova RD (unless you got lucky and got into BC).

I think you would need to have a realistic probability in mind as far as getting into Villanova having been deferred as well as the risk of not getting into Fordham or Providence RD and ending up somewhere even worse.

In my DC’s case we were worried DC would end up with some not so great options if it came down to RD (because we went 0 for 2 swinging for the fences in ED) so we aimed a little lower ED2 and it worked, no regrets.

You understand me That's what I'm worried about -- getting to RD with some not-so-great options. I guess I need to make my kid be not so in love with their ED1 pick.

Do schools typically provide the percentage of students who are deferred ED and then accepted RD? I wonder if those rates are approximately the same as the RD acceptance rate, or better (since they know the child is likely to accept their offer, since they initially applied ED1.)

I’m not sure but it seems that if your kid didn’t make the cut ED1, why would the school change its mind? It’s kind of like getting off the waitlist. Possible but do you really want to count on it? I think after the ED1 school defers or rejects your kid, it becomes pretty easy to fall out of love with that school. It’s also important to be really honest with yourself how strong the applicant is. If you’ve got some identifiable weaknesses, you probably want to play it a bit safer

[Anonymous]

ED 1 to Brown, deferred. ED 2 to Pomona, accepted. Worked out well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK let's do this with some hypotheticals. Suppose your child wants to attend a mid-sized college on the east coast with a business school. (I'm using all Catholic examples here to make it more apples:apples.) Your choices are (in order of difficulty of admission) Georgetown, BC, Villanova, Fordham, Providence. Let's say GU and BC are reaches, Villanova is a match, and Fordham and Providence are likelies.

Student decides their top choices are Georgetown and BC. Decides against Georgetown due to its EA policy. Decides BC is too much of a reach, so decides on Villanova for ED1. They love Villanova and, while they *like* Fordham and Providence, far prefer Villanova.

If deferred by Villanova in ED1, would you tell them to apply to Fordham ED2? Or roll the dice on BC as an ED2 pick and keep their Villanova dream alive?

This is the scenario we may find ourselves in (although, none of these five schools.) I am trying to help manage my kid's expectations -- for example, by finding more "target" schools.

I see the logic here. You are applying to BC ED2 just for the heck of it because you don’t want to foreclose the possibility of getting into Villanova RD (unless you got lucky and got into BC).

I think you would need to have a realistic probability in mind as far as getting into Villanova having been deferred as well as the risk of not getting into Fordham or Providence RD and ending up somewhere even worse.

In my DC’s case we were worried DC would end up with some not so great options if it came down to RD (because we went 0 for 2 swinging for the fences in ED) so we aimed a little lower ED2 and it worked, no regrets.

You understand me That's what I'm worried about -- getting to RD with some not-so-great options. I guess I need to make my kid be not so in love with their ED1 pick.

Do schools typically provide the percentage of students who are deferred ED and then accepted RD? I wonder if those rates are approximately the same as the RD acceptance rate, or better (since they know the child is likely to accept their offer, since they initially applied ED1.)

I’m not sure but it seems that if your kid didn’t make the cut ED1, why would the school change its mind? It’s kind of like getting off the waitlist. Possible but do you really want to count on it? I think after the ED1 school defers or rejects your kid, it becomes pretty easy to fall out of love with that school. It’s also important to be really honest with yourself how strong the applicant is. If you’ve got some identifiable weaknesses, you probably want to play it a bit safer

I don't know what changes a school's mind, but we know a few students who this year were deferred ED1 and then accepted RD. This includes Wake Forest and Cornell (applied ED -- no ED1/2) as well as an OOS student UVA deferred EA who was accepted RD. I am not close enough to their parents to ask what they did (if anything) that encouraged the school to move them from the deferred to the accepted pile. But considering there are <200 students in the graduating class of our high school, and my kid (a junior) is only friendly with maybe 20 seniors, that makes it feel like it happens a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my observation, with no hard data to back this up, the success rate in ED2 is low. I don’t know if that’s because it isn’t offered many places so everyone ED2s the same schools, if kids shoot too high, or what.

It's hard to say.... here's a counter example to your thoughts. My high stats/rigor kid was deferred from a small SLAC ED1, a classmate was accepted during ED2 round, then mine rejected in RD. ED2 candidate was shooting very high stats-/rigor-wise and struck gold. But anyone applying to that school is entering a lottery and it's all about how you will fill out the community.

The schools that have ED2 really care about what you bring to the community (so do a lot of ED1) so be sure to really understand that school's values and priorities so that you can present yourself in the best way for them to decide "yes, THIS is the kind of kid we want here".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my observation, with no hard data to back this up, the success rate in ED2 is low. I don’t know if that’s because it isn’t offered many places so everyone ED2s the same schools, if kids shoot too high, or what.

What is interesting about ED2 is that the schools have the RD apps at the same time. So they are making the decision with a lot of information about the RD pool. Clearly ED2 applicants have an edge on the RD applicants since the yield is 100 percent. A marginal RD applicant prob squeaks in ED2

Some schools use ED2 as a way to help weed through the RD acceptances. They will reject many, but they will defer a small number with the idea that those may have an edge in RD. I know ED2 deferrals that were accepted in RD.

However, some schools will defer in ED 1/2 and then use RD as a hard deadline for themselves to accept/reject that student (even though the non-ED applicants in RD round can be waitlisted)