What was your high-stats, unhooked, ED strategy in 2024 or will it be in 2025?

[Anonymous]

Big3 got 2 into Duke unhooked this year. Others were denied.

[Anonymous]

No ED here. We're willing to full pay for certain schools, but also fishing for merit (or tuition exchange money) elsewhere. I'm going to encourage my kid to go EA to Yale, but even if she gets in she'll be applying widely with the hope that there will be choices to be made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good grades/scores/rigor/extracurriculars.
What was (or will be) your ED strategy and why?

1)Lottery an elite school. Maybe 10-12% chance instead of <5%. (random example: Duke)

2)Better odds at a school a level down (with an ED rate of 30% instead of 15%). (random example: Boston College).

If the kid is truly elite: top-smarts , creative, with good LOR, they do not need to ED. They will get into multiple T20 in RD. The lucky ones/most impressive will get some T10s in RD.
ED should only be if they have a true #1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice.

This is increasingly bad advice. Never ED to a school that you have almost no shot of getting into; that wastes your ED card.

Duke? The majority of non-hooked applicants have a 0% chance of admission, ED or not. This is true for most top schools. A very small minority of non-hooked kids have a much greater chance, whether it is 10, 20, or 30%. If you cannot say with confidence why your kid is in that small minority, you are not buying a lottery ticket (where anyone could win) but throwing away your kid’s chances of getting into a school ED which is the next tier or two down.

This is the key: for Duke and other T10, is your unhooked student of the level that has the 40-50% chance in ED or 20-30% chance in RD? Those that see lots of apps and have some inside knowledge at the HS or college level know that it is not random. Those kids with the “outlier” chances are actual outliers. They stand out at their HS and in their region—in every way.

[Anonymous]

The reality for unhooked kids is that applying ED, SCEA, EA, and RD is like game theory these days. I absolutely would not apply ED/SCEA to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Duke. Toss those aside. Not happening for an unhooked kid from the DMV burbs. MIT doesn't care about ED so would apply RD if interested. But don't bother with restricted early.

I would look at your high school's college admissions from the past couple of years. Often, selective colleges are partial to certain high schools. And if your high school has had success with schools that your DC is interested in, consider it. And then you're just going to have to settle on your risk tolerance. For highly selective schools like Vanderbilt and Brown, it really is carnage in the regular decision round. But early action is at least possible. But if you choose wrong, then you're consigned to the chaos of regular decision.

On the other hand, if the kid really likes something a little lower ranked and with better odds, it can be the best call to apply early there. Provided that's someplace they really want to go and they don't get stuck wondering about other possibilities.

[Anonymous]

What about ED to Dartmouth, Cornell or UVA? Does it confer an advantage for an unhooked applicant over RD (Dartmouth and Cornell) or EA (UVA)?

[Anonymous]

No ED. No clear choice.

Did EA.

No ivies until RD round. He got into 1; WL at the other.

He went with a safer choice EA which meant he couldn’t REA or ED to any other Ivies-private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality for unhooked kids is that applying ED, SCEA, EA, and RD is like game theory these days. I absolutely would not apply ED/SCEA to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Duke. Toss those aside. Not happening for an unhooked kid from the DMV burbs. MIT doesn't care about ED so would apply RD if interested. But don't bother with restricted early.

I would look at your high school's college admissions from the past couple of years. Often, selective colleges are partial to certain high schools. And if your high school has had success with schools that your DC is interested in, consider it. And then you're just going to have to settle on your risk tolerance. For highly selective schools like Vanderbilt and Brown, it really is carnage in the regular decision round. But early action is at least possible. But if you choose wrong, then you're consigned to the chaos of regular decision.

On the other hand, if the kid really likes something a little lower ranked and with better odds, it can be the best call to apply early there. Provided that's someplace they really want to go and they don't get stuck wondering about other possibilities.

Great great advice….look to what colleges like kids from your school…ask your kid to find out more abt those kids & their stats, hooks & niches.

Past performance is an extraordinary indicator of future performance in college admissions (especially for private high schools).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality for unhooked kids is that applying ED, SCEA, EA, and RD is like game theory these days. I absolutely would not apply ED/SCEA to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Duke. Toss those aside. Not happening for an unhooked kid from the DMV burbs. MIT doesn't care about ED so would apply RD if interested. But don't bother with restricted early.

I would look at your high school's college admissions from the past couple of years. Often, selective colleges are partial to certain high schools. And if your high school has had success with schools that your DC is interested in, consider it. And then you're just going to have to settle on your risk tolerance. For highly selective schools like Vanderbilt and Brown, it really is carnage in the regular decision round. But early action is at least possible. But if you choose wrong, then you're consigned to the chaos of regular decision.

On the other hand, if the kid really likes something a little lower ranked and with better odds, it can be the best call to apply early there. Provided that's someplace they really want to go and they don't get stuck wondering about other possibilities.

Yeah. We were told that. Then my kid got WL at Princeton RD and we regret not doing REA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grades/scores/rigor/extracurriculars.
What was (or will be) your ED strategy and why?

1)Lottery an elite school. Maybe 10-12% chance instead of <5%. (random example: Duke)

2)Better odds at a school a level down (with an ED rate of 30% instead of 15%). (random example: Boston College).

If the kid is truly elite: top-smarts , creative, with good LOR, they do not need to ED. They will get into multiple T20 in RD. The lucky ones/most impressive will get some T10s in RD.
ED should only be if they have a true #1.

This. My unhooked kid got in RD at two Ivies, Hopkins, SLAC with 5% acceptance and 2 T20s.

Didn’t do any ED/ED2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reality for unhooked kids is that applying ED, SCEA, EA, and RD is like game theory these days. I absolutely would not apply ED/SCEA to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Duke. Toss those aside. Not happening for an unhooked kid from the DMV burbs. MIT doesn't care about ED so would apply RD if interested. But don't bother with restricted early.

I would look at your high school's college admissions from the past couple of years. Often, selective colleges are partial to certain high schools. And if your high school has had success with schools that your DC is interested in, consider it. And then you're just going to have to settle on your risk tolerance. For highly selective schools like Vanderbilt and Brown, it really is carnage in the regular decision round. But early action is at least possible. But if you choose wrong, then you're consigned to the chaos of regular decision.

On the other hand, if the kid really likes something a little lower ranked and with better odds, it can be the best call to apply early there. Provided that's someplace they really want to go and they don't get stuck wondering about other possibilities.

Not true. Unhooked Kids get in ED to some of those schools in DMV burbs on a somewhat regular basis. Heck, very top unhooked kids get into those in RD it is just much more rare than ED and they have to be truly top in everything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What about ED to Dartmouth, Cornell or UVA? Does it confer an advantage for an unhooked applicant over RD (Dartmouth and Cornell) or EA (UVA)?

UVA is a lock for instate 4.0 ugpa and 1500 plus-the elite privates are not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grades/scores/rigor/extracurriculars.
What was (or will be) your ED strategy and why?

1)Lottery an elite school. Maybe 10-12% chance instead of <5%. (random example: Duke)

2)Better odds at a school a level down (with an ED rate of 30% instead of 15%). (random example: Boston College).

If the kid is truly elite: top-smarts , creative, with good LOR, they do not need to ED. They will get into multiple T20 in RD. The lucky ones/most impressive will get some T10s in RD.
ED should only be if they have a true #1.

This. My unhooked kid got in RD at two Ivies, Hopkins, SLAC with 5% acceptance and 2 T20s.

Didn’t do any ED/ED2

Congrats! Similar (4 Ivy/T10 in RD)

[Anonymous]

Mine didn't ED anywhere. Applied RD and got into two Ivies, UCs (except UCLA), a few other privates and overseas universities. Just really didn't want to commit to one place for ED -- they literally took until 5/1/2024 to make up their mind, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reality for unhooked kids is that applying ED, SCEA, EA, and RD is like game theory these days. I absolutely would not apply ED/SCEA to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Duke. Toss those aside. Not happening for an unhooked kid from the DMV burbs. MIT doesn't care about ED so would apply RD if interested. But don't bother with restricted early.

I would look at your high school's college admissions from the past couple of years. Often, selective colleges are partial to certain high schools. And if your high school has had success with schools that your DC is interested in, consider it. And then you're just going to have to settle on your risk tolerance. For highly selective schools like Vanderbilt and Brown, it really is carnage in the regular decision round. But early action is at least possible. But if you choose wrong, then you're consigned to the chaos of regular decision.

On the other hand, if the kid really likes something a little lower ranked and with better odds, it can be the best call to apply early there. Provided that's someplace they really want to go and they don't get stuck wondering about other possibilities.

Not true. Unhooked Kids get in ED to some of those schools in DMV burbs on a somewhat regular basis. Heck, very top unhooked kids get into those in RD it is just much more rare than ED and they have to be truly top in everything

Sure. There will always be outliers. But I think the original question was about strategy for unhooked students. And does little Timmy from Arlington or Bethesda really want to apply SCEA to Harvard or Princeton when a rejection there will really impact the likelihood of getting in to slightly lower ranked schools, where it really is a crapshoot when the acceptance rate is now 4/5 percent in RD.

I personally don't think it's worth it for completely unhooked students to apply ED to the top 7 or so schools when the chance of rejection is 99 percent. And you are foregoing schools that are only slightly less highly ranked and often a better fit regardless.

You only have one shot to apply ED/SCEA. For HPYSM, save it for regular decision.

It's all a very weird system. The ironic thing these days is that for the RD admits, HYPS are likely the backup schools after they didn't get into their ED schools.