Where did your DC apply early decision, and how did it work out?

[Anonymous]

If your DC applied early decision, could you please share where, whether it worked out, and any other info. you'd like to share (gpa, class rank, sats).

Thanks.

- A stressed out parent (of a junior)

[Anonymous]

Mine applied ED to a SLAC 2 years ago. Denied. Decided not to do ED2 anywhere. Did early action at one school so heard by Feb 1 that he'd been accepted which lowered the stress a bit. Did fine in acceptances overall (all top 50 SLACs).

If you are interested in current experiences with specific schools I suggest you try college confidential. People on here typically share their own, very dated, experience, which is of course totally irrelevant in today's world.

[Anonymous]

There are a number of schools that are non-binding early action, so applying to one or two of those that your child is likely to be admitted to (and hopefully that are reasonably good schools where you child would be happy) helps take the pressure off. Depending on the kid, some of these that are popular locally seem to be Michigan, Vermont, Colorado College, U Chicago. Kid finds out about these before or coincident with their single ED school, if they have applied to one, so even if rejected or deferred from the ED school, they don't have to wait to know they got in somewhere, all the way to spring.
Impression I have gotten from DD who went through this two years ago, and current senior DS is that for the top SLACs, applying ED is probably most important, since they are small, and a huge % of class is taken by athletic recruits who must apply ED, and then others that apply ED. And they are hyper competitive about the stupid USNews rankings, which thus mean they don't want to admit kids they aren't sure will come. So results in some weird decisions, i.e. DD getting into several within the HYPS group, but wait listed at relatively less academically competitive SLAC that she applied to regular decision.

[Anonymous]

My daughter is interested in 3 schools: Drexel, UNC-Charlotte & Rutgers. Applied EA to UNC & Rutgers this month because those will be the tough ones to get into for her. Will know status in December/January. Drexel's EA is binding, so she'll apply there in January. It's not too much pressure, because it's likely that she'll get accepted there.

[Anonymous]

OP, I know that being the parent of a HS junior is stressful -- I have been through this more than once -- , but I would strongly suggest that rather than thinking about application strategy at this point, you focus on making your home a place where your child can get away from the stress of junior year. As a parent and as a former college admissions staffer, I would say that you really don't need to come up with a plan on whether and where your child will apply early until late next summer/early fall.

Moreover, the information you're seeking is not likely to be very helpful in developing a plan. Knowing scores and GPA alone will not help you in assessing your own child's prospects without knowing much more about previous applicants/current students, including where the applicant attended high school, what kinds of activities s/he was involved in outside of school, whether s/he was a recruited athlete, legacy, or URM, etc.

It may, however, be useful for you to spend some time learning about how early application programs work in gneral . In this vein, I'd note that previous posts have been a little confusing. To clarify, while early decision programs are always binding, early action is non-binding --so the student has the option to apply to other schools in the regular decision round. It's important to note, however, that some early action programs are exclusive or single-choice and do not allow the student to apply early to another school, while others do.