Lessons learned: 2025-2026

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We failed to realize that Questbridge and similar program admits are included in ED / REA stats.

This insight didn’t change much in the end, but it’s good context when thinking about weighing admissions odds.

Case study. Vanderbilt ED I and II had a combined acceptance rate of 11.9% this year. According to them, 50% of the admits came from FGLI, rural areas, and international.

On top of that, remove the athletes and other hooked admits.

In the end, there was not much room for regular, full pay smart kids.

But a Vanderbilt deferral from early means something. They admit a fair number of those kids in regular decision over the ordinary RD applicants. If it is a top choice, you’re better off trying for an early deferral.

I agree with this. Vanderbilt RD last year was a total impossibility. Like a 2% admit rate and i think this included the deferred kids.
I know multiple HYP RD admits from our school who were outright denied at Vany. My own kid was admitted to 2 "lesser" Ivies in RD and denied from Vandy.

Ha. They aren’t lesser than Vandy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:-Despite the various types of early admissions (EA, ED1, ED2, SCEA, REA etc.), many are still waiting for their regular round outcomes in March to make the final decision.

-My kid only applied to schools from the top 50, so he had do over a dozen applications to play safe. Looking back, he could have applied to fewer schools with a more targeted approach to save time and money (e.g., pick safeties that don’t require supplementals).

Or pick safeties that don’t require demonstrated interest.

[Anonymous]

Literally everyone here will tell you not to ED to WASP if not FGLI or recruited athlete.
But non hooked regular smart kids get in ED. If it’s the first choice, and kid is competitive, don’t discourage from EDing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Literally everyone here will tell you not to ED to WASP if not FGLI or recruited athlete.
But non hooked regular smart kids get in ED. If it’s the first choice, and kid is competitive, don’t discourage from EDing

True. Our high stats DC applied ED to Pomona and did not get in. There was no real other candidate DC was that excited about, so we told her to acknowledge it was a high reach simply because it's a tiny school with few spots available for anyone - and DC is not FGLI or going in with the heavy hook of sports recruit. It was fine, because she wasn't giving up anything, as DC otherwise was only going to apply EA/RD to all the others. In hindsight it still was a waste of time to get hopes up and I rather would have spent time on targets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

I disagree. My child spent about $600 on 6 safeties (Vermont, Clemson, Pitt, UGA, Wisconsin, etc) and wish they had stopped at Pitt and called it a day. There was just no point and wasted our money and their time and the admission's person time. Plus it cluttered up the field for classmates who really wanted to attend those schools. My kid ended up wit a LOT of rejections in RD but the safety admits didn't really ameliorate this at all..... getting into UGA didn't make them feel better about being rejected form Dartmouth or Penn

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

I disagree. My child spent about $600 on 6 safeties (Vermont, Clemson, Pitt, UGA, Wisconsin, etc) and wish they had stopped at Pitt and called it a day. There was just no point and wasted our money and their time and the admission's person time. Plus it cluttered up the field for classmates who really wanted to attend those schools. My kid ended up wit a LOT of rejections in RD but the safety admits didn't really ameliorate this at all..... getting into UGA didn't make them feel better about being rejected form Dartmouth or Penn

NP. I disagree. Getting the early merit $$$ admits from Pitt, Case, Vermont, CU-Boulder and Elon showed DC they had a very compelling app. So when deferred from their private T20 ED1, they DID NOT ED2. Instead, doubled down on RD reach - and ended up getting into 4 T20.

It was well worth it as a "sign" and for confidence. DC felt extremely good about the process and had high self-esteem. Even with multiple March rejections.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

Agree with this on the deluge of rejections. I think having a bunch of early YESes makes the process feel better.

[Anonymous]

I hadn’t considered the psychological benefits of safety yeses early in the process. That’s a good point. Also the PP who said it helped direct their ED2/RD decision.

I still recommend to my kids that they only need ONE actual, true safety that they would be happy to go to (based on my two oldest’s experiences) but I do see the points made here.

[Anonymous]

When making a list of safety, target, and reach schools, make sure the safety schools are indeed safety schools academically AND financially! If a school is a safety academically but a reach financially (and vice-versa), put that school under the "reach" column to temper expectations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

Agree with this on the deluge of rejections. I think having a bunch of early YESes makes the process feel better.

Different strokes.

My kids didn’t do any early to just get yesss. Or early acceptances. They didn’t want to really go to any of those schools.

Both had their first acceptance EA UVA. and then more good news.

We wasted so much $ on extra RD safety/targets for our 2024. My 2026 applied to far less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

I disagree. My child spent about $600 on 6 safeties (Vermont, Clemson, Pitt, UGA, Wisconsin, etc) and wish they had stopped at Pitt and called it a day. There was just no point and wasted our money and their time and the admission's person time. Plus it cluttered up the field for classmates who really wanted to attend those schools. My kid ended up wit a LOT of rejections in RD but the safety admits didn't really ameliorate this at all..... getting into UGA didn't make them feel better about being rejected form Dartmouth or Penn

NP. I disagree. Getting the early merit $$$ admits from Pitt, Case, Vermont, CU-Boulder and Elon showed DC they had a very compelling app. So when deferred from their private T20 ED1, they DID NOT ED2. Instead, doubled down on RD reach - and ended up getting into 4 T20.

It was well worth it as a "sign" and for confidence. DC felt extremely good about the process and had high self-esteem. Even with multiple March rejections.....

Disagree again. My kid got early merit from Clemson, UGA, Pitt and Vermont (pretty much 25-50% off at each). Never got into their ED1 (Dartmouth) and ended up with only 2 top25 schools in RD and rejected/waitlisted from a dozen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

I disagree. My child spent about $600 on 6 safeties (Vermont, Clemson, Pitt, UGA, Wisconsin, etc) and wish they had stopped at Pitt and called it a day. There was just no point and wasted our money and their time and the admission's person time. Plus it cluttered up the field for classmates who really wanted to attend those schools. My kid ended up wit a LOT of rejections in RD but the safety admits didn't really ameliorate this at all..... getting into UGA didn't make them feel better about being rejected form Dartmouth or Penn

NP. I disagree. Getting the early merit $$$ admits from Pitt, Case, Vermont, CU-Boulder and Elon showed DC they had a very compelling app. So when deferred from their private T20 ED1, they DID NOT ED2. Instead, doubled down on RD reach - and ended up getting into 4 T20.

It was well worth it as a "sign" and for confidence. DC felt extremely good about the process and had high self-esteem. Even with multiple March rejections.....

Disagree again. My kid got early merit from Clemson, UGA, Pitt and Vermont (pretty much 25-50% off at each). Never got into their ED1 (Dartmouth) and ended up with only 2 top25 schools in RD and rejected/waitlisted from a dozen.

So they had 6 acceptances, 12 rejections/waitlists, and went to a T25? The T25 is an objectively good end result, but even from your comment it sounds like all the rejection was pretty hard to take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't feel pressured to apply anywhere ED1 or ED2. EA, REA and rolling admission are all great options.


Don't apply to 3+ safeties. 2 safeties that your DC would be happy to attend is sufficient.

Too many applications leads to burnout.

Take a trip with your DC that is not college related just to have fun, even if it's only for a long weekend 1:1 and bond and tell them you love them and are proud of them while you are waiting for decisions.

Agree.

Firmly disagree. Once you’ve completed the common app, another safety school costs nothing but the application fee. A deluge of rejections feels miserable. Apply to 1 safety for every reach.

I disagree. My child spent about $600 on 6 safeties (Vermont, Clemson, Pitt, UGA, Wisconsin, etc) and wish they had stopped at Pitt and called it a day. There was just no point and wasted our money and their time and the admission's person time. Plus it cluttered up the field for classmates who really wanted to attend those schools. My kid ended up wit a LOT of rejections in RD but the safety admits didn't really ameliorate this at all..... getting into UGA didn't make them feel better about being rejected form Dartmouth or Penn

NP. I disagree. Getting the early merit $$$ admits from Pitt, Case, Vermont, CU-Boulder and Elon showed DC they had a very compelling app. So when deferred from their private T20 ED1, they DID NOT ED2. Instead, doubled down on RD reach - and ended up getting into 4 T20.

It was well worth it as a "sign" and for confidence. DC felt extremely good about the process and had high self-esteem. Even with multiple March rejections.....

Disagree again. My kid got early merit from Clemson, UGA, Pitt and Vermont (pretty much 25-50% off at each). Never got into their ED1 (Dartmouth) and ended up with only 2 top25 schools in RD and rejected/waitlisted from a dozen.

Early merit like that is usually because of strength of application esp for major. What major?