How would you do differently if DC is only interested in SLACs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First, LACs are very small. Applying to five LACs is roughly equivalent to applying to one large national university: our school sends about ten students a year to Cornell, but typically only one to Williams. Additionally, the school limits how many applications each student can submit. I am not sure if it's wise to apply to LACs exclusively. Second, most SLACs do not offer an ED advantage—Middlebury is one notable exception. At the moment, Middlebury is not DC's dream school. So there is no ED strategy. I am also wondering if there is any consultant specialized in LACs.

My DC (non-legacy, non-athlete, stats within WASP range) was ED admitted to WASP. If you want to help DC, you shouldn't jump to conclusions. Your biases will hurt more than help.

Let's start with "DC is only interested in SLACs". Make a target list of SLACs DC is interested in, weed that list using Naviance data for your school. (For example, if that one Williams admit had significantly higher GPA/SAT than DC, assess whether you should remove Williams from your list.). If you do a good job you should be able to come up with a list of 4-6 SLACs to apply to including some target, some reach, some safety.

Add to the list some larger schools DC is interested in, including your state flagship. Use Naviance to judge probability of admission. You should be able to add 4-6 larger schools to apply to.

Your assumption that ED does not have advantage at SLACs is wrong. Check out the CDS, the data is in there and it shows a significant advantage for ED. Naysayers will argue "but ED includes athletic recruits". Despite the influence of legacy and athletic recruits, ED still provides a measurable advantage for most applicants at WASP colleges.

Across selective SLACs, ED acceptance rates are consistently higher than RD rates. For example, at Williams College, the ED acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 was approximately 27%, compared to an overall acceptance rate of around 8%. At Swarthmore, ED rates have historically been around 20-25%, while RD rates hover near 6-7%. These gaps reflect institutional incentives to admit ED applicants who are guaranteed to enroll, reducing uncertainty in class composition.

While legacy and athletic recruits contribute to the ED pool, they don’t fully account for the higher acceptance rates. Colleges like WASP aim to fill roughly 40-50% of their class through ED, leaving room for non-legacy, non-recruited applicants. Even with legacy and athletic preferences, colleges prioritize a balanced class. Non-legacy, non-recruited ED applicants who align with institutional goals (e.g., academic excellence, diversity, unique talents) benefit from the ED boost, as their commitment signals genuine interest, a factor admissions offices weigh heavily.

The naysayer argument assumes legacy and athletic recruits dominate the ED advantage, but this overlooks the broader admissions strategy. WASP colleges aim for diverse, well-rounded classes, and ED is a tool to achieve this, not just a mechanism for admitting privileged groups. While legacy and athletic recruits may have higher admission rates, they don’t negate the ED boost for others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most LACs outside of the top ones have big boosts for ED, even after counting athletes. There’s not many spots left after this. ED I to somewhere at the level of Bowdoin and then ED II to somewhere at the level of Kenyon.
Apply to safety LACs EA.

Agree. Every kid at our school who did ED to not tippy top LAC got in. You just have to make the decision not to reach for the reachy reach.

Kids who RD to LACS are really rolling the dice, even when the overall acceptance rate is above 50, but especially when it's below that. In RD, it's a numbers issue and there just aren't many spots left at these tiny schools.

If stats are within range for the reachy reach SLACs, ED to a reach SLAC your HS is successful at. (For example at DC HS kids were getting into two of the WASP but not the other two). You still have ED2 (in some) and RD available.

[Anonymous]

Amherst is 40% athletes. How doesn’t that totally impact the ED numbers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amherst is 40% athletes. How doesn’t that totally impact the ED numbers

It does , but the point is that even after that ED acceptance rates for non athletes are still likely to be higher than RD acceptance rates.

RD acceptance rate at Amherst is 7.86%, ED is 29.38% . If even half of the Amherst ED admits are recruited athletes, the admit rate for the rest is still 15%, double RD. If you assume all of the 142 (avg) recruited athletes are admitted in ED, that is still a 10% admit rate for non athletes.

[Anonymous]

Unless your kids list is solely Pomona, Swarthmore, and Williams, your process is much like universities. You will have a diverse selection of schools to pick from.

If you’re only looking at the top 1% of LACs, yeah, good luck- it might not even be that your kid isn’t qualified, but there’s just so few seats and a lot of demographic/class composition details that can get them rejected.

[Anonymous]

I would think the admit rate of athletes in ED is closer 80% or 90%. All of the athletes are talking to their respective coaches who are telling them their chances. Athletes are also talking to multiple schools so would therefore choose a school with a high odds of getting in to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think the admit rate of athletes in ED is closer 80% or 90%. All of the athletes are talking to their respective coaches who are telling them their chances. Athletes are also talking to multiple schools so would therefore choose a school with a high odds of getting in to.

At Amherst it is 142 out of 216

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amherst is 40% athletes. How doesn’t that totally impact the ED numbers

It does , but the point is that even after that ED acceptance rates for non athletes are still likely to be higher than RD acceptance rates.

RD acceptance rate at Amherst is 7.86%, ED is 29.38% . If even half of the Amherst ED admits are recruited athletes, the admit rate for the rest is still 15%, double RD. If you assume all of the 142 (avg) recruited athletes are admitted in ED, that is still a 10% admit rate for non athletes.

1/4 of Amherst’s incoming class is FGLI. Plus minimum 1 student from every state and territory, and as many other countries as possible (40, I think). After athletic recruits as well, how many slots are left for unhooked suburban public school kids in such a small class? ED or no, statistically it is an incredible long shot.

[Anonymous]

[quote/]1/4 of Amherst’s incoming class is FGLI. Plus minimum 1 student from every state and territory, and as many other countries as possible (40, I think). After athletic recruits as well, how many slots are left for unhooked suburban public school kids in such a small class? ED or no, statistically it is an incredible long shot.
Look at Naviance data for your suburban public school and see how many kids apply to SLACs versus the bigger universities. Look at acceptance rates for your school . Then decide. For high stats unhooked kids they absolutely have a shot at WASP.

[Anonymous]

40% athletes. 5% Questbridge. 13% international. Plus fgli..

ED is going to be v tough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[quote/]1/4 of Amherst’s incoming class is FGLI. Plus minimum 1 student from every state and territory, and as many other countries as possible (40, I think). After athletic recruits as well, how many slots are left for unhooked suburban public school kids in such a small class? ED or no, statistically it is an incredible long shot.

Look at Naviance data for your suburban public school and see how many kids apply to SLACs versus the bigger universities. Look at acceptance rates for your school . Then decide. For high stats unhooked kids they absolutely have a shot at WASP.


My HS, with lots of T-20 admits every year, averages 0-1 acceptance per WASP each year. Seems like a waste of an ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[quote/]1/4 of Amherst’s incoming class is FGLI. Plus minimum 1 student from every state and territory, and as many other countries as possible (40, I think). After athletic recruits as well, how many slots are left for unhooked suburban public school kids in such a small class? ED or no, statistically it is an incredible long shot.

Not like that's the end of institutional priorities either. Diversity of academic interests, race (working around SC as able), political and religious affiliations, certain number of instruments for the symphony and jazz orchestras, contributors to the school paper and student government, good number of clubs, gender balance and LGBTQ+ representation... The list goes on and on. The only kids I've known who've gotten into Amherst and Williams have either been academic stars or recruited athletes. Mostly the latter.

[Anonymous]

Good strategy is to apply ED to the LACs that have more slots, like Midd and Wes. Or ones in the Midwest looking for kids from the east coast, like Carlton and Grinnell.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote/]1/4 of Amherst’s incoming class is FGLI. Plus minimum 1 student from every state and territory, and as many other countries as possible (40, I think). After athletic recruits as well, how many slots are left for unhooked suburban public school kids in such a small class? ED or no, statistically it is an incredible long shot.

Look at Naviance data for your suburban public school and see how many kids apply to SLACs versus the bigger universities. Look at acceptance rates for your school . Then decide. For high stats unhooked kids they absolutely have a shot at WASP.

My HS, with lots of T-20 admits every year, averages 0-1 acceptance per WASP each year. Seems like a waste of an ED.


Is this one of the mcps magnets? DC’s school shows 1 Amherst, 1 Pomona, and 1 Bowdoin admit. 0 Williams and Swat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[quote/]1/4 of Amherst’s incoming class is FGLI. Plus minimum 1 student from every state and territory, and as many other countries as possible (40, I think). After athletic recruits as well, how many slots are left for unhooked suburban public school kids in such a small class? ED or no, statistically it is an incredible long shot.

Look at Naviance data for your suburban public school and see how many kids apply to SLACs versus the bigger universities. Look at acceptance rates for your school . Then decide. For high stats unhooked kids they absolutely have a shot at WASP.

My HS, with lots of T-20 admits every year, averages 0-1 acceptance per WASP each year. Seems like a waste of an ED.

Is this one of the mcps magnets? DC’s school shows 1 Amherst, 1 Pomona, and 1 Bowdoin admit. 0 Williams and Swat.

Meanwhile 3 Yale, 4 Duke, 4 MIT, 8 Penn, 1 Princeton