Latest ED/EA rejections: any advice for next year's applicants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that you have to decide which ED angle you prefer:

Shoot your shot and deal with the possible (likely?) fallout of not getting, getting deferred, applying elsewhere, waiting, etc.

ED somewhere you have a strong chance but where ED will still give you a slight edge (but only do this if you are truly happy to go there and not see your other decisions come in.)

DD chose the 2nd type and is very happy to be done. But she had a clear first choice that she didn't waffle on.

Same here. ED’d to a school with a 30% admit rate and that offered merit aid. Top 50 school. So glad to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Double and triple check your targets or safeties don’t yield protect. Do your research on this. Strong applicants are getting deferred at some EA schools because schools are theorizing they won’t attend if admitted.

Sounds like a rationaization for a deferral.

My kid got into Stanford last week and has not been deferred at any EA safeties. I don’t think schools really yield protect if genuine interest is shown through thoughtful/personalized essays and some light demonstrated interest (if tracked).

Look, I agree that you must do what you described but without question some schools yield protect. Look up Tulane. They will take lower stats kids ED over much higher stat kids EA. And good for them, they want a group that loves the school. But it is yield protecting. In the RD round, some schools yield protect by using the waitlist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s important to establish whether you want to help your child reach high and potentially cope with more rejections and uncertainty through a dragged out admissions process, or play it safer. I feel our private school’s college counseling office steered our student to a high reach that for her was very unrealistic (her stats were just too low for this particular school with historically few acceptances from our high school). Instead, I would have preferred focusing on a school a tier lower that has a lot of green dots in the scattergram for our high school. For our kid, who burns out easily, a more strategic and measured approach for ED would have been better and she would benefit from more certainty earlier on.

Now we are instead playing the long game after getting an ED rejection (that I fully expected, even though we tried to stay positive and hopeful). We let our student guide the process with input from the college counselor but were skeptical of the ED strategy. Might go for ED2 but our kid is now feeling a bit scattered and overwhelmed. I guess my advice is that you know your child best and should go with your gut in certain respects. Sometimes the experts don’t have the expertise about your kid’s profile, or they’re more focused on the school’s broad strategy versus your individual student’s specific needs. In our case, we weren’t fully aligned in terms of risk aversion.

Wow. That is really unusual-in my experience,private school college counselors really lean safe. They seem to want to maximize the success rate for the class as a whole. For what its worth, I am sure they believed in your student. Good luck to your daughter! My kid also got rejected ED from a SLAC college a couple years ago and then got in to top 25s including an Ivy regular. Don't lose hope or momentum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't bother applying to UMichigan and UVA if you are OOS. Even if get in, will be full pay regardless of financial need.

I know that is the case with Michigan and Penn State. I did not think it was at UVA OOS though. Are you sure?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't bother applying to UMichigan and UVA if you are OOS. Even if get in, will be full pay regardless of financial need.

I know that is the case with Michigan and Penn State. I did not think it was at UVA OOS though. Are you sure?

No. They don't understand the basics of financial aid. You file FAFSA with the US Department of Education. It determines what contribution the family needs to make. That is sent to ALL of the colleges you apply to. There is no differentiation amongst colleges.

[Anonymous]

Pay attention to the admission rate from your child’s school/district on Naviance. DC ED’d to a school where only one student got into last year and generally does not have a good track record from our school district for some reason. And, sure enough, DC was denied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't bother applying to UMichigan and UVA if you are OOS. Even if get in, will be full pay regardless of financial need.

I know that is the case with Michigan and Penn State. I did not think it was at UVA OOS though. Are you sure?

No. They don't understand the basics of financial aid. You file FAFSA with the US Department of Education. It determines what contribution the family needs to make. That is sent to ALL of the colleges you apply to. There is no differentiation amongst colleges.

UVA and Michigan require the CSS profile as well as the FAFSA for financial aid but Penn State only requires the FAFSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s important to establish whether you want to help your child reach high and potentially cope with more rejections and uncertainty through a dragged out admissions process, or play it safer. I feel our private school’s college counseling office steered our student to a high reach that for her was very unrealistic (her stats were just too low for this particular school with historically few acceptances from our high school). Instead, I would have preferred focusing on a school a tier lower that has a lot of green dots in the scattergram for our high school. For our kid, who burns out easily, a more strategic and measured approach for ED would have been better and she would benefit from more certainty earlier on.

Now we are instead playing the long game after getting an ED rejection (that I fully expected, even though we tried to stay positive and hopeful). We let our student guide the process with input from the college counselor but were skeptical of the ED strategy. Might go for ED2 but our kid is now feeling a bit scattered and overwhelmed. I guess my advice is that you know your child best and should go with your gut in certain respects. Sometimes the experts don’t have the expertise about your kid’s profile, or they’re more focused on the school’s broad strategy versus your individual student’s specific needs. In our case, we weren’t fully aligned in terms of risk aversion.

This is really well stated and wise advice. We’re in a similar boat.