Lessons learned so far: 2024-2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from a top private:

-Admission to top schools is MUCH easier for boys than girls. It pretty much SUCKS to be a female applicant in 2025. Boys this year from our school are getting in with stats way below the girls. (I have 2 boys in upcoming admissions years so I don't say this from a point of sour grapes as an only girls mom or anything)

-Being a legacy with parents who are also VIPs or big donors is huge. I mean duh. But wow, it just is.

-ED is such a crap shoot and I'm not sure how to play it best. My kid went for a top10 and lost (deferred) and now I have no idea how far down she'll fall. She's hoping for RD decisions to schools where classmates with GPAs much lower than hers got in ED (like 3.9 RD vs 3.4 ED). What is the right/best way to play ED? I don't know. TBD in our case.

did your school's data show you anything in retrospect? was it truly a longshot? too much in-school competition?
Our private's CCO would have advised an ED1 to a school like Vanderbilt, Rice, WashU, Emory (with ED2 to another) for someone that they KNEW would be a longshot to T10.

Agree. I don’t believe ED is a “crapshoot” if you know what you’re doing.

Applying ED to schools that only accept 1-2k students of course will be a long shot (even if your stats are phenomenal). But if you apply to a school that accepts 5-6k students AND your kid has above the 75% for stats, then your kid has a great chance of acceptance.

What colleges accept 5-6k students ED? Do you mean EA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from a top private:

-Admission to top schools is MUCH easier for boys than girls. It pretty much SUCKS to be a female applicant in 2025. Boys this year from our school are getting in with stats way below the girls. (I have 2 boys in upcoming admissions years so I don't say this from a point of sour grapes as an only girls mom or anything)

-Being a legacy with parents who are also VIPs or big donors is huge. I mean duh. But wow, it just is.

-ED is such a crap shoot and I'm not sure how to play it best. My kid went for a top10 and lost (deferred) and now I have no idea how far down she'll fall. She's hoping for RD decisions to schools where classmates with GPAs much lower than hers got in ED (like 3.9 RD vs 3.4 ED). What is the right/best way to play ED? I don't know. TBD in our case.

did your school's data show you anything in retrospect? was it truly a longshot? too much in-school competition?
Our private's CCO would have advised an ED1 to a school like Vanderbilt, Rice, WashU, Emory (with ED2 to another) for someone that they KNEW would be a longshot to T10.

Agree. I don’t believe ED is a “crapshoot” if you know what you’re doing.

Applying ED to schools that only accept 1-2k students of course will be a long shot (even if your stats are phenomenal). But if you apply to a school that accepts 5-6k students AND your kid has above the 75% for stats, then your kid has a great chance of acceptance.

What colleges accept 5-6k students ED? Do you mean EA?

Cornell ED?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from a top private:

-Admission to top schools is MUCH easier for boys than girls. It pretty much SUCKS to be a female applicant in 2025. Boys this year from our school are getting in with stats way below the girls. (I have 2 boys in upcoming admissions years so I don't say this from a point of sour grapes as an only girls mom or anything)

-Being a legacy with parents who are also VIPs or big donors is huge. I mean duh. But wow, it just is.

-ED is such a crap shoot and I'm not sure how to play it best. My kid went for a top10 and lost (deferred) and now I have no idea how far down she'll fall. She's hoping for RD decisions to schools where classmates with GPAs much lower than hers got in ED (like 3.9 RD vs 3.4 ED). What is the right/best way to play ED? I don't know. TBD in our case.

did your school's data show you anything in retrospect? was it truly a longshot? too much in-school competition?
Our private's CCO would have advised an ED1 to a school like Vanderbilt, Rice, WashU, Emory (with ED2 to another) for someone that they KNEW would be a longshot to T10.

Agree. I don’t believe ED is a “crapshoot” if you know what you’re doing.

Applying ED to schools that only accept 1-2k students of course will be a long shot (even if your stats are phenomenal). But if you apply to a school that accepts 5-6k students AND your kid has above the 75% for stats, then your kid has a great chance of acceptance.

What colleges accept 5-6k students ED? Do you mean EA?

From this list, Cornell and UVA???

https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/early-decision-early-action/schools-with-early-decision/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have learned that things are not nearly as dire as the people on here seem to think (or want everyone else to think?).

Agree!

+1

My advice is to not get sticker shock from the cost of the private colleges. At the college fairs, ask them what the average price is after merit and/or financial aid. I'm in VA, so we also get the VTAG. If your kid is a good student, not even amazing, we've found that enough merit aid will be given to make it comparable to in state tuition. Just fill out that FAFSA early.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ED golden era is Dec 20-Jan 20th.

Starting mid February and beyond, a lot of kids sour on that Wash U (etc) ED decision.

This thread is within the golden era .. just read it as such. Lots of kids get into T20 schools during RD. Feelings shifts.

Golden

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ED golden era is Dec 20-Jan 20th.

Starting mid February and beyond, a lot of kids sour on that Wash U (etc) ED decision.

This thread is within the golden era .. just read it as such. Lots of kids get into T20 schools during RD. Feelings shifts.

Fair point. Lots of kids get into schools RD and have exciting options to weigh in the spring. ED is still your best bet though if applying to a competitive school that your kid has their heart set on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming from a top private:

-Admission to top schools is MUCH easier for boys than girls. It pretty much SUCKS to be a female applicant in 2025. Boys this year from our school are getting in with stats way below the girls. (I have 2 boys in upcoming admissions years so I don't say this from a point of sour grapes as an only girls mom or anything)

-Being a legacy with parents who are also VIPs or big donors is huge. I mean duh. But wow, it just is.

-ED is such a crap shoot and I'm not sure how to play it best. My kid went for a top10 and lost (deferred) and now I have no idea how far down she'll fall. She's hoping for RD decisions to schools where classmates with GPAs much lower than hers got in ED (like 3.9 RD vs 3.4 ED). What is the right/best way to play ED? I don't know. TBD in our case.

+1

did your school's data show you anything in retrospect? was it truly a longshot? too much in-school competition?
Our private's CCO would have advised an ED1 to a school like Vanderbilt, Rice, WashU, Emory (with ED2 to another) for someone that they KNEW would be a longshot to T10.

Agree. I don’t believe ED is a “crapshoot” if you know what you’re doing.

Applying ED to schools that only accept 1-2k students of course will be a long shot (even if your stats are phenomenal). But if you apply to a school that accepts 5-6k students AND your kid has above the 75% for stats, then your kid has a great chance of acceptance.

[Anonymous]

Do not appt to college in a red state for your daughter

[Anonymous]

Dobbs Dork wrote:Do not appt to college in a red state for your daughter

... unless she's foyine enough for the SEC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED golden era is Dec 20-Jan 20th.

Starting mid February and beyond, a lot of kids sour on that Wash U (etc) ED decision.

This thread is within the golden era .. just read it as such. Lots of kids get into T20 schools during RD. Feelings shifts.

Are you saying that kids regret their ED decisions? Because I can see it going a different way (i.e., finding out that students are shut out of schools that take 50% or more of their kids in the early round).

Cuts both ways.

[Anonymous]

In RD, it rarely works out for "oversubscribed" majors (CS, engineering, applied math, business, biology or pre-med). It often DOES work out in RD for niche, creative or humanities majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In RD, it rarely works out for "oversubscribed" majors (CS, engineering, applied math, business, biology or pre-med). It often DOES work out in RD for niche, creative or humanities majors.

I hope this is not true for sake of my DC!!

[Anonymous]

If you’re a super strong candidate who applies to one of the handful of SCEA/REA schools and get deferred, you will likely feel a lot of pressure to ED2. It’s scary to let it rip in RD when things *could* work out in RD with a tippy top admission but likely will not, because acceptance rates are so low.

If my kids had to do it again, not sure he’d do SCEA/RD as opposed to some EAs (not that there are a lot of top schools with EA).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In RD, it rarely works out for "oversubscribed" majors (CS, engineering, applied math, business, biology or pre-med). It often DOES work out in RD for niche, creative or humanities majors.

I hope this is not true for sake of my DC!!

hopefully, you have some EA or rolling admissions in hand.
I think the RD advice above is only the case at T20 or super selective schools where it is extraordinarily difficult for those oversubscribed majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents told me I can go to any college I want and money is no object as they are not paying. True to work they not only did not pay they charged me rent and made me pay my share of bills to house once I turned 18.

Today as the parent the world has changed. Perhaps parents should get out of the college application and paying for college business.

That said I paid 100 percent first two kids and about to do it again for kid 3.

You could reorient your worldview. My family has had parent-paid college going back into the 1800s. But the expectation is that you get a job decent enough to pay it forward for your own kids. It's worked so far. And each generation has been reasonable about earning scholarships and attending reasonably-priced schools. We are UMC but not rich rich.

My mother and father had a sixth grade education. Both sent out to work force at 12. I was doing their income taxes and helping with their finances starting at 16.

My first two went to OOS public universities with good merit aid and both have good jobs.