Parents of Juniors: learn from us and ED if able

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't some schools offer aid even in ED?

I am looking at Villanova and they list deadlines for financial aid, even with ED. Or am I misunderstanding something?

There are many sources of aid, most of which are not based on merit and most of which have deadlines that must be met.

Many still offer aid with ED. However, you cannot review aid results from other colleges if you apply ED. And really, if you are applying ED, they have no reason to give you any merit aide (non-financial based aide)---you are already committing to the school by applying ED. So many suspect it can hurt your merit aide certainly at many unviersities

[Anonymous]

I'd add go for ED if chances are realistic.

My DS: not a URM, not an athlete, not hooked. All stats good, but once the URM, first -time university, hooked students were grabbed, chances were much, much lower.

Pay attention to announcements on class make up, and adjust odds accordingly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED should be outlawed. It’s only purpose is to increase yield for better schools that are not most elite. I got into Harvard mommy, but I am stuck attending UVA!

This point is unclear to me - if you apply successfully to UVA ED, then you never submit an application to Harvard bc UVA ED is binding.

[b]

That is correct, sometimes I wonder how people are so misinformed and yet they cry foul.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are able financially to ED, please don’t be like us and think “naaaah I’m just gonna see where all DC gets in and make a decision then.” Pick a reasonable target (maybe a low reach) where your kid would be happy and ED there. Because what’s left over in April when you’ll have all your options is … the next tier down.

People told us don’t do it, don’t pass on the chance to ED. We thought naaaahhh that doesn’t apply to DS. He has high stats and doesn’t have a clear favorite. DS does have choices, but not ones as good as he could have had if he had picked in November and EDd. There just aren’t many spots left for RD after the top colleges have filled up with ED.

+1000

Last year, EA kid deferred from a complete match. Eventually withdrew app and went elsewhere. Worked out well actually but weeks of real confusion.

This year, much more anxious and similar stars ED kid didn't even know the day admissions decisions were coming out. Made for a much happier senior year.

[Anonymous]

PP

stats not stars

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are able financially to ED, please don’t be like us and think “naaaah I’m just gonna see where all DC gets in and make a decision then.” Pick a reasonable target (maybe a low reach) where your kid would be happy and ED there. Because what’s left over in April when you’ll have all your options is … the next tier down.

People told us don’t do it, don’t pass on the chance to ED. We thought naaaahhh that doesn’t apply to DS. He has high stats and doesn’t have a clear favorite. DS does have choices, but not ones as good as he could have had if he had picked in November and EDd. There just aren’t many spots left for RD after the top colleges have filled up with ED.

Thanks for your post. To sum it up, you have to be financially loaded and unconcerned about aid and your kid will have the best shot in college application selection.

We are not loaded. We relied on EFC calculator, which was accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED1 - Dream school with a reasonable chance.

ED2 - Target.

EA - everything else.

That is about the safest way to do it to maximize satisfaction.

Which doesn't work for the vast majority of schools my Dc applied to because they only had ED and RD.

Lots of schools only offer ED/RD, not just the ones your DC is applying to. Both of my DCs did ED1. One had selected an ED2, if necessary. The other was thinking they would roll to RD. Both of them picked a range of schools, intentionally including some that offered EA. While both got in early decision, I think I would've suggested that both pick a rolling decision school if I had been more on it.

The other wrinkle is tht DC's first choice has only RD, so ED to anywhere else meant giving up the dream school if ED worked out.

So I would suggest that DC try to find one or two schools that offer EA, so DC goes into RD with the possibility of having one or two admissions. If your DC attends a school where the majority of students are already in somewhere through ED/EA, it can be fairly overwhelming going into RD with nothing. Happened to one of my DC's BFFs, who ended up WLed at reaches and yield protected rejected @ Emory, Tufts, Wash U, etc. Fortunately one came through, but it was nerve-wracking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED1 - Dream school with a reasonable chance.

ED2 - Target.

EA - everything else.

That is about the safest way to do it to maximize satisfaction.

Which doesn't work for the vast majority of schools my Dc applied to because they only had ED and RD.

Lots of schools only offer ED/RD, not just the ones your DC is applying to. Both of my DCs did ED1. One had selected an ED2, if necessary. The other was thinking they would roll to RD. Both of them picked a range of schools, intentionally including some that offered EA. While both got in early decision, I think I would've suggested that both pick a rolling decision school if I had been more on it.

Our kid loved a school without ED. He decided to ED at another school because he didn't want to forego the bump in admissions chances that ED gives. It's unfortunate that strategy/game theory has so much impact on admissions as opposed to merit, but that is how it works until colleges change admissions rules.

The other wrinkle is tht DC's first choice has only RD, so ED to anywhere else meant giving up the dream school if ED worked out.

So I would suggest that DC try to find one or two schools that offer EA, so DC goes into RD with the possibility of having one or two admissions. If your DC attends a school where the majority of students are already in somewhere through ED/EA, it can be fairly overwhelming going into RD with nothing. Happened to one of my DC's BFFs, who ended up WLed at reaches and yield protected rejected @ Emory, Tufts, Wash U, etc. Fortunately one came through, but it was nerve-wracking.

[Anonymous]

Our kid loved a school without ED. He decided to ED at another school because he didn't want to forego the bump in admissions chances that ED gives. It's unfortunate that strategy/game theory has so much impact on admissions as opposed to merit, but that is how it works until colleges change admissions rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't some schools offer aid even in ED?

I am looking at Villanova and they list deadlines for financial aid, even with ED. Or am I misunderstanding something?

There are many sources of aid, most of which are not based on merit and most of which have deadlines that must be met.

Many still offer aid with ED. However, you cannot review aid results from other colleges if you apply ED. And really, if you are applying ED, they have no reason to give you any merit aide (non-financial based aide)---you are already committing to the school by applying ED. So many suspect it can hurt your merit aide certainly at many unviersities

Our experience is that merit aid was fairly predictable--schools don't have flexible, open pockets of merit aid they can use--you can look at the range of possible merit aid offers and their likelihood given your kids scores and still make an informed decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED should be outlawed. It’s only purpose is to increase yield for better schools that are not most elite. I got into Harvard mommy, but I am stuck attending UVA!

A). you would not “get into Harvard” if you got into UVA ED. You would have to pull your Harvard app before then. Harvard’s acceptance rate is <5%, so no one (even 4.0 UW, 1600) can credibly say “I am sure I would’ve gotten into Harvard if hadn’t done UVA ED”
B) Why pick on UVA? Last I checked, it filled about 19% of its class ED. By way of comparison, here are some other highly regarded schools that seem to be leaning on ED to boost yields far more than UVA does. (% are % of class filled thru ED)
Columbia 50%
Cornell 49%
Brown 46%
Penn 54%
Dartmouth 51%
Hopkins 53%
Duke 53%
Emory 60%
Northwestern 58%
WUSTL 60%
Vanderbilt 51%
Swarthmore 63%
Middlebury 65%
Wesleyan U 64%
Bates 81% (!!!)

And many of those you listed Defer a high percentage of ED applicants (most of the Ivies especially). This means they have a large pool of students in their RD pool that they can almost guarantee will accept, providing them a high yield. So they fill over 50% with ED, then have a known pool of "ready to commit students" to select from for RD. I suspect many fill another 25%+ of their freshman class from ED deferrals.

I know NU is an exception to this---data not officially published by NU but they typically only defer 1-2% (no clue how many eventually get accepted).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is great advice - My kid applied ED and got into his reach, and other kids with better grades and stats were rejected in April. Kids who RD'd were down a tier from the ED kids. Sad but true.

And yet at every admissions event the ADs swear up and down that it isn't true. Liars the lot of 'em.

You can look at the data and on average it isn't true.

[Anonymous]

A couple of posts say that ED1 gives more of a bump than ED2. For some reason this feels instinctually right to me. However, school counselors and even the schools themselves say there is no difference between ED1 and ED2. Anyone have facts to support that ED1 is better than ED2?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are able financially to ED, please don’t be like us and think “naaaah I’m just gonna see where all DC gets in and make a decision then.” Pick a reasonable target (maybe a low reach) where your kid would be happy and ED there. Because what’s left over in April when you’ll have all your options is … the next tier down.

People told us don’t do it, don’t pass on the chance to ED. We thought naaaahhh that doesn’t apply to DS. He has high stats and doesn’t have a clear favorite. DS does have choices, but not ones as good as he could have had if he had picked in November and EDd. There just aren’t many spots left for RD after the top colleges have filled up with ED.

Thanks for your post. To sum it up, you have to be financially loaded and unconcerned about aid and your kid will have the best shot in college application selection.

We're not loaded. If the numbers don't work, they'll go elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A couple of posts say that ED1 gives more of a bump than ED2. For some reason this feels instinctually right to me. However, school counselors and even the schools themselves say there is no difference between ED1 and ED2. Anyone have facts to support that ED1 is better than ED2?

this is hard to know---we know it is the case at Vanderbilt, but other schools may be more even