Lessons learned from ED and SCEA in 2025

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My advice—Don’t bother with an ED to Michigan. They deferred basically everyone.

I feel badly for the kids who ED to Michigan. Some regret it and wish they used their ED elsewhere.

If they got into UM later, would they go? Unless it was their 100% top choice, ED wouldn’t have made sense. Hang it elsewhere means they weren’t committed anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If UVA is your DC's dream and if you are in-state, sure, ED UVA makes sense.

An important thing is to have several EA schools covering the floor, so that DC will have at least one acceptance from a T50 before the break.

RD will be a numbers game. Once you have the floor covered, they can apply to as many T20 schools and WASP as they can handle.

ED T10 still makes sense. You can gauge the strength of the application by the ED outcome: deferral or rejection. You can adjust RD strategy and/or revise essays if necessary.

Genuine question. What t50 schools have ea and notify students of an acceptance before won't we t break??

Georgetown, Notre Dame, Case Western

And MIT

That would a ceiling not a floor.

Yeah, not sure Georgetown or Notre Dame are floors either (esp. EA, where Georgetown is -- unusually -- tougher than RD). Seems Case accepts much higher % of high stats kids but would be a target not a safety.

Some use Georgetown or Notre Dame EA acceptance as confirming signals. They RD HYPMS and top 10 schools with confidence.

With a deferral from Georgetown, realistically, focusing on T15 to T30.

[Anonymous]

MIT, only girls. My kid (boy) is thinking of not even applying there next year.

[Anonymous]

My DS got in ED and is done. His strategy:
1. Finish common app essay during the summer
2. Apply a rolling admission as early as possible to have a backup admission
3. Chose his first choice school to ED (we compared this ED school with other top schools and his answer is always yes to the ED school if he would be accepted by those top schools)
4. Applied early applications to public schools having strong program of his intended major
5. Submitted everything the ED school accepts even optional material
6. Kept working on other applications after submitted the ED and EA applications

He is lucky enough to get admitted to the ED school and done.

But I think he would be fine even if he had not got in. He had been preparing his RD applications and would have some admissions from some EA schools and in the RD round if not accepted by the ED school. He is also ok to attend the rolling admission school if nothing else.

College is just one stop in a person’s life, going to a top college or not will not be an end but just a beginning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would strongly discourage spending an ED/REA on Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Brown/Dartmouth unless you are an URM, FGLI, recruited athlete, from a private school, or from an underrepresented state. There is no room at these schools anymore for the normal-excellent upper-middle-class public school white or Asian kid from the DMV or Northeast with a 4.0UW, lots of rigor, and a 1550+/35+; they have too many other institutional priorities. Even legacy is a minimal boost at best.

If you look at the few ED stats presented by Dartmouth, you can see their priorities: low-income, and kids who are in the top quarter of their schools (i.e., not necessarily impressive compared to students at more rigorous or competitive schools)

https://home.dartmouth.edu/news/2025/12/dartmouth-welcomes-first-members-class-2030

Um. 20 percent were low income - pretty consistent with many top schools. Says most were top ten percent of their class. It’s hard for a kid to do well at a school they dont go to. I am pretty sure there are plenty of private school kids kicking around Dartmouth. And at our private school they take the legacies. I don’t disagree w your premise re wasting ED but these kids are impressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private counselors love steering kids during ED1 to make sure hooked kids get what they want.

For the less fortunate unhooked kids, often they were steered to ED1 Chicago, Tulane, Northeastern.

If these are not your first choice, do NOT ED1 there. Always ED1 to your first choice, or not ED at all.

Once you have some safety/target EA acceptance, your private school counselor stops steering, and will allow you RD any school you want because by now all the hooked have gotten in.

RD is the stage when the unhooked get some amazing results!

What if the first choice is Yale/Brown/Princeton/Stanford, the distant 5th choice is Rice, and your DC’s school has a great track record getting kids into Rice during ED, then what do you do?

ED is for first choices, not fifth choices. In this situation, go for your top 4 choices in REA/RD. Unless Brown is actually a first choice, in which case you can ED to Brown.

I totally disagree. ED is also an opportunity to secure a spot you’d love to go to and wouldn’t be nearly the option in other rounds. Apply to Rice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MIT, only girls. My kid (boy) is thinking of not even applying there next year.

MIT EA is largely athletes anyway. I think the pool of women athletes who have very high scores on the math section of the SAT must be a lot smaller than the pool of men athletes with the same qualifications. And also more tilted toward the DMV, where girls’ sports are strongly supported, whereas in less progressive areas fewer girls play sports seriously after middle school. The net result is that around here, in the EA round, it can seem like MIT is a women’s sports academy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private counselors love steering kids during ED1 to make sure hooked kids get what they want.

For the less fortunate unhooked kids, often they were steered to ED1 Chicago, Tulane, Northeastern.

If these are not your first choice, do NOT ED1 there. Always ED1 to your first choice, or not ED at all.

Once you have some safety/target EA acceptance, your private school counselor stops steering, and will allow you RD any school you want because by now all the hooked have gotten in.

RD is the stage when the unhooked get some amazing results!

What if the first choice is Yale/Brown/Princeton/Stanford, the distant 5th choice is Rice, and your DC’s school has a great track record getting kids into Rice during ED, then what do you do?

ED is for first choices, not fifth choices. In this situation, go for your top 4 choices in REA/RD. Unless Brown is actually a first choice, in which case you can ED to Brown.

I totally disagree. ED is also an opportunity to secure a spot you’d love to go to and wouldn’t be nearly the option in other rounds. Apply to Rice

Does “distant fifth choice” = “love to go to”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Private counselors love steering kids during ED1 to make sure hooked kids get what they want.

For the less fortunate unhooked kids, often they were steered to ED1 Chicago, Tulane, Northeastern.

If these are not your first choice, do NOT ED1 there. Always ED1 to your first choice, or not ED at all.

Once you have some safety/target EA acceptance, your private school counselor stops steering, and will allow you RD any school you want because by now all the hooked have gotten in.

RD is the stage when the unhooked get some amazing results!

What if the first choice is Yale/Brown/Princeton/Stanford, the distant 5th choice is Rice, and your DC’s school has a great track record getting kids into Rice during ED, then what do you do?

ED is for first choices, not fifth choices. In this situation, go for your top 4 choices in REA/RD. Unless Brown is actually a first choice, in which case you can ED to Brown.

I totally disagree. ED is also an opportunity to secure a spot you’d love to go to and wouldn’t be nearly the option in other rounds. Apply to Rice

Does “distant fifth choice” = “love to go to”?

The question is really about your priorities. How much do you want a particular college experience? How much do you need to land at a T20? Are you willing to risk landing at BU or Wisconsin in EA/RD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If UVA is your DC's dream and if you are in-state, sure, ED UVA makes sense.

An important thing is to have several EA schools covering the floor, so that DC will have at least one acceptance from a T50 before the break.

RD will be a numbers game. Once you have the floor covered, they can apply to as many T20 schools and WASP as they can handle.

ED T10 still makes sense. You can gauge the strength of the application by the ED outcome: deferral or rejection. You can adjust RD strategy and/or revise essays if necessary.

Genuine question. What t50 schools have ea and notify students of an acceptance before won't we t break??

Georgetown, Notre Dame, Case Western

And MIT

That would a ceiling not a floor.

Yeah, not sure Georgetown or Notre Dame are floors either (esp. EA, where Georgetown is -- unusually -- tougher than RD). Seems Case accepts much higher % of high stats kids but would be a target not a safety.

Some use Georgetown or Notre Dame EA acceptance as confirming signals. They RD HYPMS and top 10 schools with confidence.

With a deferral from Georgetown, realistically, focusing on T15 to T30.

Georgetown takes a lot of dmv kids.and is not really predictive of Ivies from the area. My dd’s small school got five in a recent year, and only one also did well with Ivies and she was hooked. It’s nice to have as the back up though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If UVA is your DC's dream and if you are in-state, sure, ED UVA makes sense.

An important thing is to have several EA schools covering the floor, so that DC will have at least one acceptance from a T50 before the break.

RD will be a numbers game. Once you have the floor covered, they can apply to as many T20 schools and WASP as they can handle.

ED T10 still makes sense. You can gauge the strength of the application by the ED outcome: deferral or rejection. You can adjust RD strategy and/or revise essays if necessary.

Genuine question. What t50 schools have ea and notify students of an acceptance before won't we t break??

Georgetown, Notre Dame, Case Western

And MIT

That would a ceiling not a floor.

Yeah, not sure Georgetown or Notre Dame are floors either (esp. EA, where Georgetown is -- unusually -- tougher than RD). Seems Case accepts much higher % of high stats kids but would be a target not a safety.

Some use Georgetown or Notre Dame EA acceptance as confirming signals. They RD HYPMS and top 10 schools with confidence.

With a deferral from Georgetown, realistically, focusing on T15 to T30.

Georgetown takes a lot of dmv kids.and is not really predictive of Ivies from the area. My dd’s small school got five in a recent year, and only one also did well with Ivies and she was hooked. It’s nice to have as the back up though.

Didn’t mean to suggest Georgetown is not a great school in its own right, but it is nice to have that non binding acceptance heading into RD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If UVA is your DC's dream and if you are in-state, sure, ED UVA makes sense.

An important thing is to have several EA schools covering the floor, so that DC will have at least one acceptance from a T50 before the break.

RD will be a numbers game. Once you have the floor covered, they can apply to as many T20 schools and WASP as they can handle.

ED T10 still makes sense. You can gauge the strength of the application by the ED outcome: deferral or rejection. You can adjust RD strategy and/or revise essays if necessary.

Genuine question. What t50 schools have ea and notify students of an acceptance before won't we t break??

Georgetown, Notre Dame, Case Western

And MIT

That would a ceiling not a floor.

Yeah, not sure Georgetown or Notre Dame are floors either (esp. EA, where Georgetown is -- unusually -- tougher than RD). Seems Case accepts much higher % of high stats kids but would be a target not a safety.

Some use Georgetown or Notre Dame EA acceptance as confirming signals. They RD HYPMS and top 10 schools with confidence.

With a deferral from Georgetown, realistically, focusing on T15 to T30.

Georgetown takes a lot of dmv kids.and is not really predictive of Ivies from the area. My dd’s small school got five in a recent year, and only one also did well with Ivies and she was hooked. It’s nice to have as the back up though.

Didn’t mean to suggest Georgetown is not a great school in its own right, but it is nice to have that non binding acceptance heading into RD.

Historically, applying to Georgetown is a pain though. The separate application makes it a lot harder. My DC is doing it this week. Once Georgetown is on the common app next year it will become a lot harder to get in. Application numbers will explode.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DS got in ED and is done. His strategy:
1. Finish common app essay during the summer
2. Apply a rolling admission as early as possible to have a backup admission
3. Chose his first choice school to ED (we compared this ED school with other top schools and his answer is always yes to the ED school if he would be accepted by those top schools)
4. Applied early applications to public schools having strong program of his intended major
5. Submitted everything the ED school accepts even optional material
6. Kept working on other applications after submitted the ED and EA applications

He is lucky enough to get admitted to the ED school and done.

But I think he would be fine even if he had not got in. He had been preparing his RD applications and would have some admissions from some EA schools and in the RD round if not accepted by the ED school. He is also ok to attend the rolling admission school if nothing else.

College is just one stop in a person’s life, going to a top college or not will not be an end but just a beginning.

DC had a similar strategy. Summer was spent planning, research (what are unique aspects of school x) and drafting essay concepts. I will admit it was rough - so many ups and downs and we as parents only piled on the pressure (in hindsight, I could have been more supportive). Once they had the list of schools to apply to, we narrowed down to the top 2-3 choices. They had visited one of those choices in Spring which they really liked but when we visited their second choice late summer, my kid had their clear number 1. My kid had done the homework, made sure the college visit touched on all aspects they wanted to be certain about and that was it. The next 6 weeks was tuning and finetuning essays with specific emphasis on the essays for the top choice. DC applied to several of the EAs including their ED and continued to work on their RDs while we waited. ED worked out so we are done BUT the lesson is this - kids must start over the summer and must be disciplined with a clear plan of action. There are so many great schools and the REA/SCEA/ED is the toughest call for a teenager to make. I had my doubts (and preferred a different route), but in the end, my kid knew better, chose what I thought was a far reach and got in. REA/SCEA/ED is an important decision, aim a bit higher than you think and make sure that your essays really address that school directly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Applied REA to HYS--and it was a good choice. Rejected. From TJ, high stats, excellent ECs. Two students accepted (Asian Am, unhooked, excellent resume).

The 2 we know (not TJ) accepted ED to Dartmouth are both white girls, unhooked, not legacy, non-athletes. One from NoVA private, one from public. High stats, good candidates.

The REA was a good learning experience, and it was good to see who got in--it re-shaped
DC's strategy, and kicked DC's butt a bit, and now the RD essays are loads better. While I'm bummed that DC didn't get at least deferred, we see the app in a different way, and see a lot of the mistakes that were missed before. DC's app was excellent--well researched, well written, etc but seeing who they let in makes more sense. It was a good reality check. Added a few more targets and safeties.

Different data point: talked to an APS parent yesterday who said all the T15 EDs she knows (except one at Cornell) from APS were all legacy. Except UVA. Also, looks like a reduction of international students is showing up in some numbers. For example--not much different at ED UVA (probably mostly in-state, domestic). But more folks getting a "yes" at SCEA,REA and tough ED schools.

Good luck!

The lesson you learn from this is that REA was a good choice? Of course it wasn’t. You wasted an ED ticket to a lower Ivy…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If UVA is your DC's dream and if you are in-state, sure, ED UVA makes sense.

An important thing is to have several EA schools covering the floor, so that DC will have at least one acceptance from a T50 before the break.

RD will be a numbers game. Once you have the floor covered, they can apply to as many T20 schools and WASP as they can handle.

ED T10 still makes sense. You can gauge the strength of the application by the ED outcome: deferral or rejection. You can adjust RD strategy and/or revise essays if necessary.

Genuine question. What t50 schools have ea and notify students of an acceptance before won't we t break??

Georgetown, Notre Dame, Case Western

And MIT

That would a ceiling not a floor.

Yeah, not sure Georgetown or Notre Dame are floors either (esp. EA, where Georgetown is -- unusually -- tougher than RD). Seems Case accepts much higher % of high stats kids but would be a target not a safety.

Some use Georgetown or Notre Dame EA acceptance as confirming signals. They RD HYPMS and top 10 schools with confidence.

With a deferral from Georgetown, realistically, focusing on T15 to T30.

Georgetown takes a lot of dmv kids.and is not really predictive of Ivies from the area. My dd’s small school got five in a recent year, and only one also did well with Ivies and she was hooked. It’s nice to have as the back up though.

Other ivy admits from your school didn’t apply to Georgetown? Or they applied and got rejected?