The ED game is nuts!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Early Decision should be illegal, frankly. It's inequitable, and for families who can afford to participate, deeply stressful.

Don't participate if you cannot handle it. Anyone who wants to can participate. You just have to be able to pay for college.

But hey, some cannot afford even state school for 4 years, so they have to start at CC. Should we also get rid of 4 year state universities, simply because some people cannot afford to attend?
Some have to attend college as a commuter because they cannot afford to live on campus. So does that mean all colleges should remove dorms and campus living and everyone should attend a school within 30 min drive of their home?

You are correct.

[Anonymous]

I think ED makes sense at UChicago if you're okay with what the NPC says.

These are the kids who don't want to roll the dice. Who maybe had a shot at HYPSM and think, but I'm a likely at Chicago and they take that deal.

I get that. As long as you're not a "what if" kind of person.

If you're applying to a school in the 20-50 range, you're applicant is under qualified and you're hoping your full pay status carries you through I guess.

But I don't really see EDing to some school in the 50+ range. The "buyers" per Selingo. In those cases, you have lots of options and you should probably use those acceptances to negotiate your package. Unless money is truly meaningless to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being low income, it was a no brainer to apply EDI. The NPC was dead on. Now child can worry about picking his engineering classes at Northeastern instead of hoping he gets in somewhere. He also gets to take two pre-college classes that along with AP's is already almost done with one year of classes. He is in mountains skiing now enjoying his solstice break.

Wondering how a low income kid affords to ski all winter break.

+1. Was thinking the same thing. Skiing is not cheap

I have a number of relatives who ski often who could not afford Northeastern even with financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Being low income, it was a no brainer to apply EDI. The NPC was dead on. Now child can worry about picking his engineering classes at Northeastern instead of hoping he gets in somewhere. He also gets to take two pre-college classes that along with AP's is already almost done with one year of classes. He is in mountains skiing now enjoying his solstice break.

Wondering how a low income kid affords to ski all winter break.

+1. Was thinking the same thing. Skiing is not cheap

I have a number of relatives who ski often who could not afford Northeastern even with financial aid.

Perhaps this helps demonstrate why some can afford it and others cannot. Growing up LMC/poor, we never had those opportunities like skiing. Money just wasn't there for expensive extracurriculars. Instead my parents lived frugally and tried to saved as much as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always assumed only full pay got in ED. And a handful of very well qualified low income students to balance things out. You can’t tell me they blindly accept students without any consideration of the ability to pay? They are definitely working on some sort of quota.

Mine got good FA in ED, but older sib did RD to weigh FA and used one offer to negotiate another. Since we knew what FA was at several schools, we encouraged younger sib to apply ED if they were sure it was first choice. Right call for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First DC sent ED too low and regretted it. This year, second DC sent ED too high and didn't get in. Regretting that and now runs the risk of getting wiped out in RD. What kind of madness is this that after putting in years of solid work etc etc, kids are buying single lotteries to get into college?

Someone may have already said this, but if you think of ED as a game, then you are considering it for the wrong reasons. ED has been around for over 50 years, so it has not “broken” the application system. As has been stated here many times, one should only apply to a school ED if the school is genuinely one’s top choice.

It is a game though.

Told the kids, it's nothing personal. These are the parameters of the game. Play if you want to, but it's up to you. This is what it takes to get into top 20 kind of schools. Choose. As bright kids, they'll have good options regardless. It's all good. But if they want to go for it, this is what is needed.

And applying ED to a desired school is part of the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First DC sent ED too low and regretted it. This year, second DC sent ED too high and didn't get in. Regretting that and now runs the risk of getting wiped out in RD. What kind of madness is this that after putting in years of solid work etc etc, kids are buying single lotteries to get into college?

Someone may have already said this, but if you think of ED as a game, then you are considering it for the wrong reasons. ED has been around for over 50 years, so it has not “broken” the application system. As has been stated here many times, one should only apply to a school ED if the school is genuinely one’s top choice.

It is a game though.

Told the kids, it's nothing personal. These are the parameters of the game. Play if you want to, but it's up to you. This is what it takes to get into top 20 kind of schools. Choose. As bright kids, they'll have good options regardless. It's all good. But if they want to go for it, this is what is needed.

And applying ED to a desired school is part of the game.

The issue is that even those who don't really want to ED are being induced to because of how many seats are getting filled up in ED. For a kid who wants to see where they could get in, RD is ideal, but obviously very risky

[Anonymous]

This! Especially applies to South Asian and Asian males in STEM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And what about EA, thats another off shoot of broken admission process

Who does EA hurt?

+1
Ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Early Decision should be illegal, frankly. It's inequitable, and for families who can afford to participate, deeply stressful.

Don't participate if you cannot handle it. Anyone who wants to can participate. You just have to be able to pay for college.

But hey, some cannot afford even state school for 4 years, so they have to start at CC. Should we also get rid of 4 year state universities, simply because some people cannot afford to attend?
Some have to attend college as a commuter because they cannot afford to live on campus. So does that mean all colleges should remove dorms and campus living and everyone should attend a school within 30 min drive of their home?

No to first question,

Maybe to the second. I think a big reason college is both so expensive and we have a massive student debt problem is because too many (maybe not the DCs groomed from a young age to enter the elite who have massive 529s and don’t need to take out loans) freshly minted kids want to attend college for equal amounts of “college=good future” and “college=freedom from Mom and Dad for 4 years before I have to really start adulting”

The second reason should not be a factor in consideration, and many would never admit it outright especially when young— but I think it is a LARGE reason for kids going out of state/too far to commute from Mom and Dad’s house. Save for a few “top” schools, where you go doesn’t matter enough to justifying paying double or triple the cost of tuition AND then also paying for living expenses like room and board.

There are literally like more than 1000 degree granting tertiary institutions in the U.S. be hard-pressed to not find one close to home cheaper than one a few states away.

[Anonymous]

With our first DC, we thought ED was only for rich kids, and DC didn’t have a dream school, so they only did RD. Fortunately they got in more than one top 20 schools with great aid. Looking back, we could have done ED to a need blind school and been done by Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First DC sent ED too low and regretted it. This year, second DC sent ED too high and didn't get in. Regretting that and now runs the risk of getting wiped out in RD. What kind of madness is this that after putting in years of solid work etc etc, kids are buying single lotteries to get into college?

Someone may have already said this, but if you think of ED as a game, then you are considering it for the wrong reasons. ED has been around for over 50 years, so it has not “broken” the application system. As has been stated here many times, one should only apply to a school ED if the school is genuinely one’s top choice.

It is a game though.

Told the kids, it's nothing personal. These are the parameters of the game. Play if you want to, but it's up to you. This is what it takes to get into top 20 kind of schools. Choose. As bright kids, they'll have good options regardless. It's all good. But if they want to go for it, this is what is needed.

And applying ED to a desired school is part of the game.

I think this is exactly right. I don't think mine would have gone the ED route, but she was afraid (based on lots of evidence) that too many slots would be filled by others who did ED.

The issue is that even those who don't really want to ED are being induced to because of how many seats are getting filled up in ED. For a kid who wants to see where they could get in, RD is ideal, but obviously very risky

[Anonymous]

I think the worst is when you apply EA and the school encourages a switch to ED2. Makes you have to rethink your whole application strategy all over again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Early Decision should be illegal, frankly. It's inequitable, and for families who can afford to participate, deeply stressful.

+1000

[Anonymous]

You are mistaken. Boston College is need blind and meets all need.

BC's equation includes a lot of student & parent loans.