Lessons learned from ED and SCEA in 2025

[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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Still might be unclear. Five acceptances to Georgetown that year. All five also applied to Ivies and only one was admitted— she was hooked and admitted to multiple Ivies (and is attending one).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

Huh? They are saying all the Georgetown admits also applied to Ivies, and only the hooked one got into multiple and is attending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

The pp is saying they applied to Georgetown and Ivies but only got into Georgetown. What's unclear about that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

No the exact opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

The pp is saying they applied to Georgetown and Ivies but only got into Georgetown. What's unclear about that?

And other Ivy admits were rejected by Georgetown….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

The pp is saying they applied to Georgetown and Ivies but only got into Georgetown. What's unclear about that?

Did HYP admits also apply to Georgetown? Did Penn/Columbia/Brown/Dartmouth/Brown admits also apply to Georgetown?
If they did not apply, we don't know how they would fare at Georgetown.
If they applied and rejected, then rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

[Anonymous]

You can't just look at 5 Georgetown admits to derive any conclusion. You have to look at Ivy admits to figure out the correlation if any.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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

They all applied and one was admitted to multiple Ivies. The rest were rejected.

Interesting. You are saying HYP Penn Brown admits applied to Georgetown and they didn’t get accepted by Georgetown?

So rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

The pp is saying they applied to Georgetown and Ivies but only got into Georgetown. What's unclear about that?

Did HYP admits also apply to Georgetown? Did Penn/Columbia/Brown/Dartmouth/Brown admits also apply to Georgetown?
If they did not apply, we don't know how they would fare at Georgetown.
If they applied and rejected, then rejection from Georgetown indicates acceptance to ivy.

My understanding:
The kids applied EA to Georgetown to test their application quality. Once admitted, they felt confident to apply regular round to the Ivies. Among the 5 admitted EA to Georgetown, only one ended up getting in the Ivies.

[Anonymous]

Don’t try to read the tea leaves/game it and stick to ED at schools they love. Saw a lot of kids ED Michigan bc thought it would help chances and they got deferred. Schools that accepted a lot of kids last year took no one and vice versa. UVA was all over the place in a way I didn’t expect (usually there is a cut line).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t try to read the tea leaves/game it and stick to ED at schools they love. Saw a lot of kids ED Michigan bc thought it would help chances and they got deferred. Schools that accepted a lot of kids last year took no one and vice versa. UVA was all over the place in a way I didn’t expect (usually there is a cut line).

There was a debate in another thread about whether UVA has a cutoff GPA for a given high school. It seems the answer is not really then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can't just look at 5 Georgetown admits to derive any conclusion. You have to look at Ivy admits to figure out the correlation if any.

My point is that Georgetown takes a lot of kids locally and most of those don’t into an Ivy in RD. I realize it’s anecdotal.

[Anonymous]

Don't settle for a lower favorite just because it's "easier" in ED. You will regret it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Applying ED1 rushes your entire application. The quality of your essays improves over time. My DC's RD essays are so much better than his ED1 essay.

Omg this was so true for my kid. His supplemental essays for RD reach sxhools are way better than his common app essay. But I didn’t say a WORD lest he started revising that one. So happy to be done with this process.