Reply to Lessons learned from ED and SCEA in 2025

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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

[/quote]

I totally agree with this, but OTOH I know at least one "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+" who did just get an ED admit to one of the schools you mention, without a hook or legacy.[/quote]

It definitely happens but it is RARE.  I personally know close to a dozen kids who ED'd to Dartmouth this year and 3 who got in: a double legacy, a VIP's kid and a very top 1600/4.0 kid. My experience with Dartmouth is that they will almost never circle back to deferred ED kids in RD unless they are donor class kids or FGLI.  Your regular smart kids generally don't get a second look. [/quote]

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