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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Read that CalTech was going "restrictive early action" and was like huh? Google taught me some but I have a PhD and my head kind of hurts just trying to get my head around this newer option (well really the only option to find out early) for Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, etc.

Curious to hear anyone's thoughts on it from your own observations, college counseling/advising, or your kid who went through, or is going through the process. Bonus points if you add a little about your socioeconomic background and how it influenced how you think about it.

(For example--we're a donut hole family, which is not the end of the world, but REA seems kind of disadvantageous in some sort of way for...almost everyone except the institutions themselves? Maybe I'm missing something? Like it's supposed to be beneficial for lower/moderate income students, but thinking back to my high school self, which came from a lower SES background, and I don't think I would have liked REA as someone who wanted to consider elite schools but wasn't necessarily deadset on attending one)

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Let’s get terms right for this discussion. I know CalTech calls it REA but that’s disingenuous: Cal Tech has SCEA, meaning you can’t apply EA to any other private school. SCEA, which HYPS also has, is downright evil. If you are an unhooked student, you should never go this route. You will not get in, will have foregone ED to a school you might have had a shot at, will not have applied EA to a “safety” such as Macalester, and you will be left with ED2 or RD. ED2 is harder than ED1, so when you apply to one of the few top schools that even have it (Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Swarthmore), you will likely not get in and be left with RD anyhow. In short, falling for the SCEA trap means you will probably be attending a less selective school than if you had avoided it altogether.

REA as a term should be reserved to Notre Dame and Georgetown: apply EA anywhere you want, but not ED. Not only can you then apply to both Georgetown and Notre Dame, then, but Macalester and a host of other private schools.

Then there is good old-fashioned non-restrictive EA. There are 2 kinds here: the EA that tells you in time to apply somewhere else ED2, and the EA that does not. Most state schools do not tell you in time to inform an ED2 decision (Georgia is an exception). Most private EA schools will tell you in time to inform an ED2 decision (Richmond is an exception).

This is is what any unhooked applicant should do: avoid SCEA like the plague. Apply ED1 somewhere (ask yourself if Penn or Columbia or Brown, if a female, are really worth the risk here — they probably aren’t) like Chicago or a top SLAC like Williams or Amherst which has no ED2. Then apply to other private schools EA. In December, you likely have an ED1 rejection and have gotten a sense where you stand in terms of merit aid to some EA schools. Then drop down a rung for ED2 (consider SLACs here; there are more good options).

Yet unhooked kids persist in applying SCEA…

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Thank you for this explanation. My oldest is a junior and I am realizing that I misunderstood the difference between say, Georgetown (I understood-I guess misunderstood-at the visit that early applicants are NOT allowed to apply elsewhere) and Harvard. I thought they were the same.

But, when i look at my son's list of 30 schools or so that he is considering I see very few that are early action-even William and Mary seems to only have Early Decision. Do many privates have early action?? I will encourage him to look at them..[/quote]

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