Reply to What was your high-stats, unhooked, ED strategy in 2024 or will it be in 2025?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "What was your high-stats, unhooked, ED strategy in 2024 or will it be in 2025?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The reality for unhooked kids is that applying ED, SCEA, EA, and RD is like game theory these days. I absolutely would not apply ED/SCEA to Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Penn, and Duke. Toss those aside. Not happening for an unhooked kid from the DMV burbs. MIT doesn't care about ED so would apply RD if interested. But don't bother with restricted early.

I would look at your high school's college admissions from the past couple of years. Often, selective colleges are partial to certain high schools. And if your high school has had success with schools that your DC is interested in, consider it. And then you're just going to have to settle on your risk tolerance. For highly selective schools like Vanderbilt and Brown, it really is carnage in the regular decision round. But early action is at least possible. But if you choose wrong, then you're consigned to the chaos of regular decision.

On the other hand, if the kid really likes something a little lower ranked and with better odds, it can be the best call to apply early there. Provided that's someplace they really want to go and they don't get stuck wondering about other possibilities.   [/quote]

Why are you saying ED to Duke is impossible but ED to Brown is reasonable?  With an ED acceptance of 10-12% for Duke, that seems pretty good for my kid who would be competitive for any top school (doesn’t mean he’ll get in, but he has a shot: 1600 SAT, 4.00 GPA, 5.00 WGPA, MCPS magnet, state level awards in three diverse areas, etc.).  [/quote]

Look at the composition of the ED round at Duke.  It's extremely hooked private school kids and extremely talented academic kids from TJ who have national level science and math awards.  For many years, academic types, particularly math and science "nerds" have loved Duke in a way that they don't love Brown.  This is not a diss on Brown by the way, but I think this is where that rumor about Duke "hating" DC private school kids in the early round started.  [/quote]

Thanks for the response.  I hope you’re wrong, but I appreciate your sharing your perspective! [/quote]

Duke admits a lot of hooked super-rich kids. As someone with deep family ties and a lot of $$$ told me, it’s “one of the remaining schools where enough calls from prominent people (ie board members) can get you in.”[/quote]

Not true from a legacy friend in development there...they have shared stories over the years of legacy kids whose parents offer up 6-7 figures and are handed rejection in ED due to the tactics, even students that are in the "ballpark" with stats, and at fancy private schools, even some children of very famous sports alums--rejected. Duke got even more quick to reject folks who tried offering $ after the whole varsity blues thing in 2019: now if someone "knows" someone on the inside, there are strict rules to cut off communications with anyone who has a kid entering the cycle.  Legacies who have been involved over decades with volunteering and do not donate are more likely to be counted as "valued" versus a legacy who just "randomly" started donating when their kid hit high school. Before it was banned, URM legacies were the most favored. The legacy admit rate, even in ED, is LESS than 20%, just a few points higher than the overall ED rate.  Most legacies are rejected.  However, big-famous-people still have a leg up. That is no different than any other school, where it is a huge boost if one is from the hollywood crowd or a President's grandkid or kid. [/quote]

The kid I know at Duke was at the bottom of his class at our private, a partier with no good EC whatsoever. It was one of the most outrageous admits we have ever seen. Dad is a finance guy with $500 million+ net worth (not an alum). Being from a top NYC private, most legacy kids who get in are generally good or great students but Duke really surprised everyone with this admit. [/quote]
It may be that some colleges admit partially on the prospect of large donations. Generally, a college development office isn't looking at files until after a student has enrolled, though it may happen prior to admission at some colleges, at least per an older article I came across yesterday quoting Dean Deacon at Georgetown.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics