If your kid is pushed to go ED1 at their 3rd or 4th choice, they might always wonder what if. ED2, though somewhat more competitive at schools that share data (but with fewer athletes and legacies), gives them the chance to go for their true top choice ED1/EA.

Top privates have advised this route quite a bit (look at all the Chicago and other solid ED2 admits after not getting the best EA/ED1 news). It also gets some into that true #1 school!

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

The "stats" are probably top athletes in their sport in the nation.

Top stats, legacy, and recruited athlete would be the ideal early profile.

Anonymous wrote:We all know that superb stats are not enough for one to get an offer of admission to Stanford, Harvard, and/or Princeton. At what point are superb stats enough to get one an offer of admission to an elite private National University ?

In another thread, a poster listed Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton as their daughter's top 3 school choices. The poster stated that her daughter had the stats for these schools. Most of us understand that stellar stats (GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores) are not enough to generate an offer of admission to the most elite private National Universities.

Is there a point at which stellar stats are enough for admission to an elite private National University ? If so, where--in terms of US News rank--is that point ?

For a student interested in studying liberal arts whose top choice schools are Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Northwestern or any Ivy, wouldn't applying ED to a Top 10 SLAC be a wiser path due to the relatively high ED admission rates ? (#1 ranked Williams College and #2 ranked Amherst College have reported ED admission rates above 30% within the past few years.)

I think the schools you list are still lottery, even ED, even superb stats. But take it down a little further, and you have a point. The other trap is taking great stats and only applying to need blind schools, because everyone in that situation is doing exactly that. A slightly lower ranked, need aware school may offer just as much in the end to a really great student, even if they didn't promise it to all comers at the outset.

Anonymous wrote:We all know that superb stats are not enough for one to get an offer of admission to Stanford, Harvard, and/or Princeton. At what point are superb stats enough to get one an offer of admission to an elite private National University ?

In another thread, a poster listed Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton as their daughter's top 3 school choices. The poster stated that her daughter had the stats for these schools. Most of us understand that stellar stats (GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores) are not enough to generate an offer of admission to the most elite private National Universities.

Is there a point at which stellar stats are enough for admission to an elite private National University ? If so, where--in terms of US News rank--is that point ?

For a student interested in studying liberal arts whose top choice schools are Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Northwestern or any Ivy, wouldn't applying ED to a Top 10 SLAC be a wiser path due to the relatively high ED admission rates ? (#1 ranked Williams College and #2 ranked Amherst College have reported ED admission rates above 30% within the past few years.)

I think pure great stats (770+ on each part of the SATs; over 3.9 GPA unweighted), combined with a pleasant personality and belonged to a couple of clubs, probably leads to a 90+ acceptance rate at state schools at about the Indiana level and private schools at or below, roughly, Syracuse.

Anonymous wrote:My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

How you know they unhooked?

Anonymous wrote:Sounds to me that your student is less interested in an education than in bragging rights. The Ivies are skewed to wealth. Which means you should have been going to the right schools, playing the right sports, and "volunteering" for the right charities since K4.
Apply like everyone else, and hope - like everyone else...

You misunderstand the question posed by this thread. And the student is not my student.

My question arose after reading another thread about kids top 3 college choices. One parent listed her daughter's top 3 choices as Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton and stated that the daughter had the stats to enter the Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton lotteries. With admission rates below 5%, the concern arose about what opportunities a high stats kid sacrifices by foregoing ED options to target these three ultra selective schools. Many private National Universities with overall admission rates under 10% have RD admission rates much closer to 5% due to the number of spots taken by ED admits. Is it wise to sacrifice ED opportunities to an elite school for an unhooked high stats applicant for a lottery shot at Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton ?

Anonymous wrote:Sounds to me that your student is less interested in an education than in bragging rights. The Ivies are skewed to wealth. Which means you should have been going to the right schools, playing the right sports, and "volunteering" for the right charities since K4.
Apply like everyone else, and hope - like everyone else...

Da troof

Sounds to me that your student is less interested in an education than in bragging rights. The Ivies are skewed to wealth. Which means you should have been going to the right schools, playing the right sports, and "volunteering" for the right charities since K4.
Apply like everyone else, and hope - like everyone else...

Anonymous wrote:Aren't ED rates skewed by athletic admissions?

For Ivies and their equivalents, there is no safe profile, unless you add your name to a building or are of influential parentage.

Yes, ED admission rates typically include recruited athletes at SLACs. Even so, ED admission rates seem quite generous for such highly ranked schools as Williams, Amherst, & Middlebury.

I understand that for the Ivies and other Top 15 private National Universities that there is no safe profile, but I am asking at what point in terms of US News rankings do stats become the most likely indicator for an offer of admission to a private National University. For example: Will one with stellar stats (75th% or above) applying ED to Emory view this as a safety (60% or better chance) ?

Williams and Amherst have single digit admissions rates. The rates you cite can only possibly by ED and if so, as a PP said, are very skewed by atheltes which they probably recruit in the same raw numbers as ivies but the colleges themselves are much smaller. At my
kids’ mcps high school, many more students were admitted to Cornell than either of these.

In the world of kids I know, the ones who were admitted to H/Y/P were true superstars. Not just perfect gpa, perfect sat and the most rigorous classes (and when I say most rigorous, I really mean it - not just thru MV but also took all of the english and social studies APs, took multiple hard science APs, and finished world language AP junior year). But also excelled in other things - music, science competitions, quizbowl or debate. These were the 2-3 kids in a class of 500 who you “knew” would one day go to H/Y/P. There are of course other students every year who get into Penn,Columbia, Dartmouth - these kids are also terrific students but don’t have that “extra” and so there are a lot more of them so it actually seems less predictable to me why Lola got into Penn and Larla
did not.

And again, I think from our HS the students have an easier time getting into Penn and Dartmouth than Williams and Amherst where the 1-2 admits are usually sports recruits (and terrific students).

It all depends on fit. I have one kid at a top 20 national university (engineering major) and one at a top 3 LAC (premed). Both love where they go. Each type of college has its drawbacks and benefits.

Aren't ED rates skewed by athletic admissions?

For Ivies and their equivalents, there is no safe profile, unless you add your name to a building or are of influential parentage.

We all know that superb stats are not enough for one to get an offer of admission to Stanford, Harvard, and/or Princeton. At what point are superb stats enough to get one an offer of admission to an elite private National University ?

In another thread, a poster listed Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton as their daughter's top 3 school choices. The poster stated that her daughter had the stats for these schools. Most of us understand that stellar stats (GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores) are not enough to generate an offer of admission to the most elite private National Universities.

Is there a point at which stellar stats are enough for admission to an elite private National University ? If so, where--in terms of US News rank--is that point ?

For a student interested in studying liberal arts whose top choice schools are Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Northwestern or any Ivy, wouldn't applying ED to a Top 10 SLAC be a wiser path due to the relatively high ED admission rates ? (#1 ranked Williams College and #2 ranked Amherst College have reported ED admission rates above 30% within the past few years.)