Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:fwiw, top private is a hook for duke. (top private = top 30 private HSs in American. not big three shit)

Disagree. My kids go to one of the “top” boarding schools in the country and they only got one kid into Duke in RD this year.

Midwest top private.
Duke: 1 ED admit; 2 RD admit

Anonymous wrote:fwiw, top private is a hook for duke. (top private = top 30 private HSs in American. not big three shit)

Disagree. My kids go to one of the “top” boarding schools in the country and they only got one kid into Duke in RD this year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice.

This is increasingly bad advice. Never ED to a school that you have almost no shot of getting into; that wastes your ED card.

DP - PP didn't say anything about "almost no shot". "Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice." is sound advice for ANY applicant at ANY college. It is logical (to me) to assume you'd pre-qualified your chance there.

Most non-hooked ED applicants have a 0% chance of getting into these schools. Yet they still apply ED and have “prequalified” their chances. In other words, your point is a big nothing burger.

I said nothing about which school or chances therein. I simply said the statement "Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice" is gospel-level advice for any applicant.

Nice insult though! Was that really necessary?

Also I am the parent of an unhooked student who was accepted at a mid-single digit acceptance ED school, so it happens.

Anonymous wrote:fwiw, top private is a hook for duke. (top private = top 30 private HSs in American. not big three shit)

You don’t understand what a hook is.

fwiw, top private is a hook for duke. (top private = top 30 private HSs in American. not big three shit)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice.

This is increasingly bad advice. Never ED to a school that you have almost no shot of getting into; that wastes your ED card.

DP - PP didn't say anything about "almost no shot". "Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice." is sound advice for ANY applicant at ANY college. It is logical (to me) to assume you'd pre-qualified your chance there.

Most non-hooked ED applicants have a 0% chance of getting into these schools. Yet they still apply ED and have “prequalified” their chances. In other words, your point is a big nothing burger.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice.

This is increasingly bad advice. Never ED to a school that you have almost no shot of getting into; that wastes your ED card.

DP - PP didn't say anything about "almost no shot". "Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice." is sound advice for ANY applicant at ANY college. It is logical (to me) to assume you'd pre-qualified your chance there.

Anonymous wrote:Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice.

This is increasingly bad advice. Never ED to a school that you have almost no shot of getting into; that wastes your ED card.

Duke? The majority of non-hooked applicants have a 0% chance of admission, ED or not. This is true for most top schools. A very small minority of non-hooked kids have a much greater chance, whether it is 10, 20, or 30%. If you cannot say with confidence why your kid is in that small minority, you are not buying a lottery ticket (where anyone could win) but throwing away your kid’s chances of getting into a school ED which is the next tier or two down.

2024 plan was always to ED1 to a dream school with a 7% admit rate and ED2, if needed, to a school with a 19% admit rate and legacy hook. However, after getting some good EA options, DC decided last minute to switch ED2 to a non-hooked option with a 13% admit rate and was successful. DC had some stressful emailing of college counselors and admissions offices over winter break to change ED2, but it all worked out.

The ED1 was always a long shot but at least there is no wondering what if….

Option 1.

This is a good place to revised this thread:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1176381.page

depends on kid. I've seen kids who dont want to live with a "I wonder if I could have gotten into Princeton" tickle for the rest of their lives.

And kids who dont want to chance it.

Both totally reasonable. Problem is it's hard to know for some kids. A lot of buyers remorse

Only ED if it is your DC’s absolute first choice.

Option 2

ED if and only if kid has a very clear first choice. Not worry about odds there. Have multiple schools on the list where kid is very likely to be accepted and would be psyched to attend.

Good grades/scores/rigor/extracurriculars.
What was (or will be) your ED strategy and why?

1)Lottery an elite school. Maybe 10-12% chance instead of <5%. (random example: Duke)

2)Better odds at a school a level down (with an ED rate of 30% instead of 15%). (random example: Boston College).