Anonymous
01/21/2026 13:08
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
ED helps for sure. If you know you want a slac, it would be stupid to only apply RD.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 13:02
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My kids a junior and, so far, really likes the LACs we've seen including Bowdoin and Middlebury. Prefers them over the medium and large schools we've seen. Touring Williams, Colgate, Hamilton, etc this February break.
Kid is not an athlete and only hook is coming from a good private.
Wondering if there's any use in trying to discern a favorite for ED purposes. Or doing the opposite - reminding kid that there's no advantage to EDing if not an athlete so let's keep our hearts open.
But truth is, I dont know if there is or is not an advantage to EDing to these schools as a non-athlete. Not concerned with getting into the Hamilton-tier schools. Naviance makes those look pretty safe. Student has stats, grades, pointing interest with national awards .. the application will be strong in time for an ED. I just don't know if it's worth it for the most competitive places like Williams and Bowdoin.
Midd is a huge advantage applying ED. Takes 70% of class that way. Add in flexibility for Feb. admit and kid is in. Not sure what you mean by Hamilton-tier schools, which Midd is definitely a part of: Midd is an easier admit ED than Hamilton.
Bowdoin and Williams are a decided disadvantage ED.
Not for Bowdoin at our school. One kid gets in ED then that's it. Same for Amherst.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 12:51
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Anonymous wrote:I tried to do the math and I think Williams takes 90-100 kids who are not athletes/questbridge. BUT .. I'm sure they like certain high schools or certain ECs or certain awards so dig deeper.
They are as hard to get into as any other tip top school from our HS.
They do. They took 2 kids ED from DC’s school this year and last year accepted 5 students from the class. Only 1 applicant was an athlete but wasn’t recruited and none were minorities.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 12:48
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Anonymous wrote:My kids a junior and, so far, really likes the LACs we've seen including Bowdoin and Middlebury. Prefers them over the medium and large schools we've seen. Touring Williams, Colgate, Hamilton, etc this February break.
Kid is not an athlete and only hook is coming from a good private.
Wondering if there's any use in trying to discern a favorite for ED purposes. Or doing the opposite - reminding kid that there's no advantage to EDing if not an athlete so let's keep our hearts open.
But truth is, I dont know if there is or is not an advantage to EDing to these schools as a non-athlete. Not concerned with getting into the Hamilton-tier schools. Naviance makes those look pretty safe. Student has stats, grades, pointing interest with national awards .. the application will be strong in time for an ED. I just don't know if it's worth it for the most competitive places like Williams and Bowdoin.
Midd is a huge advantage applying ED. Takes 70% of class that way. Add in flexibility for Feb. admit and kid is in. Not sure what you mean by Hamilton-tier schools, which Midd is definitely a part of: Midd is an easier admit ED than Hamilton.
Bowdoin and Williams are a decided disadvantage ED.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 12:36
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My kids a junior and, so far, really likes the LACs we've seen including Bowdoin and Middlebury. Prefers them over the medium and large schools we've seen. Touring Williams, Colgate, Hamilton, etc this February break.
Kid is not an athlete and only hook is coming from a good private.
Wondering if there's any use in trying to discern a favorite for ED purposes. Or doing the opposite - reminding kid that there's no advantage to EDing if not an athlete so let's keep our hearts open.
But truth is, I dont know if there is or is not an advantage to EDing to these schools as a non-athlete. Not concerned with getting into the Hamilton-tier schools. Naviance makes those look pretty safe. Student has stats, grades, pointing interest with national awards .. the application will be strong in time for an ED. I just don't know if it's worth it for the most competitive places like Williams and Bowdoin.
From our experience, DS is a strong non-athlete male student who got rejected from his favorite LAC (that takes lots of athletes in ED). He is applying to many more LACs that will be just as wonderful RD. What worked well for him is setting expectations, he knew it was a big reach that was unlikely to come through and now it's out of the way and he can focus on all the others. When he wrote his RD applications over the holidays he realized they all will give him a similar small class size experience and all offer the same subjects. There's really not much difference among them.
Define strong? Yes, most of the LACs offer a similiar experience.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 11:09
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Anonymous wrote:My kids a junior and, so far, really likes the LACs we've seen including Bowdoin and Middlebury. Prefers them over the medium and large schools we've seen. Touring Williams, Colgate, Hamilton, etc this February break.
Kid is not an athlete and only hook is coming from a good private.
Wondering if there's any use in trying to discern a favorite for ED purposes. Or doing the opposite - reminding kid that there's no advantage to EDing if not an athlete so let's keep our hearts open.
But truth is, I dont know if there is or is not an advantage to EDing to these schools as a non-athlete. Not concerned with getting into the Hamilton-tier schools. Naviance makes those look pretty safe. Student has stats, grades, pointing interest with national awards .. the application will be strong in time for an ED. I just don't know if it's worth it for the most competitive places like Williams and Bowdoin.
From our experience, DS is a strong non-athlete male student who got rejected from his favorite LAC (that takes lots of athletes in ED). He is applying to many more LACs that will be just as wonderful RD. What worked well for him is setting expectations, he knew it was a big reach that was unlikely to come through and now it's out of the way and he can focus on all the others. When he wrote his RD applications over the holidays he realized they all will give him a similar small class size experience and all offer the same subjects. There's really not much difference among them.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 11:05
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
I have understood Middlebury traditionally does give a good bump from ED, but worth check what happened last year.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 11:01
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
I checked our Naviance to see what things looked like for the schools that you mentioned. Amherst was the only one that showed a clear advantage for ED though I would think that there would be an advantage at Middlebury as well because it is a bit larger than the others.
Williams had the highest acceptance rates (with very strong stats) from our school followed by Amherst. The Middlebury kids had the highest average stats and was a tougher admit than the first two. The acceptance rates for all three schools were well above the stated acceptance rates but the admitted stats were above average for all of the schools except Amherst. Ours is a test mandatory school so everyone has an SAT score in the system as well.
Bowdoin is the outlier for us with nobody admitted in the past 4 years. I have no idea why.
Williams had the highest acceptance rates (with very strong stats) from our school followed by Amherst. The Middlebury kids had the highest average stats and was a tougher admit than the first two. The acceptance rates for all three schools were well above the stated acceptance rates but the admitted stats were above average for all of the schools except Amherst. Ours is a test mandatory school so everyone has an SAT score in the system as well.
Bowdoin is the outlier for us with nobody admitted in the past 4 years. I have no idea why.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:58
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Anonymous wrote:^^ I would say ED helps for Bowdoin and Amherst at our school, but not for Williams (though Williams has fewer applications compared to those two). You should be able to see that data in Naviance.
I agree it's essential to look at the Naviance data for ED applicants at your school. Williams definitely has feeder schools it prefers and it's hard if not impossible to break in from a non-feeder. Only the occasional recruited athlete seems to get in from ours. The other WASPB schools seem at least a little more open.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:33
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
Is the student male? These schools REALLY want non-athletic regular person males. I think ED would help disproportionately for a male applicant.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:30
Subject: Re:advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
In your shoes I’d encourage your kid to keep his heart open but pick one to ED to as a strategic move and just to get it all over with sooner. Assuming your teen has the emotional maturity to handle that level of nuance.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:21
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
I tried to do the math and I think Williams takes 90-100 kids who are not athletes/questbridge. BUT .. I'm sure they like certain high schools or certain ECs or certain awards so dig deeper.
They are as hard to get into as any other tip top school from our HS.
They are as hard to get into as any other tip top school from our HS.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:16
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
^^ I would say ED helps for Bowdoin and Amherst at our school, but not for Williams (though Williams has fewer applications compared to those two). You should be able to see that data in Naviance.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:14
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
In our experience, ED is a valuable tool to distinguish your kid from others applying RD. SLACs do care about yield. The odds are still low of course but my unhooked DC got into a SLAC ED (the most popular one at his school) and the 15 RD applicants did not. He was a demonstrably good fit with perfect stats, which helped too. But who knows if he would have gotten in over the others RD.
Anonymous
01/21/2026 10:07
Subject: advice from 2029 to 2030 regarding LAC
My kids a junior and, so far, really likes the LACs we've seen including Bowdoin and Middlebury. Prefers them over the medium and large schools we've seen. Touring Williams, Colgate, Hamilton, etc this February break.
Kid is not an athlete and only hook is coming from a good private.
Wondering if there's any use in trying to discern a favorite for ED purposes. Or doing the opposite - reminding kid that there's no advantage to EDing if not an athlete so let's keep our hearts open.
But truth is, I dont know if there is or is not an advantage to EDing to these schools as a non-athlete. Not concerned with getting into the Hamilton-tier schools. Naviance makes those look pretty safe. Student has stats, grades, pointing interest with national awards .. the application will be strong in time for an ED. I just don't know if it's worth it for the most competitive places like Williams and Bowdoin.
Kid is not an athlete and only hook is coming from a good private.
Wondering if there's any use in trying to discern a favorite for ED purposes. Or doing the opposite - reminding kid that there's no advantage to EDing if not an athlete so let's keep our hearts open.
But truth is, I dont know if there is or is not an advantage to EDing to these schools as a non-athlete. Not concerned with getting into the Hamilton-tier schools. Naviance makes those look pretty safe. Student has stats, grades, pointing interest with national awards .. the application will be strong in time for an ED. I just don't know if it's worth it for the most competitive places like Williams and Bowdoin.