Anonymous wrote:PP - your story just sounds incredible. Why would an elite school care about an A in one semester of one senior class as the supposed make or break decision? At best, sounds like your private school counselor called up a contact at the school to ask why DC got deferred instead of admitted, and was told, it was that B in Calculus or whatever, so the advice from counselor (no matter how they explained it to you) was to make up the grade with an A in Multivariable Calculus first semester senior year (which would make the B in Calculus look like a bygone).... So counselor translated that to "the school called - get an A in math"

Your assumptons are incorrect. For certain majors, the applications go through a faculty review for coursework. You have to have all A's across the board in rigorous courses to be in the running in addition to high test scores as an academic candidate. It's brutal to be a white male STEM applicant.

ED2 isn't unique to UChicago. Here’s a list of schools offering that option. Might be worth checking to see if DC’s #2 choice is on it. Not a good plan if you’re price-sensitive.

American University
Bard College
Bates College
Boston University
Bennington College
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University
Bryant University
Bryn Mawr College
Bucknell University
Carleton College
Case Western Reserve University
Claremont McKenna Colleges
Colby College
Colgate University
College of the Atlantic
College of Wooster
Colorado College
Connecticut College
Davidson College
Denison College
Dickinson College
Emory University
Franklin & Marshall College
George Washington University
Gettysburg College
Grinnell College
Hamilton College
Hampshire College
Harvey Mudd College
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Juniata College
Kenyon College
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
Macalester College
Middlebury College
Mount Holyoke College
New York University
Northeastern University
Oberlin College
Occidental College
Pomona College
Reed College
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rhodes College
Saint Olaf College
Sarah Lawrence College
Scripps College
Sewanee: The University of the South
Skidmore College
Smith College
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
Trinity University
Tufts University
Union College
University of Chicago
University of Miami
University of Richmond
University of Rochester
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Wake Forest University
Washington and Lee University
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Whitman College

Source:
https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/early-decision-ii/

Anonymous wrote:Is the point to beat others to the punch of admitting you, so it locks you in before you could know about other decisions? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if your early action app waitlisted you in December, they could potentially admit you before UChicago's mid-Feb edII decision, yes?

Yes the point is to lock in students who start panicking because they were rejected or deferred from their first choice. If you get rejected from your top choice, do not do EDII unless UChicago is your clear second choice and you would prefer attending over any school on your RD list.

SCEA deferral would mean you will get your decision in March along with the RD applicants, not before that.

Get an A in one specific course SEM7 and you're accepted sounds like bullsh*t to me.

I could see get all As so I can sell them on upward trajectory/maturity or retake SAT to eke out a 90-percentile cutoff score.... but one A? No chance.

PP - your story just sounds incredible. Why would an elite school care about an A in one semester of one senior class as the supposed make or break decision? At best, sounds like your private school counselor called up a contact at the school to ask why DC got deferred instead of admitted, and was told, it was that B in Calculus or whatever, so the advice from counselor (no matter how they explained it to you) was to make up the grade with an A in Multivariable Calculus first semester senior year (which would make the B in Calculus look like a bygone).... So counselor translated that to "the school called - get an A in math"

Private school. The SCEA school contacted our college counselor with the information. It was a class that the student was already enrolled in but semester grade was not yet available.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the SCEA schools don't do any form of rolling admissions. I would also view an SCEA deferral as a soft rejection unless you have a hook that wasn't strong enough to get you through SCEA but may be off waitlist in RD e.g. double legacy, meaningful donation, URM, helmet sport but not top D1 calibre athlete.

Gotcha, thanks. I wasn't sure about the rolling part. So all the elite deferrals go back into the RD bucket and nobody is notified ahead of the RD date?

That's right and what's in the SCEA RD bucket can upset even a deferral where they indicate the student is good to go for RD if they just do one thing, e.g. A in a class. That happened to our kid. Accomplished what was ask but the slot went to a left field RD applicant from same school. In the end, it all worked out terrifically but getting there was rough. If we had it to do again, I would have said yes when asked by my kid if strategic was better than throwing an early card at that particular SCEA school. The EDII option was thankfully available and our gut instinct about UChicago turned out right.

Your DC's early action school literally emailed him/her and asked DC to ace a specific course SEM 7? It didn't know elites asked for anything. It seems they could ask someone to retake an ACT/SAT, but I've never read of them asking anyone to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, the SCEA schools don't do any form of rolling admissions. I would also view an SCEA deferral as a soft rejection unless you have a hook that wasn't strong enough to get you through SCEA but may be off waitlist in RD e.g. double legacy, meaningful donation, URM, helmet sport but not top D1 calibre athlete.

Gotcha, thanks. I wasn't sure about the rolling part. So all the elite deferrals go back into the RD bucket and nobody is notified ahead of the RD date?

That's right and what's in the SCEA RD bucket can upset even a deferral where they indicate the student is good to go for RD if they just do one thing, e.g. A in a class. That happened to our kid. Accomplished what was ask but the slot went to a left field RD applicant from same school. In the end, it all worked out terrifically but getting there was rough. If we had it to do again, I would have said yes when asked by my kid if strategic was better than throwing an early card at that particular SCEA school. The EDII option was thankfully available and our gut instinct about UChicago turned out right.

If your EA school waitlisted or deferred you, your odds of getting in are slim unless there’s some obvious thing that they’re waiting to see about that will significantly strengthen your application. If it was an SCEA app, you had to forsake almost all others to give it your best shot (which you now know fell short). So if UofC is your second fave school (or your fave school but your parents made you apply SCEA to HYPS or ED to a school where you were a legacy, or you didn’t get your act together or you hadn’t worked out your finances in time to submit any other early apps), ED2 make a lot of sense.

Anonymous wrote:No, the SCEA schools don't do any form of rolling admissions. I would also view an SCEA deferral as a soft rejection unless you have a hook that wasn't strong enough to get you through SCEA but may be off waitlist in RD e.g. double legacy, meaningful donation, URM, helmet sport but not top D1 calibre athlete.

Gotcha, thanks. I wasn't sure about the rolling part. So all the elite deferrals go back into the RD bucket and nobody is notified ahead of the RD date?

No, the SCEA schools don't do any form of rolling admissions. I would also view an SCEA deferral as a soft rejection unless you have a hook that wasn't strong enough to get you through SCEA but may be off waitlist in RD e.g. double legacy, meaningful donation, URM, helmet sport but not top D1 calibre athlete.

Anonymous wrote:Yes, they could, but you wouldn't know until March/April if you got in.

EDII is an option for students who have a second top choice that they would be happy to matriculate to, or for students for whom it is their top choice but they didn't do ED due to the timing and awaiting of senior year grades. If UChicago is a school the individual would be happy to be bound to, then sure- apply for ED- there is a statistical advantage compared to the 2% RD acceptance rate. But once you hear back in Mid-Feb, you have to rescind your applications at the other schools you applied to.

Top early action colleges never admit deferred students in January / February? As in, applied EA in Nov...deferred in Dec...admitted in Jan/Feb?

*they didn't do ED1 due to the timing...

Yes, they could, but you wouldn't know until March/April if you got in.

EDII is an option for students who have a second top choice that they would be happy to matriculate to, or for students for whom it is their top choice but they didn't do ED due to the timing and awaiting of senior year grades. If UChicago is a school the individual would be happy to be bound to, then sure- apply for ED- there is a statistical advantage compared to the 2% RD acceptance rate. But once you hear back in Mid-Feb, you have to rescind your applications at the other schools you applied to.

Is the point to beat others to the punch of admitting you, so it locks you in before you could know about other decisions? Correct me if I'm wrong, but if your early action app waitlisted you in December, they could potentially admit you before UChicago's mid-Feb edII decision, yes?