Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are unhooked, you need to think more carefully about schools between Williams and Dickinson. In particular, you need to think through an ED strategy. If your ED strategy is ED1 and ED2 to Williams, Amherst and Swat, your kid may end up at Dickinson or F&M. There are a lot of great schools in between that you would have a much higher chance of acceptance if you apply ED than you would at the top 5. I would figure out which of these appeal to your kid. Yes, Williams is the gold standard, but there are many schools not far behind... Consider Rhodes and Furman for merit aid.

OP here. Did you have schools in mind? I thought we had a pretty good selection across the small liberal arts colleges. I will take a look at Rhodes and Furman.

I’ll admit I’m not well educated on early decision options. Why would doing early decision to one of the more selective schools mean she was locked into one of the less selective ones? Is that because you think she would be rejected out right at the beginning?

The best and most likely way to get into a selective liberal arts college is by applying ED1 or ED2. These schools take up to half or more of their classes ED. So RD becomes very difficult with fewer open spots, and you are competing against all the kids who got rejected ED from the most selective LACs as well as Ivy League type rejects. Schools also practice yield management (where they don’t extend offers to qualified students because their computers tell them they are statistically unlikely to matriculate) so outcomes can be flukey.

In a sense almost all of the top 30 LACs are kind of reachy although with a 35 and a 4.0 you are in good shape. But I would worry about pinning your hopes on top 5 LACs just because they are so ultra competitive. If you apply ED1 and ED2 to Williams, Amherst etc, you could well get rejected both times and then you’ve lost your shot at schools in the 10-30 range. You only had two such schools listed- Hamilton and Midd I think it was- which are very close to the top themselves. What I would do is look at the US News list top 30/40 and think very carefully through process of elimination which schools may be really good fits. Then visit them etc. You could reach for the stars ED1 if you want but maybe ED2 if that doesn’t work out have something less competitive in mind. Or pass on the super duper competitive ones altogether for ED. I think it’s very likely your daughter would get into many schools ranked below 30 or so RD probably with merit aid. But you want to be more strategic in my opinion about the top 30ish and develop an ED game plan. Also, the Ohio schools are a bit easier to get into for the quality they offer and have great performing arts- I would investigate.

Adding on to the ED discussion. ED is binding. As others have said, you have to be in the position to either have the 80K per year and not mind paying it for the school or qualify for FA (run net price calculators) and feel comfortable with that number and that you don’t need to compare FA amounts or take a merit option that could save you more.

If ED is an option financially, if your child has a clear top choice or has a high target/low reach they may want to apply ED. For example, Amherst has an 6% acceptance rate excluding ED and 24% ED acceptance rate. While your child might get some boost applying ED, you have to assume that 24% includes recruited athletes and legacies (assuming Amherst considers legacy in admissions). My gut is there might be a small boost to ED but your kid will be competing with lots of other unhooked kids with high stats where Swarthmore is their dream school. Looking at Wesleyan for example, the overall acceptance rate excluding ED is 17% while that feels more likely than Swarthmore that still means 83% are waitlisted or rejected. The ED rate however is 55%. If Wesleyan was a top choice or a close second, your child might consider either ED1 to Wesleyan or ED to Swarthmore and if they don’t get in, ED2 to Wesleyan. With your child’s stats/interest I wouldn’t say to ED to Dickinson since that has a 47% acceptance rate and your kid is likely in the top 25% for the applicant pool. As long as your kid isn’t phoning it in for the application or picking a program that is much more selective, I would say this is a low target. This chart that using data from the Common Data Sets is helpful https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/early-vs-regular-decision-admission-rates/

I would say ED to Dickinson should be totally out of the question, almost for any student (except a very wealthy and weak one), as it potentially impacts merit aid. For a student with a 35 ACT, it would be absurd. This student is not in the top 25% but probably 5%. The only thing she has to worry about is yield control which can be handled through demonstrated interest. Not all acceptance rates were created equal. The Dickinson pool is going to be drastically less competitive than other schools mentioned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s hard, if stats are similar to admitted kids at “top” schools, to get one’s mind around the idea that the likeliest outcome for you, personally, is that you will be rejected there and accepted at a school with a significantly higher admissions rate where your stats are much above the average.

The unhooked as a starting point need to be above average academically but even then the very top schools have to somewhat arbitrarily select one academic superstar for every X they reject. As you go down the selectivity list, X becomes a smaller number and ultimately approaches zero with ED. In RD anything goes because of yield control.

Except it isn’t completely arbitrary, it’s often for geographical diversity and gender diversity. Unfortunately, being a girl from the DMV area doesn’t help with either. Too many strong students here applying to the same elite schools, and slacs need boys, not girls.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what people are saying is that not only do you not have true safeties but the "target" zone on your list is a little scanty too. You have a ton of reaches (Hamilton and Midd and Wesleyan are reaches, and her odds are low unless she EDs them). With a really strong application, they become low reaches if ED'd.

I think your actual targets for applying RD are F&M, Dickinson, Bard, UMD. If she is really happy with those options that's good, but F&M is a significantly more competitive school than Bard and Dickinson and maybe she'd want more options in that range?

I posted this and want to clarify that it's not like it's impossible she could get into Williams or a school that selective--it could happen! But in the past couple years I have known of some excellent students who applied to highly selective schools and ended up at schools much lower ranked than you would have expected (and TBH, schools they really didn't want and
had never expected to actually attend) because they didn't have solid middle-range options. Admissions are more competitive and unpredictable than they were five years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s hard, if stats are similar to admitted kids at “top” schools, to get one’s mind around the idea that the likeliest outcome for you, personally, is that you will be rejected there and accepted at a school with a significantly higher admissions rate where your stats are much above the average.

The unhooked as a starting point need to be above average academically but even then the very top schools have to somewhat arbitrarily select one academic superstar for every X they reject. As you go down the selectivity list, X becomes a smaller number and ultimately approaches zero with ED. In RD anything goes because of yield control.

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s hard, if stats are similar to admitted kids at “top” schools, to get one’s mind around the idea that the likeliest outcome for you, personally, is that you will be rejected there and accepted at a school with a significantly higher admissions rate where your stats are much above the average.

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest that op read the portion of Jeff Selingo’s book about admissions at Amherst and Williams for unhooked students. Even with ED, these two schools are near impossible admissions.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are unhooked, you need to think more carefully about schools between Williams and Dickinson. In particular, you need to think through an ED strategy. If your ED strategy is ED1 and ED2 to Williams, Amherst and Swat, your kid may end up at Dickinson or F&M. There are a lot of great schools in between that you would have a much higher chance of acceptance if you apply ED than you would at the top 5. I would figure out which of these appeal to your kid. Yes, Williams is the gold standard, but there are many schools not far behind... Consider Rhodes and Furman for merit aid.

OP here. Did you have schools in mind? I thought we had a pretty good selection across the small liberal arts colleges. I will take a look at Rhodes and Furman.

I’ll admit I’m not well educated on early decision options. Why would doing early decision to one of the more selective schools mean she was locked into one of the less selective ones? Is that because you think she would be rejected out right at the beginning?

The best and most likely way to get into a selective liberal arts college is by applying ED1 or ED2. These schools take up to half or more of their classes ED. So RD becomes very difficult with fewer open spots, and you are competing against all the kids who got rejected ED from the most selective LACs as well as Ivy League type rejects. Schools also practice yield management (where they don’t extend offers to qualified students because their computers tell them they are statistically unlikely to matriculate) so outcomes can be flukey.

In a sense almost all of the top 30 LACs are kind of reachy although with a 35 and a 4.0 you are in good shape. But I would worry about pinning your hopes on top 5 LACs just because they are so ultra competitive. If you apply ED1 and ED2 to Williams, Amherst etc, you could well get rejected both times and then you’ve lost your shot at schools in the 10-30 range. You only had two such schools listed- Hamilton and Midd I think it was- which are very close to the top themselves. What I would do is look at the US News list top 30/40 and think very carefully through process of elimination which schools may be really good fits. Then visit them etc. You could reach for the stars ED1 if you want but maybe ED2 if that doesn’t work out have something less competitive in mind. Or pass on the super duper competitive ones altogether for ED. I think it’s very likely your daughter would get into many schools ranked below 30 or so RD probably with merit aid. But you want to be more strategic in my opinion about the top 30ish and develop an ED game plan. Also, the Ohio schools are a bit easier to get into for the quality they offer and have great performing arts- I would investigate.

Adding on to the ED discussion. ED is binding. As others have said, you have to be in the position to either have the 80K per year and not mind paying it for the school or qualify for FA (run net price calculators) and feel comfortable with that number and that you don’t need to compare FA amounts or take a merit option that could save you more.

If ED is an option financially, if your child has a clear top choice or has a high target/low reach they may want to apply ED. For example, Amherst has an 6% acceptance rate excluding ED and 24% ED acceptance rate. While your child might get some boost applying ED, you have to assume that 24% includes recruited athletes and legacies (assuming Amherst considers legacy in admissions). My gut is there might be a small boost to ED but your kid will be competing with lots of other unhooked kids with high stats where Swarthmore is their dream school. Looking at Wesleyan for example, the overall acceptance rate excluding ED is 17% while that feels more likely than Swarthmore that still means 83% are waitlisted or rejected. The ED rate however is 55%. If Wesleyan was a top choice or a close second, your child might consider either ED1 to Wesleyan or ED to Swarthmore and if they don’t get in, ED2 to Wesleyan. With your child’s stats/interest I wouldn’t say to ED to Dickinson since that has a 47% acceptance rate and your kid is likely in the top 25% for the applicant pool. As long as your kid isn’t phoning it in for the application or picking a program that is much more selective, I would say this is a low target. This chart that using data from the Common Data Sets is helpful https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/early-vs-regular-decision-admission-rates/

Anonymous wrote:I was the person with the "profoundly bad advice" (that made me laugh). If you can afford to ED a super top school and it's your kid's favorite, of course do that! I am reacting to what seems like increasingly popular but bad advice to ED to a mid-range school that your kid might okay/sorta be happy at, just to have one in the books. That's the impression I get from some posts on here lately... Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully not profoundly wrong again, though. haha. I'm actually curious about this - please explain?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are unhooked, you need to think more carefully about schools between Williams and Dickinson. In particular, you need to think through an ED strategy. If your ED strategy is ED1 and ED2 to Williams, Amherst and Swat, your kid may end up at Dickinson or F&M. There are a lot of great schools in between that you would have a much higher chance of acceptance if you apply ED than you would at the top 5. I would figure out which of these appeal to your kid. Yes, Williams is the gold standard, but there are many schools not far behind... Consider Rhodes and Furman for merit aid.

OP here. Did you have schools in mind? I thought we had a pretty good selection across the small liberal arts colleges. I will take a look at Rhodes and Furman.

I’ll admit I’m not well educated on early decision options. Why would doing early decision to one of the more selective schools mean she was locked into one of the less selective ones? Is that because you think she would be rejected out right at the beginning?

The best and most likely way to get into a selective liberal arts college is by applying ED1 or ED2. These schools take up to half or more of their classes ED. So RD becomes very difficult with fewer open spots, and you are competing against all the kids who got rejected ED from the most selective LACs as well as Ivy League type rejects. Schools also practice yield management (where they don’t extend offers to qualified students because their computers tell them they are statistically unlikely to matriculate) so outcomes can be flukey.

In a sense almost all of the top 30 LACs are kind of reachy although with a 35 and a 4.0 you are in good shape. But I would worry about pinning your hopes on top 5 LACs just because they are so ultra competitive. If you apply ED1 and ED2 to Williams, Amherst etc, you could well get rejected both times and then you’ve lost your shot at schools in the 10-30 range. You only had two such schools listed- Hamilton and Midd I think it was- which are very close to the top themselves. What I would do is look at the US News list top 30/40 and think very carefully through process of elimination which schools may be really good fits. Then visit them etc. You could reach for the stars ED1 if you want but maybe ED2 if that doesn’t work out have something less competitive in mind. Or pass on the super duper competitive ones altogether for ED. I think it’s very likely your daughter would get into many schools ranked below 30 or so RD probably with merit aid. But you want to be more strategic in my opinion about the top 30ish and develop an ED game plan. Also, the Ohio schools are a bit easier to get into for the quality they offer and have great performing arts- I would investigate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think what people are saying is that not only do you not have true safeties but the "target" zone on your list is a little scanty too. You have a ton of reaches (Hamilton and Midd and Wesleyan are reaches, and her odds are low unless she EDs them). With a really strong application, they become low reaches if ED'd.

I think your actual targets for applying RD are F&M, Dickinson, Bard, UMD. If she is really happy with those options that's good, but F&M is a significantly more competitive school than Bard and Dickinson and maybe she'd want more options in that range?

I posted this and want to clarify that it's not like it's impossible she could get into Williams or a school that selective--it could happen! But in the past couple years I have known of some excellent students who applied to highly selective schools and ended up at schools much lower ranked than you would have expected (and TBH, schools they really didn't want and
had never expected to actually attend) because they didn't have solid middle-range options. Admissions are more competitive and unpredictable than they were five years ago.

Anonymous wrote:I think what people are saying is that not only do you not have true safeties but the "target" zone on your list is a little scanty too. You have a ton of reaches (Hamilton and Midd and Wesleyan are reaches, and her odds are low unless she EDs them). With a really strong application, they become low reaches if ED'd.

I think your actual targets for applying RD are F&M, Dickinson, Bard, UMD. If she is really happy with those options that's good, but F&M is a significantly more competitive school than Bard and Dickinson and maybe she'd want more options in that range?