Anonymous
01/09/2025 08:05
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My DS was rejected from a small SLAC in ED despite having a very strong application and high stats. DS now thinks it was a waste to put his ED option into a smaller school. Learn from him and use ED for mid-size or larger unis with thousands of seats for your ED and ED2 rounds. Don't do what we did and use it on a small SLAC that only has a few hundred seats to offer. The odds are against you.
Look at the percent that get in, not the number of seats available. THEN you will understand the odds.
No. ED admit rate does not give you your true odds.
Two schools. Both schools have ED admit rates of 15%.
School A has 1,000 ED applicants. School B has 2,000 ED applicants. That means that School A has 150 ED seats and School B has 300 ED seats.
Both schools also have 105 recruited athletes who have passed a pre-read and have a 100% chance of admission.
After taking out the athletes,
- School A has 895 other students competing for 45 seats (5% admit rate)
- School B has 1,895 other students competing for 195 seats (10% admit rate)
The overall admit rate at both schools is the same, but the odds of a non-athlete being admitted are twice as high at school B.
Convoluted and flawed math. Why assume both schools have 105 recruited athletes when School B is twice as large as A?
Teams are pretty much the same size at every school. Did you think that NESCACs play 5-on-5 soccer and 3-on-3 volleyball? That’s not how this works. All else equal, at a smaller school athletes make up a larger percentage of the student body.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 08:04
Subject: Re:My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
I would not encourage your kid to continue the kind of thinking that ranks him against his "friends." He has no idea how he compares in the eyes of the university he was accepted to. Maybe his "friend" received much better recommendations because of his excellent character, which your kid may need to work on. Both your and his kind of thinking doesn't reflect well on you. I know it's a stressful time. I have been through it three times, never once did I assume my kid could have gotten in somewhere that another kid that he was "better than" did.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 08:04
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My DS was rejected from a small SLAC in ED despite having a very strong application and high stats. DS now thinks it was a waste to put his ED option into a smaller school. Learn from him and use ED for mid-size or larger unis with thousands of seats for your ED and ED2 rounds. Don't do what we did and use it on a small SLAC that only has a few hundred seats to offer. The odds are against you.
Look at the percent that get in, not the number of seats available. THEN you will understand the odds.
No. ED admit rate does not give you your true odds.
Two schools. Both schools have ED admit rates of 15%.
School A has 1,000 ED applicants. School B has 2,000 ED applicants. That means that School A has 150 ED seats and School B has 300 ED seats.
Both schools also have 105 recruited athletes who have passed a pre-read and have a 100% chance of admission.
After taking out the athletes,
- School A has 895 other students competing for 45 seats (5% admit rate)
- School B has 1,895 other students competing for 195 seats (10% admit rate)
The overall admit rate at both schools is the same, but the odds of a non-athlete being admitted are twice as high at school B.
Convoluted and flawed math. Why assume both schools have 105 recruited athletes when School B is twice as large as A?
The teams are a set size.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 08:00
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Sorry to hear. It happened to us although few years ago but it was more reachy. What were his stats and what was the approximate ranking of the SLAC?
Anonymous
01/09/2025 07:54
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My DS was rejected from a small SLAC in ED despite having a very strong application and high stats. DS now thinks it was a waste to put his ED option into a smaller school. Learn from him and use ED for mid-size or larger unis with thousands of seats for your ED and ED2 rounds. Don't do what we did and use it on a small SLAC that only has a few hundred seats to offer. The odds are against you.
Look at the percent that get in, not the number of seats available. THEN you will understand the odds.
No. ED admit rate does not give you your true odds.
Two schools. Both schools have ED admit rates of 15%.
School A has 1,000 ED applicants. School B has 2,000 ED applicants. That means that School A has 150 ED seats and School B has 300 ED seats.
Both schools also have 105 recruited athletes who have passed a pre-read and have a 100% chance of admission.
After taking out the athletes,
- School A has 895 other students competing for 45 seats (5% admit rate)
- School B has 1,895 other students competing for 195 seats (10% admit rate)
The overall admit rate at both schools is the same, but the odds of a non-athlete being admitted are twice as high at school B.
Convoluted and flawed math. Why assume both schools have 105 recruited athletes when School B is twice as large as A?
Anonymous
01/09/2025 07:15
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:One reason I hate ED is that you feel forced into all sorts of game theory about where and whether to use it.
I completely agree. And yet, when there are very few seats in the class, it can be your best shot.
+1 DC and I sat down and went through Naviance data. We learned that 50-70 kids at his school usually apply to each Ivy plus Hopkins and Georgetown. Then DC looked at SLACs, numbers much lower, 4-13 applications to each T5 there. The SLACs and HYPSM usually admit 1-2 kids per cycle. Even with the stats to compete, the odds were crazy. Cornell and Georgetown had the best odds for a top-stats kid at this school. Each admitted 13 students last year. DC thought odds of getting 1 seat out of 26 were pretty good. But after touring he preferred the SLACs, for a number of reasons. He also happened to like the one that was most popular at his school (13 applications). But historically not many ED, which he realized could give him an advantage. He did get in ED. He still had a good chance RD but why risk being 1 in 13 at that point?
I know this seems vaguely insane, and I felt that while in the middle of it, but gaming it out definitely helped. Of course the stars also basically aligned in terms of his top pick. I'm not sure what my advice would be if game theory suggests DC shouldn't apply to a school they truly love. Because you never know, and so much of admissions is arbitrary in the end. But it's a good idea to balance idealism and realistic strategy in applications when possible.
Sounds like you did your homework, PP, and it helped. Congrats! Everyone should be using Naviance to look at the historical patterns of how many apply ED or RD/how many admitted at a given school. Not an exact science but does give a helpful sense of the lay of the land, no question.
I did something similar with DD, had her take her list of 15 schools and plot out the Naviance data for each one. It did help her narrow it down to 10, with the usual balance of reaches, targets, and safeties. She decided not to ED, since she didn't have a clear #1. One thing I realized: it makes it a less emotional process, and more about numbers and statistics kids can think through in terms of the level of risk they want to take. If they want to take their shot, fine, but they are clear-eyed about it so less likely to take it personally. They might need some guidance understanding the data and settling on a strategy but they can work through most of it themselves.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 07:00
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:One reason I hate ED is that you feel forced into all sorts of game theory about where and whether to use it.
I completely agree. And yet, when there are very few seats in the class, it can be your best shot.
+1 DC and I sat down and went through Naviance data. We learned that 50-70 kids at his school usually apply to each Ivy plus Hopkins and Georgetown. Then DC looked at SLACs, numbers much lower, 4-13 applications to each T5 there. The SLACs and HYPSM usually admit 1-2 kids per cycle. Even with the stats to compete, the odds were crazy. Cornell and Georgetown had the best odds for a top-stats kid at this school. Each admitted 13 students last year. DC thought odds of getting 1 seat out of 26 were pretty good. But after touring he preferred the SLACs, for a number of reasons. He also happened to like the one that was most popular at his school (13 applications). But historically not many ED, which he realized could give him an advantage. He did get in ED. He still had a good chance RD but why risk being 1 in 13 at that point?
I know this seems vaguely insane, and I felt that while in the middle of it, but gaming it out definitely helped. Of course the stars also basically aligned in terms of his top pick. I'm not sure what my advice would be if game theory suggests DC shouldn't apply to a school they truly love. Because you never know, and so much of admissions is arbitrary in the end. But it's a good idea to balance idealism and realistic strategy in applications when possible.
Well reasoned choice, but sounds like it was a parent who figured this out or at least suggested the idea, not the kid.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 06:46
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:One reason I hate ED is that you feel forced into all sorts of game theory about where and whether to use it.
I completely agree. And yet, when there are very few seats in the class, it can be your best shot.
+1 DC and I sat down and went through Naviance data. We learned that 50-70 kids at his school usually apply to each Ivy plus Hopkins and Georgetown. Then DC looked at SLACs, numbers much lower, 4-13 applications to each T5 there. The SLACs and HYPSM usually admit 1-2 kids per cycle. Even with the stats to compete, the odds were crazy. Cornell and Georgetown had the best odds for a top-stats kid at this school. Each admitted 13 students last year. DC thought odds of getting 1 seat out of 26 were pretty good. But after touring he preferred the SLACs, for a number of reasons. He also happened to like the one that was most popular at his school (13 applications). But historically not many ED, which he realized could give him an advantage. He did get in ED. He still had a good chance RD but why risk being 1 in 13 at that point?
I know this seems vaguely insane, and I felt that while in the middle of it, but gaming it out definitely helped. Of course the stars also basically aligned in terms of his top pick. I'm not sure what my advice would be if game theory suggests DC shouldn't apply to a school they truly love. Because you never know, and so much of admissions is arbitrary in the end. But it's a good idea to balance idealism and realistic strategy in applications when possible.
Sounds like you did your homework, PP, and it helped. Congrats! Everyone should be using Naviance to look at the historical patterns of how many apply ED or RD/how many admitted at a given school. Not an exact science but does give a helpful sense of the lay of the land, no question.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 06:39
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My DS was rejected from a small SLAC in ED despite having a very strong application and high stats. DS now thinks it was a waste to put his ED option into a smaller school. Learn from him and use ED for mid-size or larger unis with thousands of seats for your ED and ED2 rounds. Don't do what we did and use it on a small SLAC that only has a few hundred seats to offer. The odds are against you.
Look at the percent that get in, not the number of seats available. THEN you will understand the odds.
No. ED admit rate does not give you your true odds.
Two schools. Both schools have ED admit rates of 15%.
School A has 1,000 ED applicants. School B has 2,000 ED applicants. That means that School A has 150 ED seats and School B has 300 ED seats.
Both schools also have 105 recruited athletes who have passed a pre-read and have a 100% chance of admission.
After taking out the athletes,
- School A has 895 other students competing for 45 seats (5% admit rate)
- School B has 1,895 other students competing for 195 seats (10% admit rate)
The overall admit rate at both schools is the same, but the odds of a non-athlete being admitted are twice as high at school B.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 06:30
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:One reason I hate ED is that you feel forced into all sorts of game theory about where and whether to use it.
I completely agree. And yet, when there are very few seats in the class, it can be your best shot.
+1 DC and I sat down and went through Naviance data. We learned that 50-70 kids at his school usually apply to each Ivy plus Hopkins and Georgetown. Then DC looked at SLACs, numbers much lower, 4-13 applications to each T5 there. The SLACs and HYPSM usually admit 1-2 kids per cycle. Even with the stats to compete, the odds were crazy. Cornell and Georgetown had the best odds for a top-stats kid at this school. Each admitted 13 students last year. DC thought odds of getting 1 seat out of 26 were pretty good. But after touring he preferred the SLACs, for a number of reasons. He also happened to like the one that was most popular at his school (13 applications). But historically not many ED, which he realized could give him an advantage. He did get in ED. He still had a good chance RD but why risk being 1 in 13 at that point?
I know this seems vaguely insane, and I felt that while in the middle of it, but gaming it out definitely helped. Of course the stars also basically aligned in terms of his top pick. I'm not sure what my advice would be if game theory suggests DC shouldn't apply to a school they truly love. Because you never know, and so much of admissions is arbitrary in the end. But it's a good idea to balance idealism and realistic strategy in applications when possible.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 05:58
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My DS was rejected from a small SLAC in ED despite having a very strong application and high stats. DS now thinks it was a waste to put his ED option into a smaller school. Learn from him and use ED for mid-size or larger unis with thousands of seats for your ED and ED2 rounds. Don't do what we did and use it on a small SLAC that only has a few hundred seats to offer. The odds are against you.
Look at the percent that get in, not the number of seats available. THEN you will understand the odds.
Exactly. Amazing how many smart people don't understand this. The application wasn't wasted, and OP's kid will almost certainly be somewhere they love a year from now.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 05:41
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:DC applied to a WASP school ED and was admitted. No hooks. I just want people to think it’s impossible. Most of his friends applying ED to T10 schools were rejected or deferred. It is a crap shoot but no reason not to take a shot if your guidance counselor thinks you have a strong app.
*I just don’t want people to think it’s impossible!
Anonymous
01/09/2025 05:40
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
DC applied to a WASP school ED and was admitted. No hooks. I just want people to think it’s impossible. Most of his friends applying ED to T10 schools were rejected or deferred. It is a crap shoot but no reason not to take a shot if your guidance counselor thinks you have a strong app.
Anonymous
01/09/2025 05:20
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
ED-ing to the bigger school isn’t a sure bet either. I am also surprised he wasn’t deferred, but better to know now than to “hope” until March. Good luck to your son.
Anonymous
01/08/2025 23:59
Subject: My DS is regretting applying ED to a very small LAC ...
Anonymous wrote:One reason I hate ED is that you feel forced into all sorts of game theory about where and whether to use it.
I completely agree. And yet, when there are very few seats in the class, it can be your best shot.