By the time senior year rolls around, haven't most kids attended camps, seminars, Model UN, debate tournaments etc. at various colleges? They probably already have a few thoughts and impressions. You can start building from there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

You’re just mad you can’t afford the schools that have ED.

Please, girl, I'd be full pay with a tenth of my NW and income. But I still wouldn't be a sucker.

In your dreams.

Anonymous wrote:Rising junior DS is interested in schools in many geographic areas -- too many to visit all. Do you focus on visiting top schools that might be ED options or on more safeties to get excited by them?

Ideally you'd visit most of them, but if you really can't swing it then you're going to have to prioritize ED. I would never let me kid ED to a place they have not even visited. You can visit safeties later.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

You’re just mad you can’t afford the schools that have ED.

Please, girl, I'd be full pay with a tenth of my NW and income. But I still wouldn't be a sucker.

No don’t visit safeties first that’s ridiculous. Visit your targets and throw in one safety in the same region.

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

You’re just mad you can’t afford the schools that have ED.

Does your DC know what they want in terms of size location etc? If not I’d start there visit a small, medium and large school. And also rural suburban city. Just what’s close to you or near a place you are travelling. It doesn’t have to be a school they want to go to. Just enough for them to get a sense of the different options and what vibe they want.

Are you ok with sending your kid to all of these schools. Sometimes parents really don't want to send their kid across the country.

I was just speaking a parent yesterday and he was commenting on how difficult it was having a kid go to school a plane ride away, especially because a direct flight wasn't an option.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

Disagree, at least with respect to top slacs, u Chicago, northwestern, Vanderbilt, Emory, tufts. About half the class at dc’s private make good use of ed, I’ve seen many great outcomes for unhooked kids. ED/SCEA to Ivies, not so much— better to just go RD if unhooked and aiming there.

UChicago is the only school on your list (including whatever you're including in "top slacs") where a non-athlete admitted ED wouldn't very likely have been admitted to at least one equally or more selective school in RD. For kids/families who primarily are trying to maximize "prestige," applying ED to Emory or Tufts or wherever is just dumb--either they'll dinged (if they're not actually credible at that level) or they very likely could have done better.

Emory and Tufts are not the same level, and for ED only Columbia, Duke, JHU, NW, Brown , and maybe Dartmouth are better than Emory for ED. That's why Emory has ED2. The ones that apply Ed1 know they cant get into those.

You've totally missed the point.

Anonymous wrote:Agree with sentiment that they may fall in love at first sight - I would visit the school you think is the most likely actual school for them first. Then work from there. We visited a safety and they never came around to matches and reaches. Its worked out fine but I might have visited another school first if I were doing it again.

This is so true, the same happened for my kid. He fell in love with the reach that was his first college visit, but didn’t get in. The final visit was to a target that he’d been accepted to and received a great scholarship for, and decided to attend this fall.

While he is satisfied with his choice (I’m actually thrilled with it, it was my top choice for him from the get go), that first visit (the reach school) is like his wistful “one that got away”, lol. I told him just apply there for grad school if he’s inclined to at that point.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

Disagree, at least with respect to top slacs, u Chicago, northwestern, Vanderbilt, Emory, tufts. About half the class at dc’s private make good use of ed, I’ve seen many great outcomes for unhooked kids. ED/SCEA to Ivies, not so much— better to just go RD if unhooked and aiming there.

UChicago is the only school on your list (including whatever you're including in "top slacs") where a non-athlete admitted ED wouldn't very likely have been admitted to at least one equally or more selective school in RD. For kids/families who primarily are trying to maximize "prestige," applying ED to Emory or Tufts or wherever is just dumb--either they'll dinged (if they're not actually credible at that level) or they very likely could have done better.

Emory and Tufts are not the same level, and for ED only Columbia, Duke, JHU, NW, Brown , and maybe Dartmouth are better than Emory for ED. That's why Emory has ED2. The ones that apply Ed1 know they cant get into those.

Agree with sentiment that they may fall in love at first sight - I would visit the school you think is the most likely actual school for them first. Then work from there. We visited a safety and they never came around to matches and reaches. Its worked out fine but I might have visited another school first if I were doing it again.

Anonymous wrote:First school my kid visited was Wash U - just happened that way. When we got to dorms I realized what a mistake I had made. First school sets the standard and we have yet to see better dorms.

Yep, unlucky. We had the flipside experience (also by happenstance; no brilliance claimed here): saw Temple first and the kid totally could see their life there being so much better than HS--got them very excited about college generally and made us all realize that the floor was pretty darn high.

For prior to junior year we focused mainly on driving distance schools - VA and PA options. DD wasn't super into the search process and we didn't want to waste a flight if she wasn't totally bought in to looking. During Junior year the search fleshed out to other states.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is for colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers. Be sure you know which of the three categories your kid will fall into before you spend too much time obsessing about that part of the process.

Or those for whom cost is not a consideration.

No, there's not a fourth category. It's just colleges, recruited athletes, and suckers.