Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PP's son was being smart, not selfish. It's all about strategy.

What strategy? Where? Unless he'd prefer all 7 of the remaining schools to the one he already got into EA, there's no strategy to keeping applications at all 7 schools. Most probably, he'd prefer a few of the 7 to the one that accepted him EA, but he'd turn down the rest even if they accept him. For example, if he already got into Yale EA, then he may figure he'll go to Harvard if they accept him, but he'll turn down Cornell if they accept him. (Don't get me wrong, I love Cornell, half of my family went there, but I need an example.) So why not withdraw from Cornell, so that Cornell can accept another kid from his school or somewhere else in the country? Instead, some kid on Cornell's waitlist has to wait until May or June until this PP's kid relinquishes his slot and Cornell goes to the waitlist.

Unless he's applying for FA, there's no strategy involving comparing offers. (And no merit aid at the Ivies, either.)

The only conceivable strategy is that the family has calculated that withdrawing applications is too much bother, besides it would be fun to see how many Ivies he can get into.

This is not the way the process works. Colleges overaccept based on yield numbers and they have this down to a science. A student holding an EA spot on which the student hasn't decided is not "taking a spot" from somebody else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The PP's son was being smart, not selfish. It's all about strategy.

What strategy? Where? Unless he'd prefer all 7 of the remaining schools to the one he already got into EA, there's no strategy to keeping applications at all 7 schools. Most probably, he'd prefer a few of the 7 to the one that accepted him EA, but he'd turn down the rest even if they accept him. For example, if he already got into Yale EA, then he may figure he'll go to Harvard if they accept him, but he'll turn down Cornell if they accept him. (Don't get me wrong, I love Cornell, half of my family went there, but I need an example.) So why not withdraw from Cornell, so that Cornell can accept another kid from his school or somewhere else in the country? Instead, some kid on Cornell's waitlist has to wait until May or June until this PP's kid relinquishes his slot and Cornell goes to the waitlist.

Unless he's applying for FA, there's no strategy involving comparing offers. (And no merit aid at the Ivies, either.)

The only conceivable strategy is that the family has calculated that withdrawing applications is too much bother, besides it would be fun to see how many Ivies he can get into.

Anonymous wrote:I'm one of the people who jumped on you -- and sorry! I read the post wrong, to say that he was already in one Ivy. My bad.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS originally planned on doing 11. The thinking was that since he was applying to many Ivies it made sense to throw in more safeties since you can never count on admission to any particular Ivy or top college when admission rates are in single digits. He ultimately pared his list down to 8 after getting admitted early action to one of his choices. We are awaiting additional results of admission so we'll see if his strategy was a good one.

Wow, his classmates must hate him. How selfish.

Why is this selfish? It was non-binding early action, no early decision. The school he was admitted to allows students to not commit until May 1. No one is breaking any rules here.

Right, he's not breaking any rules here. But he's potentially taking acceptances away from other kids at his school, under the assumption that colleges accept a limited number of kids from each school. He'd do everybody else a favor by figuring out which remaining schools he'd prefer to the one he got into, and withdrawing from all the others. It's not a contest to see how many Ivies you can get into, if it comes at the expense of someone else who hasn't gotten into any yet. (And my kid is at a "top Ivy" or whatever you want to call it, so my post isn't motivated by jealousy.)

Not the PP but didn't her DC already do that by paring 3 schools from the list? You can't say just because he got into one EA school that he shouldn't apply to other schools. The poster said he got into one of his choices, not his first choice. My DC got into an EA school but it's low on his preference list. He did drop a couple of schools after that acceptance but he isn't going to drop others that he would prefer just because he got into one school. And why are you assuming that PPs son is taking spots from others - maybe the other applicants are better candidates. Just because he's applied doesn't mean he gets in.

She said he's mostly applying to Ivies. Apparently he got into one already. The Ivies are pretty different, and he must have a sense that he'd prefer Columbia to Dartmouth or he'd prefer Cornell to Penn. Nobody's saying he should drop schools he'd prefer, just that everybody has an opinion on these schools, he must too, so it should be possible to winnow it down. (I'm not the original "the kids at his school must hate him" PP, but I agree, although I think it's probably kids across the country that he's competing with.)

It says he got into one of "his choices", which may or may not be an Ivy. Since it's EA I am guessing it's not an Ivy, since only a couple do SCEA and the rest do ED. I guess the way I read it is that he got into an EA choice (maybe Georgetown or UVA or something like that) but still has most of his choices TBD. To me that sounds like most of the kids in my DCs grade who didn't get in somewhere ED - many of them got in somewhere EA but usually not a top choice. Perhaps the PP can come back and clarify.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS originally planned on doing 11. The thinking was that since he was applying to many Ivies it made sense to throw in more safeties since you can never count on admission to any particular Ivy or top college when admission rates are in single digits. He ultimately pared his list down to 8 after getting admitted early action to one of his choices. We are awaiting additional results of admission so we'll see if his strategy was a good one.

Wow, his classmates must hate him. How selfish.

Why is this selfish? It was non-binding early action, no early decision. The school he was admitted to allows students to not commit until May 1. No one is breaking any rules here.

Right, he's not breaking any rules here. But he's potentially taking acceptances away from other kids at his school, under the assumption that colleges accept a limited number of kids from each school. He'd do everybody else a favor by figuring out which remaining schools he'd prefer to the one he got into, and withdrawing from all the others. It's not a contest to see how many Ivies you can get into, if it comes at the expense of someone else who hasn't gotten into any yet. (And my kid is at a "top Ivy" or whatever you want to call it, so my post isn't motivated by jealousy.)

Not the PP but didn't her DC already do that by paring 3 schools from the list? You can't say just because he got into one EA school that he shouldn't apply to other schools. The poster said he got into one of his choices, not his first choice. My DC got into an EA school but it's low on his preference list. He did drop a couple of schools after that acceptance but he isn't going to drop others that he would prefer just because he got into one school. And why are you assuming that PPs son is taking spots from others - maybe the other applicants are better candidates. Just because he's applied doesn't mean he gets in.

She said he's mostly applying to Ivies. Apparently he got into one already. The Ivies are pretty different, and he must have a sense that he'd prefer Columbia to Dartmouth or he'd prefer Cornell to Penn. Nobody's saying he should drop schools he'd prefer, just that everybody has an opinion on these schools, he must too, so it should be possible to winnow it down. (I'm not the original "the kids at his school must hate him" PP, but I agree, although I think it's probably kids across the country that he's competing with.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS originally planned on doing 11. The thinking was that since he was applying to many Ivies it made sense to throw in more safeties since you can never count on admission to any particular Ivy or top college when admission rates are in single digits. He ultimately pared his list down to 8 after getting admitted early action to one of his choices. We are awaiting additional results of admission so we'll see if his strategy was a good one.

Wow, his classmates must hate him. How selfish.

Why is this selfish? It was non-binding early action, no early decision. The school he was admitted to allows students to not commit until May 1. No one is breaking any rules here.

Right, he's not breaking any rules here. But he's potentially taking acceptances away from other kids at his school, under the assumption that colleges accept a limited number of kids from each school. He'd do everybody else a favor by figuring out which remaining schools he'd prefer to the one he got into, and withdrawing from all the others. It's not a contest to see how many Ivies you can get into, if it comes at the expense of someone else who hasn't gotten into any yet. (And my kid is at a "top Ivy" or whatever you want to call it, so my post isn't motivated by jealousy.)

Not the PP but didn't her DC already do that by paring 3 schools from the list? You can't say just because he got into one EA school that he shouldn't apply to other schools. The poster said he got into one of his choices, not his first choice. My DC got into an EA school but it's low on his preference list. He did drop a couple of schools after that acceptance but he isn't going to drop others that he would prefer just because he got into one school. And why are you assuming that PPs son is taking spots from others - maybe the other applicants are better candidates. Just because he's applied doesn't mean he gets in.

Anonymous wrote:The PP's son was being smart, not selfish. It's all about strategy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS originally planned on doing 11. The thinking was that since he was applying to many Ivies it made sense to throw in more safeties since you can never count on admission to any particular Ivy or top college when admission rates are in single digits. He ultimately pared his list down to 8 after getting admitted early action to one of his choices. We are awaiting additional results of admission so we'll see if his strategy was a good one.

Wow, his classmates must hate him. How selfish.

Why is this selfish? It was non-binding early action, no early decision. The school he was admitted to allows students to not commit until May 1. No one is breaking any rules here.

Right, he's not breaking any rules here. But he's potentially taking acceptances away from other kids at his school, under the assumption that colleges accept a limited number of kids from each school. He'd do everybody else a favor by figuring out which remaining schools he'd prefer to the one he got into, and withdrawing from all the others. It's not a contest to see how many Ivies you can get into, if it comes at the expense of someone else who hasn't gotten into any yet. (And my kid is at a "top Ivy" or whatever you want to call it, so my post isn't motivated by jealousy.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS originally planned on doing 11. The thinking was that since he was applying to many Ivies it made sense to throw in more safeties since you can never count on admission to any particular Ivy or top college when admission rates are in single digits. He ultimately pared his list down to 8 after getting admitted early action to one of his choices. We are awaiting additional results of admission so we'll see if his strategy was a good one.

Wow, his classmates must hate him. How selfish.

Why is this selfish? It was non-binding early action, no early decision. The school he was admitted to allows students to not commit until May 1. No one is breaking any rules here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our DS originally planned on doing 11. The thinking was that since he was applying to many Ivies it made sense to throw in more safeties since you can never count on admission to any particular Ivy or top college when admission rates are in single digits. He ultimately pared his list down to 8 after getting admitted early action to one of his choices. We are awaiting additional results of admission so we'll see if his strategy was a good one.

Wow, his classmates must hate him. How selfish.