The original question had to do with strategy for elite college admission. Why waste the time and effort for a meaningless " I got in to Yale". It has no value unless you actually attend.

Honestly, I think that's a very self involved approach to go trophy hunting with no intent of even weighing acceptance. It's one of the reasons the college process is so broken.

" We didn't have the heart to not support reaching for a dream which he was very qualified for but unhooked and decided to let the process play out. In the end, it all worked out beautifully to attend a different school but the journey was so unpleasant, I'll never encourage another kid to step blindly into that again. And that was back a few years when RD still provided a real shot at many reach and match schools."

Everyone is different. For our DC, the idea of not sharing the journey of getting rejected (and occasionally accepted) not only with peers but also with all their friends already in college and those who would follow in the next couple of years, was unthinkable. DC had to know if they could get into Yale and/or MIT. DC never really had any intention of going and was quite sure that any of at least 6 schools would all be fine. Throughout HS DC had stretched themselves in all sorts of ways and had learned some of the best journeys are over rough trails. If DC had not gotten into one of their reach schools, I might feel different but DC turned them down to attend a school that would leave DC in a better place to pay for grad school so I doubt it.

Anonymous wrote:You were so smart. We didn't have the heart to not support reaching for a dream which he was very qualified for but unhooked and decided to let the process play out. In the end, it all worked out beautifully to attend a different school but the journey was so unpleasant, I'll never encourage another kid to step blindly into that again. And that was back a few years when RD still provided a real shot at many reach and match schools.

I'm the PP you're responding to, and I just want to clarify one thing. My kid wasn't really sold on "reaching for a dream." I think it's a lot harder when your kid has his/her heart set on a particular school. In our case, it was relatively easy to make the case that he would get a great education at a bunch of different places and, as I mentioned, he wasn't so blown away by my alma mater.

Rule of thumb is that if your unhooked kid has top scores, grades AND at least one thing that truly stands out then HYPS is a good bet for SCEA. Now what constitutes a "standout" trait is easier understood than described. In most cases you can intuitively tell if your kid has it, provided that you are perceptive enough to understand what is going on with your child's peers and you also have done your research and spoken extensively with the GC.

Imo an unhooked student who has top scores, grades and great but not standout ECs/achievements is much netter served doing ED at a lower ivy/ivy-equivalent. Lower ivy RDs are now complete crapshoots so going for HYPS SCEA presents a very real threat of being rejected from all ivies if the student is very qualified but not a prodigy.

Of course by unhooked I mean a student who is not URM, not first-gen, not low-income, non-athlete, non-legacy and not a development case etc.

Anonymous wrote:By picking the school he likes the best. This is not hard.

+1 The reaches should be the easiest call. The hard part is deciding on which schools your child will be happiest at that she/he will almost certainly get accepted. DC went in the early round and I would not have cared if he used a coin toss to decide. On the other hand, deciding not to apply to the state flagship was a tough decision.

You were so smart. We didn't have the heart to not support reaching for a dream which he was very qualified for but unhooked and decided to let the process play out. In the end, it all worked out beautifully to attend a different school but the journey was so unpleasant, I'll never encourage another kid to step blindly into that again. And that was back a few years when RD still provided a real shot at many reach and match schools.

OP, we recently went through this. DS would be legacy at an Ivy that is favorable to legacies for early decision. Nevertheless, we figured his chances were not great -- his scores and grades are terrific, but his EC's are not remarkable. So the question then becomes "is the Ivy first choice THAT much better than the other, more attainable options?" For my kid, applying ED to a great NESCAC school that felt right to him, and being reasonably confident that he could get the damned process over with, was worthwhile.

In a moment of brutal honesty, he said that if he got into my alma mater of course he'd go, but it would be because of the name, not because he was so sure it would be a better experience for him than his ED school.

Long story short, he got in ED to the NESCAC school he likes, and strategically I think this was also a good call because his stats put him right in the spot where applying ED would give him the greatest "bump."

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED2 makes this less of an "either-or" choice. Look into it, changes are the school you were considering rather than HYPS has it.

How is this true? No ivy has ED2.

There are several schools with ED2 that will be on the same college list for a HYPS candidate. UChicago is the most prominent one, but there's also Vanderbilt, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wellesley, Tufts, Harvey Mudd, NYU...

It's true that many, if not most, of the deferred/denied HYPS candidates will not pursue the ED2 option, however. On the whole, the ED2 grouping is less elite than the schools with just ED1/EA/SCEA. But institutions stand by themselves, not by the company they're in. I definitely think of several of the above schools as Ivy-level to some extent.

Yes only school with ED2 that is widely considered on par with the ivies is Chicago. A small number might be thinking about elite LACs too, especially those whose top choice is Princeton or Yale. That said, the vast majority of the people that have the dilemma that OP has, are thinking about HYPS vs other ivies, Duke, UChicago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED2 makes this less of an "either-or" choice. Look into it, changes are the school you were considering rather than HYPS has it.

How is this true? No ivy has ED2.

There are several schools with ED2 that will be on the same college list for a HYPS candidate. UChicago is the most prominent one, but there's also Vanderbilt, Swarthmore, Pomona, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Wellesley, Tufts, Harvey Mudd, NYU...

It's true that many, if not most, of the deferred/denied HYPS candidates will not pursue the ED2 option, however. On the whole, the ED2 grouping is less elite than the schools with just ED1/EA/SCEA. But institutions stand by themselves, not by the company they're in. I definitely think of several of the above schools as Ivy-level to some extent.

Anonymous wrote:ED2 makes this less of an "either-or" choice. Look into it, changes are the school you were considering rather than HYPS has it.

How is this true? No ivy has ED2.

ED2 makes this less of an "either-or" choice. Look into it, changes are the school you were considering rather than HYPS has it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not focus on the school with the best fit rather than the most prestigious school? Your thinking is flawed.

Is there really a "best" fit? Most well rounded kids would be happy and successful at a lot of different schools. I think this 'best fit' thinking is causing a lot of unnecessary angst for kids. It is best to let them realize that there are many great paths into their future. Not too different from people who never marry because they are waiting for their "one true love" to find them.

I don’t think there’s only one great fit but of course some schools represent a much better fit than others. The culture at HYP are quite different if you’ve ever spent time on campus and they’re in turn very different from MIT, Brown, etc. Having gone through this process with two children I think it’s important not to imprint your opinion on their selection process.

Anonymous wrote:Why not focus on the school with the best fit rather than the most prestigious school? Your thinking is flawed.

Is there really a "best" fit? Most well rounded kids would be happy and successful at a lot of different schools. I think this 'best fit' thinking is causing a lot of unnecessary angst for kids. It is best to let them realize that there are many great paths into their future. Not too different from people who never marry because they are waiting for their "one true love" to find them.

+1 Unless the EC is amazing like an international award or a stand out talent like an exceptional voice and presence on a video resume for an area the school is known for valuing (e.g. international choir), forget SCEA and still hope that ED2 comes through.. Don't waste the ED cards for the best chance at a good fit. These schools signal early what type of kids they're focused on. RD they're just filling in holes here and there.