Anonymous wrote:Does having a parent who is a Duke undergrad alum seem to help at all as a "hook" in recent experiences? My kid has very good stats but so many do. Just curious. Public school in MCPS. All 4s on the four AP tests she's taken. One B in Honors Pre-Calc during junior year; all As.

Duke has been a really tough admit from MCPS and the DMV generally over the past three years or so. I know our school used to regularly send 5 or so to Duke. Now it's maybe 1. Having a parent who's an alum will help marginally in the ED round. But I personally don't think it's enough of a boost to waste the ED card unless it's truly the kid's dream school. It will do nothing in the RD round.

I'd look at the data from your particular high school over the past three years before making any kind of decision regarding Duke and when to apply.

Anonymous wrote:two kids - both at top private school (nationally)

kid 1 - top student with spiked interests. was interested in t10 schools. got in EA at Georgetown so only applied to tip top schools after that. got into 4 out of 5 (including duke fwiw)

kid 2 - good but not top student with club leadership but not the top clubs. no clear career path. wanted open curriculum. ED'd to Brown and got in - would have done ED2 to Wesleyan if Brown deferred. He would have been happy at a lot of places, but his cv was such that he could have been shut out to a lot of schools. Thrilled at Brown.

Duke is not tip top

^^^It would only help in the ED round to have an alumni parent, at least most schools say that.

Does having a parent who is a Duke undergrad alum seem to help at all as a "hook" in recent experiences? My kid has very good stats but so many do. Just curious. Public school in MCPS. All 4s on the four AP tests she's taken. One B in Honors Pre-Calc during junior year; all As.

My kid applied to Wash U ED and was accepted. She had the stats at one of MCPS' W's (4.0, 1540 SAT, etc.). If she wasn't accepted, she had a ED2 school app ready to go. In total, she had 8 schools she had or was going to apply to. It all became moot when she was accepted.

Her high school counselor did tell her that the one thing she had going for her regarding Wash U was that it was not popular with her high school. No one in the last several years had attended the school and she believed very few students had even applied. Not sure it was much of an advantage but it did allow her to standout.

currently, for the top 20 schools, what are the top 5 hooks in order of importance?

Anonymous wrote:I have two unhooked kids that got into T20s in recent cycles. Very different kids, but both had the grades/stats/rigor/tests scores/recs/ECs for anywhere.

But they were unhooked.

We took a look at their schools recent history with admissions. For some reason, no one ever gets into Penn. But there are other schools where students have had some success. We took a look at the schools where applying ED makes a difference for unhooked students from their high school. We were strategic about things. And we explained to both kids that if they do choose to apply ED to one of those schools, it must be one they really want to attend and will have no second thoughts about Stanford or MIT or Harvard or whatever.

So all together we visited Northwestern, Chicago, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Rice, Columbia, and Brown.

They each applied ED to one of those schools and got in. One and done for both of them. And they are both very happy with their choices.

Define “unhooked”

My kid plans to ED UPenn his dream school, no hooks. We know it is unlikely but he can try.

Anonymous wrote:2025 and plan is ED to school w 30th percent ED acceptance rate (and happily that school is legitimately their top choice.)

Which school?

2025 and plan is ED to school w 30th percent ED acceptance rate (and happily that school is legitimately their top choice.)

Anonymous wrote:^^Did she wind up at Pomona? My kid going there and loves the idea of the consortium. Williams seems too remote and awful cold weather most of the time, plus divide among athletes and nonathletes seems more pronounced at Williams.

Trying to maintain anonymity . . . so maybe, probably . . . yes, Pomona. Depending on your perspective, it certainly has some major advantages in terms of the consortium, general location, and vibe. But Williams has a stunningly nice campus, tutorials, winter term, and the very best financial aid. We weren't super concerned about the athlete divide but prefer Pomona's much lower percentage of recruited athletes as well as the fact that, unlike Williams, Pomona doesn't consider legacy or donor status. DD has already made several friends with incoming freshmen from other Consortium schools (as well as Pomona, of course), which is cool.

^^Did she wind up at Pomona? My kid going there and loves the idea of the consortium. Williams seems too remote and awful cold weather most of the time, plus divide among athletes and nonathletes seems more pronounced at Williams.

DD applied ED to Williams and was rejected. We were fully aware that ED offered no advantage at Williams, but Williams was DD's top choice and made the most sense on paper. She was, however, accepted EA to the affordable public flagship.

Williams ended up being DD's only rejection. I urged her to at least consider ED2 somewhere like Wesleyan, but DD opted to shoot her shot in RD at ten very selective schools. She ended up doing extremely well and got into four schools with lower admit rates than Williams, including Penn, as well as many other competitive schools like Wesleyan. She ended up committing to another WASP LAC, which is in many (but not all) ways a better fit than Williams.

In retrospect, I think her strategy was sound. If anything, I wish she had applied to a couple more super-reach universities like Stanford and Yale in RD. Based on her other results, she may had a 30%-ish shot, which is pretty good. (Not sure she would have chosen them if she were admitted, but it would have been nice to have had them as options.) If she had been admitted ED to Williams, we would have been thrilled and I'm sure she would have had a great experience. It also would have saved a ton of effort between mid-December and early January, when DD was stressfully pumping out supplemental essays and applications for schools in RD. But, as I mentioned before, DD landed on her feet. All things being equal, I doubt she'd choose Williams over her ASP school at this point.

Anonymous wrote:two kids - both at top private school (nationally)

kid 1 - top student with spiked interests. was interested in t10 schools. got in EA at Georgetown so only applied to tip top schools after that. got into 4 out of 5 (including duke fwiw)

kid 2 - good but not top student with club leadership but not the top clubs. no clear career path. wanted open curriculum. ED'd to Brown and got in - would have done ED2 to Wesleyan if Brown deferred. He would have been happy at a lot of places, but his cv was such that he could have been shut out to a lot of schools. Thrilled at Brown.

That is very impressive. Do you mind providing some stats? Sat/act and ap scores?

two kids - both at top private school (nationally)

kid 1 - top student with spiked interests. was interested in t10 schools. got in EA at Georgetown so only applied to tip top schools after that. got into 4 out of 5 (including duke fwiw)

kid 2 - good but not top student with club leadership but not the top clubs. no clear career path. wanted open curriculum. ED'd to Brown and got in - would have done ED2 to Wesleyan if Brown deferred. He would have been happy at a lot of places, but his cv was such that he could have been shut out to a lot of schools. Thrilled at Brown.