<p>If one gets into Stanford/Harvard/Yale EA, should one still apply to other schools RD after this acceptance?</p>
<p>And then, if other "less prestigious" RD schools accept you, you may be taking the spot of some other kid's -
What would you tell your kids to do? What advice would you give them?</p>
<p>In the end, the same number of students will attend each school regardless of how many schools they apply to or are accepted at. Each person can only attend ONE school. So I don't see how someone who be taking someone else's spot by applying RD to the other schools. If they are accepted at the other schools and choose to go to Harvard or Stanford instead, someone else will take their place. </p>
<p>My son is currently a Stanford junior. He applied to Harvard and MIT EA (neither of these was single choice at that time) and 7 other schools RD. Because of the deadline requirements of our high school's guidance office, he had to turn in all of his applications before he heard from the EA schools. He was not sure of his first choice school and therefore did not withdraw any applications. He also wanted to see what type of merit aid he received from ALL of the schools before deciding. He was accepted to Harvard EA, and deferred from MIT EA but accepted there RD. In the end, he visited Harvard, MIT, and Stanford in April and decided on Stanford at the last possible moment.</p>
<p>Part of the point of SCEA is to level the playing field for low income students - give them the security and "benefit" of an early app plus still allowing them to compare financial aid packages. Practically speaking it works that way for middle and upper mid income too - the val last year from my child's school was a Harvard EA admit, but eventually turned that down, reputedly for financial reasons.</p>
<p>Also, following the money thread, I think many kids who are accepted to HYS early, apply to "less prestigious schools" for big scholarships (a lot of these are the middle income). Most applicants to these schools are not in the running for the big scholarships, so the students that are high stat aren't really competing with the other students.</p>
<p>If you have a legitimate reason to apply, such as needing merit aid or a better financial aid package at other schools, and you would seriously considering attending the other schools, then apply. If you just want to rack up some acceptances to say "I got into X, Y and X, then get a life. That's what I'd tell my kids.</p>
<p>What if fin aid is not needed?</p>
<p>The point of EA or SCEA is that you are still allowed to apply RD elsewhere and wait until April to make up your mind. Only you know what is in your best interests, and if you cannot decided in December what is best, there is nothing unethical about waiting until April to do so. Check out the story of Evil Robot who was accepted EA to Yale last year, but ended up going to Vanderbilt where he was offered more financial aid. It was an agonizing decision for him and his family, and his story attracted many many posts on CC. He waited until well into April to make a final decision. He recently wrote to say that he is very happy at Vandy.</p>
<p>If financial aid is not needed at their first choice school, and they were accepted to their first choice school-what purpose would be served by applying to other schools?</p>
<p>No financial aid needed is different - I think it is generally greedy to apply to all those schools just to "see where I can get in". The people you hurt most would be your high school classmates who might not get accepted because you were. I can see some situations where you might have 2 schools that were very close, and you applied early to one and RD to the other, but not 8 schools. After all, I think we are going to see that SCEA will gradually offer less and less of a "bump" to students, especially the full payers with no hooks. The kids with hooks will have continue to have an advantage, and low income kids (look at Harvard) may develop an advantage.</p>
<p>Like "motheroftwo" said, there's no concept of "taking" a spot. The same number will go no matter what. the point of EA is that you don't have to have made up your mind, yet. Otherwise it would be ED. Financial aid or not, I don't see the ethical question here. I don't particularly cotton to trophy-hunting, but I don't see how you would possibly know that this is why someone applies to other places RD.</p>