<p>When I look back at how naive I was about this process in 07 when D graduated, I consider ourselves very lucky that it worked out as well as it did. She had a slightly above average GPA (at least from a rigorous school, so had the math, science and foreign language classes on her transcript) and test scores, good recs, decent EC's but except for her art, not really a stand-out. I knew academics weren't her thing really, she wanted to stay somewhat close due to a BF and the issues w/her dad. So we looked for her program, ruled out some based on her criteria, went and visited, ruled out more, ruled out any that she would have been in the bottom 25%, not because of FA, but because I figured the academics were too intense and paid no attention to the FA at all. She applied to 8, 2 art schools and 6 others, she got into all 8, got full need, no-gap packages at 3 and chose from those. </p>
<p>Fast forward 4 years, son has higher stats, is more ambitious and has more at stake, so I'm glad I found CC. I've paid a lot more attention to the details of the process this time around. But yet I was still naive about some things including admit and yield rates. I just assumed a school admitted the number of students they needed to fill the class, but of course looking at it logically, a school has to admit more than they need to fill the freshman class, because some are going to decline. </p>
<p>But that leads to another question, what happens if a much larger number of admits actually accept their spot? Does a school just admit in order received until they fill their class and then rescind all the other admits? How does that work?</p>
<p>And I have the same question about ED and EA. Because of our financial needs GC recommended we not apply ED or EA, so that we could compare offers. This may or may not have been a mistake, I'm thinking we might should have applied to a meets full need school early, but what's done is done. But could a school conceivably full the vast majority of it's freshman spots from ED or EA if more than they plan to accept actually do accept. Do they follow the same admit/yield formula as RD? Just seems to me that a meets full need school is making a huge gamble in assuming that a certain percentage will turn down their offer. What am I missing?</p>
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<p>This happened at both my son’s and daughter’s schools when they were freshmen…in different ways.</p>
<p>DS was a music major. They admitted 12 freshmen on his instrument…usually only 4 or so accept offers of admittance. The year DS matriculated all TWELVE accepted the offers of admittance. They had WAY too many players and it caused a lot of angst as they juggled ensemble placements and the like. The following year they admitted NO students on the instrument…which helped balance things out a bit. But bottom line…all that were admitted came…and the school dealt with it.</p>
<p>DD’s college had over 100 more freshmen accept offers of admittance than the school had anticipated…and had room for. The freshman class was about 1100 so this was about a 10% overage. They had to create housing making many double rooms into triples. They just didn’t anticipate that this number would accept their admissions offers.</p>
<p>In both cases, these were deadline schools…but it doesn’t matter…the final matriculation decisions for most schools is May 1 so until then, schools won’t know their final yield…some will have too many, some will have too few (and continue to accept applications) and some will be just right.</p>
<p>I would agree that ED is risky if you want to look at competitive financial aid offers…but EA is NOT binding…and your son can apply to other schools. My DD applied to TWO EA schools (none were SCEA but even SCEA is not binding…you just can’t apply EA to any other schools) and RD to three others. She compared all five financial aid packages before making her decision on April 30.</p>
<p>I’m sorry your GC steered you away from EA due to financial need. EA is non-binding. Even ED can be declined if they don’t meet what you need, although that’s still somewhat rare.</p>
<p>Moving onto your bigger question: what happens if more students accept their offer of acceptance than expected. First thing, this is determined by years of statistics, so it’s usually not too far off, but it does happen. First step, they don’t go to their waiting list. Then, the class is bigger than expected. By how many depends again on statistics. A larger turnout rate in a small school is handled quite differently than at a large university. One of the biggest issues is housing. They will hire adjunct professors to accommodate schedules, but the schools have a harder time fitting in extra students in dorms, and often kids have to double up (or 3 kids are in a room where previously it held only two). Usually the school will try to keep the goal number a bit tighter the next year.</p>
<p>This is only answering part of your question - at my D’s school (which meets full need), last year more admitted students accepted a spot in RD than the usual yield. It meant (among other things) that there was not enough room in the dorms. They wanted all first-year students to be in the dorms, so it mainly impacted returning students who had not completed their housing contracts in a timely manner. They contracted with a nearby school and placed some of these students in their dorms, and had a shuttle bus.</p>
<p>It also meant that they did not go to the waitlist. The year before they admitted 30 students off the waitlist (my D included).</p>
<p>At her school the ED round has a higher admit rate % than the RD round. However, you can be deferred from the ED round to the RD round.</p>
<p>The only concern might be to check the admissions from last year on your S’s schools. If they took larger than hoped for classes, they may reduce the admits for this year. Not the best scenario if one hopes to be accepted. OTOH, the odds of acceptance would still be much better than playing Thumper1’s S’s instrument and applying the year after that guy (and his 11 compatriot’s) were admitted.</p>
<p>Schools don’t rescind admissions, they figure out where to house the extra students. Generally though admissions is pretty predictable and doesn’t change that much from year to year. You may absolutely apply EA and in fact I recommend it. It relieves a ton of anxiety if you have an acceptance in the bag and if you get rejected or deferred it can be a wake up call that perhaps one has aimed a little too high.</p>