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<p>No, not at all. I do think that fewer kids who need financial aid apply early DECISION–early action is another story.</p>
<p>texas,
Legacies are published, usually. Athletes, URM? You can probably get the URM from the CDS. Not sure about Questbridge. And athletes - one could count the spots open on each team for the coming year and base a guess on that… Bottom line, these spots for the hooked are being filled in the Early Round and take up a good amount of the Early acceptances.</p>
<p>Anyway, while it is not possible to check exact numbers, the AdComms openly state that they are looking to fill spaces with for these hooked candidates in the Early Round.
Thus, the acceptance rate for the unhooked is lower than the over-all Early rate.</p>
<p>I just finished the novel, “Admission” by Jean Korelitz. Did anyone else read it? The central character is an admissions officer at Princeton (and the author actually did work in that office for a time, so she knows her stuff). What an eye opener. This thread goes over much of the plot of the novel, who gets in and who does not. Yes, it’s a novel, but I wish I’d read it when it came out a couple years ago.</p>
<p>It still only provides the number of slots assigned to each group but not how many applied in EA and how many are available to the unhooked candidates.</p>
<p>I believe in math. I want to see something that says 4000 applied to Harvard early, 750 were admitted, 400 are considered athletes, legacies, URMs, and they constituted 1000 of the EA applicants while 350 were chosen from the rest of the pool of 3000.</p>
<p>I have been following this very interesting discussion. On a personal note, we will be wrestling with this dilemma next fall. CMC appears to be a college that was tailor-made for unhooked DS, but we need quite a bit of financial aid. The net price calculator comes back very doable, so does he apply ED because the admit rate may be higher, and he wants to show that this is his number 1 choice? On the other hand, is the ED admit rate really higher, or is it filled with athletes, legacies, URM’s, full pays, etc? </p>
<p>This process has gotten so complicated for the top schools, and the rules seem to have changed in so many ways.</p>
<p>Many will tell you not to apply ED because you can only view that school’s finaid offer, not compare. That’s legit. But, if you know what you can afford, what you are willing to pay for this particular school, and kiddo is willing to forego if it turns out undoable, why not? Maybe school X would offer more- only a family can decide what’s worth it. My #2 applied ED (not CMC) and got what we needed. It’s a greater risk at schools with crappy aid packages, to begin with.</p>
<p>The one reason I do believe ED has to be a cautious decison is that kids grow so much between Sept of senior year and May. They shouldn’t commit to ED just for the bettered chances- they have to be sure.</p>
<p>‘The very best kids keep their passions and still produce at top levels.’</p>
<p>The very “best” kids?? Maybe the most driven, very intelligent, aiming for the top kids, I’ll give you that-- and that’s great. But what a value judgement there. Yikes. </p>
<p>The coolest kids keep their passions and still produce at the best levels that suit their potential. How 'bout that. Jeez.</p>
<p>I don’t think any colleges give the sort of information igloo thinks they should give. However, I think a lot of them give more information than a lot of folks think they do. here for example is information easily found on Dartmouth’s website: </p>
<p>[Admissions</a> Statistics](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/admissions/facts/admissions.html]Admissions”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/admissions/facts/admissions.html)</p>
<p>[Testing</a> Statistics](<a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/admissions/facts/test-stats.html]Testing”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/admissions/facts/test-stats.html)</p>
<p>To me, this data gives you a pretty good idea that early decision really boosts your odds at Dartmouth. It also gives you a much better sense of the odds a student with a given SAT score range will be admitted.</p>
<p>JL- It doesn’t matter if I wrote best and you suggest coolest. We could say wisest or the kids whose apps are the most gratifying to read and the hardest to let go of.</p>
<p>I meant the most attractive candidates in the pool at my school, where adcoms can cherry pick. The point is, if you want a competitive college, you have to be a competitive candidate for that school. Very few exceptions, even for URM, legacy, etc. Athletes? I’m not keen on the way they are handled.</p>
<p>You’re right, lookingforward, when you clarify what you meant. I just meant to gently suggest that “best” is quite a judgement when applied the way you wrote it. Semantics clarified, you’re right. They’re the best candidates for admission to a top school.</p>
<p>American U. provides exhaustive tables of applied, admitted, enrolled at every SAT/ACT and GPA point, for each of its schools. They literally give you all the “chances” in advance. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/41st-Ed-ADRB.pdf[/url]”>http://www.american.edu/provost/oira/upload/41st-Ed-ADRB.pdf</a></p>
<p>What is also clear from the data is that SOME kids are rejected at the highest GPA and SAT levels, and SOME kids get accepted at the lowest ones. Hey - it’s “chances” - to us. To the Admissions Office, I’m sure each and every one of those admissions made sense in terms of their long-term institutional mission.</p>
<p>I happen to have one of those kids who was accepted/attending in that lowest category. Many of you would probably think she shouldn’t have been admitted. She graduated magna cum laude in three years with highest honors, the business equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa, senior student award for best student in the department (except she was only a junior), and a graduate fellowship. The Admissions Office knew precisely what they were doing.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, her GREs were even worse than her SATs. The graduate school asked her permission to waive them.</p>
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^ ^</p>
<p>I worry about the kids who spend their whole high school careers crafting themselves into the perfect college candidate. I see kids on the “Chance Me” and “EC” threads ask, “If I do 1000 hours of community service, found 3 clubs, and take 15 APs (regardless of what they are) will I get into Harvard?” I picture some of these kids getting to college then thinking “Now what am I supposed to do?” </p>
<p>On the other hand, I love to see the kids who love what they do no matter how offbeat.</p>
<p>^^^ That.^^^</p>
<p>Totally agree with Sue. My son got into his dream school which was a huge reach and is an ivy. He got a really nice email from the director of admissions saying how much she enjoyed presenting his application to the admissions committee because his essay made her laugh out loud and his passion for his EC was palpable. I wish more kids understood that if they followed their passion it will make it much easier for it to come through in the essay. Admissions officers see a lot applications and an sense then ones that are just resume padding.</p>
<p>I love to tell the story of the discussion I had with the anxious mom of one of my son’s friends in which I mentioned my son’s love for his unusual EC. She commented that it would be great for his college applications. I pointed out that as a fourth grader he wasn’t exactly focussed on what would play well at application time 8 years hence.</p>
<p>All these years later I have no idea if his EC will help him with colleges. All I can say is that for over 8 years he’s been doing something he truly loves. The idea of trading that for a well-polished resume seems in the sage words of jaylynn, “ineffably sad”.</p>
<p>whoa - just finished reading the 395 messages.</p>
<p>I wanted to add a response to the question of why a student would be rejected from a safety school.</p>
<p>Some rolling admission public safety schools publish late deadlines on line but actually “fill up” before the deadlines hit. So you are not rejected because your stats weren’t good enough or because you applied after the deadline, but because the university was “full” or because the “School of Engineering (for example)” at your safety school was no longer accepting students. </p>
<p>The lesson is that your safety school applications need to be done well and should be submitted before the end of December.</p>
<p>When my daughter was an 8th grader, the GC at our high school told her that students from our h.s. should plan to apply to six schools: two safeties, two matches, and two reaches. I still think this is good advice. I particularly like the “two safeties” rule, so everyone has a choice in the spring. </p>
<p>This thread - especially the first few pages - should be a must read for new cc members.</p>
<p>My son carefully chose 2 safety schools with EA so he knew pretty quickly that he had good options with merit awards. They were LACs and I think he could have been happy at either. I still worried about every little thing until all results were in, but I’d have been really nuts without those 2 EA acceptances. I discouraged ED because I’d read about the wisdom of loving the whole list until all decisions were in. Worked for him.</p>
<p>I would add that I learned more caution from the andison story here on CC. I might otherwise have considered my H’s alma mater as a safety school for my son, but it was one andison didn’t get into despite really great stats, ECs etc. My son was eventually accepted at that school with a merit award, but I realized I couldn’t count on that.</p>
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<p>I totally agree with you. So why is it that colleges are admitting more and more kids in the ED round leaving little room in RD? Can you blame kids and their parents if they decide to go ED ready or not?</p>
<p>midwestmom- I sort of agree with the mix of schools. The only thing I have to add to that is “know the school”.</p>
<p>It is completely silly to apply for Engineering at James Madison as a safety school since they do not have an engineering program. I know of 3 kids that did that. Not only did you waste your money and time on the application, but also lose a safety, then you only have one safety to fall back on. </p>
<p>Additionally, choose your reach school logically. It is completely silly for a B+ student, with SAT of 1980 to apply to IVY without a hook. Or to CMU for CS and never having taken an AP or CS course their entire HS career, with the highest math in HS being Algebra 2. Both happen. They think that they will be admitted on their “potential”. </p>
<p>Also, if you know you need merit aid, do not qualify for FA because of actual income levels, why would you apply to a school that does not give merit only aid? </p>
<p>So the guidance to apply to 6 schools 2/2/2 is not bad, but you have to make those 6 applications count. Just throwing applications at the wall to see what sticks has failed many students, just read the gut wrenching threads this year.</p>
<p>the last thing, try to find a safety (academic and financial) with rolling admissions and apply there first. There is something very liberating and confidence boosting to have an acceptance in hand as the kids are working on all of the other applications. If you are lucky, they fall inlove with the safety.</p>