As we were touring schools this summer, my mantra to DD was ‘Don’t fall in love with any school. Just decide if it stays on the list or not.’ It just seemed cruel to have her fall in love with a school with a single digit acceptance rate. In fact, through the fall, she has specifically avoided revisiting/overnight stays in order to not fall in love with a specific school. So… no ED for us although some of her top choice schools do have significantly higher acceptance rates for (non-hooked) ED apps.
I understand this. First, the “around here” part: If you live in a high-achieving town where every one of the top students among the high-achieving HS class applies ED, then it just about becomes a “must.” If 50 out of the top 75 kids know where they are going by December 15, and you won’t know until April 1, it is extremely stressful.
Second, the “increases the odds” part: If all the high-achieving students in your class are EDing the same schools you are applying to RD, it may call into doubt (among admissions officers) your interest in that school. They may think you were rejected from your ED and now do not have a clear first choice.
But there is no point in EDing if you aren’t solidly clear on your first choice. And sure, the majority of kids don’t attend a class or stay over. But lots of kids also drop out, transfer, or take more than 4 years to finish. And mistakes are expensive - the best scholarships and need based aid goes to freshman, not transfers. Not to mention the stress and angst of transferring. It is a LOT cheaper and less stressful to make an extra visit than to make a wrong choice. And if your kid has multiple acceptances, at least a couple of accepted student visits can solidify the decision. More info is always better than less when you are going to spend this kind of money.
Sure there is.
You don’t have to be 100% sure that it’s your first choice. You just have to be 100% sure that you would be willing to attend.
In fact, in my opinion, being 100% sure that you would be willing to attend a school is the essential criterion for applying ED. Having a clear first choice is not.
If you are 100% sure that you would be willing to attend either Penn, Northwestern, or Cornell, for example, I see no problem with choosing one of them as your ED school even if you don’t have a clear favorite among them.
^^^Spoken like a true satisficer.
For the maximizers amongst us, and I think many on CC are of this ilk, that would not be the preferred route.
As long as you don’t have regrets that you never even put in an app for the others. And the OP on this thread is NOT sure their kid will be happy there.
But the kid seems sure. Parent OP is just worried a bit, and asking for others’ stories, not advice or judgements.
My S chose an ED school, and yes, at his HS, if you are top 10% and can pay, you do an ED if the school has a high ED admit rate. Not all schools are inflated by athletes and legacies, and some have a significantly higher % acceptance ED.
Am I positive? No. I’m positive he loves it and would love to be able to go there. I have to trust his instincts on the rest. It’s his choice. I’m just here to write the check and object only where really necessary.
No everyone can sit in on classes in multiple schools. That is a lot of time out of HS, and a lot of $. My S saw most schools on break, so he had to take the lack of kids into consideration.
It sounds like you had a good experience with it before. Fingers crossed!
Parents are paying… parents get a vote, too, IMHO. Because parent pocketbooks take a hit in the transfer situation, too.
OP- you know your kid. If you’ve got one who can thrive in a crack in the sidewalk, is generally low drama/low maintenance, and doesn’t need a ton of data before making a decision then I wouldn’t worry. If you’ve got a kid who needs a half hour at Walgreen’s to pick out a tube of toothpaste and needs to know what all the available options are before moving forward, then maybe suggest a visit now- an overnight- just confirm.
My spouse can buy a car in ten minutes. He reads consumer reports- he’s done. I on the other hand… need a LOT of information before committing!!!
@gossamerwings Why not visit with her for a long weekend soon. I am sure you could arrange to sit in on a class. If Most likely, you would both feel more confident after the visit. However, if she changes her mind, you could withdraw the application.
I think @blossom has a valid point, especially in a situation like this where the app is submitted. How adaptable does the OP feel the kid is? I felt that my D was very adaptable and could thrive in a variety of settings. Also, while I know some people swear by overnights, I feel that there is a random element to them. I’ve read stuff several times here on CC about D’s school where someone comes away from an overnight with a strong opinion on what the student body is like, when I think that all they really know is what a small group seemed like on one night.
@intparent
Oh yes! We get a vote. Totally agree!
I’m a satisficer too. Honestly Penn, Northwestern and Cornell are pretty similar and I can easily see someone liking all three.
I guess I’m a satisficer, as well. I can even understand liking colleges that are not similar overall, if the focus is on a particular major and a particular extracurricular activity.
I had to look up satisficer and maximizer. I am most definitely a satisficer and happy to be one.
This is such an educational forum.
Like the satisficer and maximizer references (even if spell check does not)! I am a recovering maximizer, though it sounds like most maximizers move that direction as they age. Teaching our kids to find a balance between the two is a great life lesson. A choice as big as UG is a great place to work on those skills. I find that I approach most decisions as a maximizer (hence my time on CC) but then become more of a satisficer as I learn about whatever it is I am researching. I am done researching when my criteria are found in several options and then i am comfortable with someone else choosing from my “short list”. That completely describes how we have approached the college process. The criteria came from DS but I have done most of the research. No ED was offered at the short list schools so no concerns there. I am guessing that those with concerns may not have had their maximizer needs met. Maybe they can fulfill that need by doing some more research which might be as simple as really understanding how their DC chose that school.
You could think of it as practice. On-campus recruiting for jobs can be just as early and the admissions process for some types of graduate programs can be almost as early.
Four years after my daughter applied ED to college, she applied for consulting jobs through on-campus recruiting and had to make a commitment in November of her senior year of college to a job that wouldn’t start until the next July.
Three years after that, she applied to graduate business schools, and she had to make a commitment in February to enroll in the following September.
And now, as a second-year MBA student, she is again interviewing in November for jobs that won’t start until next summer or fall.
It helps that she is a satisficer down to the core.
Some kids have to make their decisions about jobs even earlier. It isn’t unheard-of for a student who does a summer internship between the junior and senior years of college to get an offer for a full-time job at the end of the internship, even though it will be a full year before the job starts. In a few career fields, this is actually the preferred method of recruiting.
I can’t imagine making a commitment to a job a year in advance. I don’t even know what I’m going to cook for dinner tonight.
We did the (largely parent-researched) shortlist based on kid-generated criteria, followed by visits that knocked a few of those candidates off the list. What bugs me about SCEA is that it pressures the kid to create a hierarchy among the schools that made the cut in a situation where it seemed much healthier for kids to be happy about a range of potential options rather than to designate THE ONE.
My D went to a mid-sized competitive public high school. We definitely didn’t feel pressured to do ED. There were a bunch of kids at the top of the class who were applying SCEA to Harvard, Princeton or Stanford. But not that many applying binding ED anywhere. The ones applying ED that I was aware of generally seemed to have a good reason for doing so. And frankly they were also kids who probably didn’t need to shop financial aid offers.
^this. It is common at our HS among full pays where it provides a boost. Meaning we don’t see a ton of HYP scea apps or other Ivies/Stanford. Those are usually just athletes anyway (other than Penn & Cornell.). Of course this all private info, so hearsay.