Kids need to learn that designating a school as THE ONE for admissions advantages is not the same as designating it that way in their hearts.
17 is old enough to learn how to be a hypocrite.
Yeah, there’s that – a delightful prospect. At the same time, there will be a lot of pressure from DC’s (private) HS to withdraw other apps once there’s an EA acceptance from a non-safety.
When I was a kid, I probably thought I was a maximizer. But I’m a satisficer for sure, now – and no apologies for it – and so are my kids (more or less). My daughter applied ED to her second-choice college as part of a strategy that she believed gave her a better shot at one of her top three than applying SCEA to her first-choice college would have. And who’s to say she was wrong? She was deferred at the ED school, but accepted EA at #3, and wound up perfectly happy there (and glad, in retrospect, that she hadn’t been accepted ED at #2, now that she knows lots of people who went there).
The differences we obsess about among different excellent colleges are like grace notes, decoration. They all have a fundamentally similar core, and it’s easy to find groupings where the differences really don’t matter. In those situations where the differences actually seem significant, most kids are adaptable enough to succeed at either choice. It’s far, far more important to embrace the choice you have made enthusiastically than to make the absolute best choice, assuming there even is such a thing.
An overnight, a couple of hours in classrooms – those are just as likely to produce vivid but completely misleading information as to improve the quality of a decision. Visiting is completely overrated as a source of valuable information, but visiting makes it difficult to choose an unvisited college over one that has been visited (and liked).
It is silly to approach the college search without something of a satisficer attitude. Some you don’t know where you are going to get in, having a list of schools you are willing to attend is critical.
I think it is hooey to say that visits don’t matter. There is nothing like boots on the ground and sitting in on classes to get a flavor for the campus and students. My kids did both end up at the very best possible schools for them – but without visits, I am certain both would have ended up at other schools that would not have worked out so well in the long run.
I am pretty much a satisficer. Even applying to Harvard when I was in high school. I basically thought it’s got a good reputation, it surely offers anything I might want to major in. I applied to my other two colleges sight unseen. Older son cared about one department and had a ranking in his head based on their reputations. Younger son visited, thought a lot about his decisions, but felt he could be happy anywhere. He liked different things about each college, felt none of them was perfect, and I think ultimately would have been equally happy or unhappy at all of them. He says now he thinks the visits were a bit misleading - especially for judging what students are like. He feels that he could have found kids he’d like anywhere, but sometimes they weren’t visible on short trips. Since he did care a lot about what the campus looked like, it was still worth a visit. GW got nixed right away for its lack of a real campus.
Precisely this—and add to that the IMO highly problematic ethics of requiring a student (and family) to give away most of the leverage and power they have in the college admissions process at the outset, and you’ve got a potentially very bad situation.
What do you mean, @dfbdfb ? In what sense does SCEA represent the “highly problematic ethics of requiring a student . . . to give away most of the leverage and power they have in the college admissions process at the outset”? I would understand what you were talking about if you were referring to ED, but SCEA not so much. I don’t really have a problem with SCEA – the four colleges that use it get plenty of applications as it is, and I don’t think it’s so awful to impose a modest nonmonetary cost to make certain kids really mean it when they apply. The world might be slightly better if HYPS adopted the Georgetown/Notre Dame rule – you can apply EA anywhere else, but not ED – but I don’t blame them for barring EA applicants from applying ED elsewhere. (I don’t blame them, but I have to say I admire Chicago and MIT for not taking that position, and letting applicants do anything they want.)
It’s really the epitome of an issue that doesn’t affect many people. Whether a kid applying to Harvard or Stanford can also put in an early application to MIT or Caltech . . . the fate of the world does not turn on that.
The only real leverage a student has in the process comes at two points: (1) Choosing which colleges to apply to, and (2) deciding which offer of admission to accept. Whereas ED effectively takes away (2)—and yes, I agree that that’s worse—both ED and SCEA limit (1).
SCEA, only limits the first round. You don’t have to commit to that school, it doesn’t limit where you apply or where you accept. I don’t like it, but it’s not nearly as evil as ED.
No one is forced into ED. You take the supposedly higher chance of admission in exchange for promising to marry them. Take it or don’t. But it’s whiny to suggest a completely optional option is “pressure.” It’s immaterial what “all the other kids in school are doing” because they aren’t you. Either you’re a maximized or a satisficer. Either you’re willing to pledge your troth to one school early on and be done or you’re not. Spare me the faux-drama of “I really wanted to shoot for X but I was forced into ED so I’m stuck at Y.” Unless someone put a. gun to your head.
OP- My son applied ED last year was admitted and is happy there. He never did an overnight or sat in class (until the admitted students day but at that point he was already committed). He did however, have several visits there (both official and non-official).
Around here I have not noticed this pressure. In fact, I don’t think many kids do ED ( but frankly I don’t know what “everyone else is doing”). My son did it simply because it was his first choice and we agreed it was a great fit for him. He was admitted and is happy there.
Some kids know what they want earlier than others. Some kids have known for a long time and for others even May might be “too early” to choose. In fact I bet there are kids that would wait until September to choose if they could! No one is being forced to choose early. If any “force” is being done it’s to choose by May.
Of course, I’d prefer schools only have EA and not ED, but I wouldn’t call ED “evil”.
I’m voting with Pizzagirl here. It is ludicrous to force your kid to commit to a school in October if in fact, your kid is not ready to commit. But it is equally ludicrous to claim that the system is broken if/when there ARE kids who are ready to sign on the dotted line.
And the statistics on early admissions- I would NOT be concluding that my unhooked kid has a better shot in the early round than in the latter round. Just because someone else’s kid (athlete, three generation legacy, development admit, published novelist) gets in early doesn’t mean that my own plain vanilla child is going to have a different result in November vs. March.
I think your propensity for risk is also at play here. Risk takers may be more willing to go RD, those more risk averse, may be favoring ED. I know that is how my kid is looking at it. Go early and maybe there is less competition and you can wrap it up. Go RD and there’s a lot more kids in the pool who look exactly like you and you may get the short end of the stick. Especially for girls applying to LACs where the admit rate is lower than boys, ED can make a lot of sense. Yes there are a lot of spots reserved for athletes, but they don’t make up the entire ED accept pool, and there would be more male athletes vs female, due to the size of the football roster, so ED for girls at LACs can be smart. For my dd, with a clear first choice and risk averse mentality, ED is the way to go
Wisteria- clear first choice being the operative principal here.
ED just is what it is. A trade off; a higher chance for an early commitment. You have to be sure you’ll go is all. It isn’t a lifetime commitment. Just college. I suspect people don’t ED to a safety…but to their 1st choice. Those folks should be happy with ED either way!
I will disagree again on this point.
Some kids have a clear first choice but have reservations about it, i.e., “Of all the schools I’ve visited, I like Cornell the best, but it’s awfully big and I’m a little worried about getting lost in the crowd.”
Other kids have no reservations but may not have a clear first choice, i.e., “I really like all three of these liberal arts colleges, and I would be happy to go to any of them.”
I think the second type of kid is a better bet for ED than the first type.
"Other kids have no reservations but may not have a clear first choice, i.e., “I really like all three of these liberal arts colleges, and I would be happy to go to any of them.”
If the kid you describe above is a risk-taker she may apply to all 3 RD and see what happens. But there is a chance she may get left with 0 out of 3.
If she is risk averse she is a good candidate to apply to one ED and increase her chances at getting in to one.
Being risk adverse isn’t the only thing that can come into play. Saving application fees, stress, hours and hours on supplemental essays can also be a big attraction of applying - and hopefully getting accepted - to a school you know you would be very happy attending.
Except that it doesn’t necessarily increase the odds as much as some seem to think, if at all…
^for many schools, it is a significant boost.