Re: #55:
"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.”
Yeah, that’s mine to a T!! He’s going ED. The school he is applying to has a much, much higher acceptance rate in the ED round . . .and it’s not a big school, so I really don’t think they could all be athletic admits. There must be some boost.
I had two kids get in ED. To me - being in a situation where we didn’t have to compare financial aid offers and their favorites happened also to be the reachiest - it made perfect sense to ED (which has, of course, no bearing on whether it’s right for other people). Both of them also had back-up ED-II plans in case the ED-I fell through. I’m very risk averse, and I’m also a Myers-Briggs J meaning that I like closure. To have it all wrapped up and everyone happy as of December was really beautiful. I had a girlfriend whose daughter got into several schools RD, kept her waitlist open, and was agonizing all through the summer and I was getting angtsy over the lack of closure when it wasn’t even my kid or my business! LOL.
I would have also been the kind to have mentally “shut down” a waitlist pretty quickly in the game and called it a day versus holding out hope and still acting as though the game was on.
@Pizzagirl I am also a Myers Briggs J and didn’t know that it was associated with loving closure, but goodness do I LOVE closure. Really hoping my son has this nailed down by December.
December 10, 2010. 5:50 pm: Acceptance #1. 6:00 pm: Acceptance #2. Peace of mind: Priceless 
That’s the whole definition of a Myers-Briggs J - liking things settled!
Both of my kids had acceptances early, but both waited till March 30 to make the final decisions. It was aggravating, but I knew they had excellent choices and this was one of the biggest decisions they had ever made.
And on top of that, they could buy winter clothes suitable for the climates they were going to at the after-Christmas sales.
Well, they weren’t really changing climates (Chicago, Boston) but conceptual point taken