May of the schools S18 are interested in have an EA option. I know and understand the benefits of applying ED, but we are wrestling with the value of applying EA.
The question is particularly pointed in S18’s case because his unweighted GPA is just a hair below 3.5 and we think we can reasonably expect his 12th grade results to be an improvement (as they have risen every year from 9th through 11th and he really does seem to have his act together these days). Don’t know if it matters but the rigor of his 12th grade classes is as high or higher than prior years.
@thumper1 His ACT score is 35 and he goes to a very highly respected and rigorous high school, so his grades are on the lower side of some of the schools he’s looking at.
A few years ago the one of the Tufts admissions officers posted regularly on the site. I believe he said one of the main reasons for deferrals was that they wanted to see first semester grades and that if your grades had an upward trend there was a very good chance you’d be accepted in the spring. Obviously one semester is not going to change your overall GPA much, but it does show that the kid has become more mature.
Also if the colleges know your high school well, they may reach deeper into the class than they would at a school where they give out A’s like candy. If you have access to Naviance you can see whether the GPA averages for accepted students at your high school are the same or different than those you see reported by the colleges.
There is very little, if any, admissions advantage in applying EA. Having a good upward trend in rigorous courses senior year will be a plus. EA however is a great tool in potentially cutting down applications your son would need to complete (including associated fees), reducing some level of stress, and gauging the strength of his overall application, including perhaps getting a read on the strength of his essays and LoR’s. My general advice is to apply to your state flagship (or other high quality institution with rolling admissions) early, and apply EA to schools that are high matches/low reaches in your son’s situation since he can improve the strength of his application between now and the RD deadlines. Some EA’s are restricted (can only apply to 1 school EA), so you will need to gauge whether you want to cast a broader net or whether that particular school is high enough on your son’s list that it could potentially remove most other schools from his application list.
I would suggest applying EA to a safety school so that at least your child has one acceptance in their pocket but then apply to the match and reaches RD.
In our experience, there were not many schools in the match/safety range (for our kids) that offered EA. Most seemed to be ED schools.
Our older son lucked out with a special application from RPI and heard from them before Thanksgiving. The other two schools he applied EA to (MIT and Caltech) deferred and then eventually rejected him. Younger son applied EA to Georgetown and U of Chicago. UC turned into a safety school once he was accepted. (He hadn’t visited so he was unsure when he applied where it ranked in terms of his preferences, but he knew he liked it better than one of the safeties and one of the matches he’d otherwise have applied to.)
Getting in somewhere early definitely eases the stress of senior year.
Yesterday my son decided on 2 EA applications (EA 2, for Dec 1) on the hope that a few early answers woould allow him to do some overnight visits that were spaced out, instead of trying to cram them all in the spring.
IMO EA doesn’t give much of a bump so if the application would be stronger in the RD cycle when the first semester senior year grades are available then I’d wait and apply RD.
Our CC recommended waiting in these situations. Really high test scores and middling grades can scream “under-achiever!” An upward trend in grades can help in that case, suggesting that while it may have been true in the past, it is no longer the case. We were told that it is not unusual for boys in particular to get off to a slow start in high school.
And fwiw, our experience (similar stats) was that the RD schools that WL him accepted him with continued high performance through the end of senior year (i.e., right up to graduation). No guarantees, of course, but the schools are taking the senior, not the freshman.
If you are out of state or instate for UVA and applied early action there is a good chance he would get deferred because of his grades. They would probably want to see mid year grades before making a decision. I would consider this a reach school not a match given his current transcript.
Last year, by Feb. 1, admissions had received just under 50,000 applications. As time goes on, more and more students apply, and the available space in each school at the University continues to shrink. So while each application gets equal consideration, the selection process can become more competitive as the class begins to fill.
@annamom That’s also true but I wouldn’t take for granted getting deferred by applying EA. If the gpa is low the applicant may get outright rejected.
Early action is good for a student that already has strong stats to apply because the pool is smaller for EA than RD.