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<p>Wonderful that it worked out for you- but remember ‘adequate’ means different things to different people.</p>
<p>“‘adequate’ means different things to different people”</p>
<p>All the better that families get to decide if an offer was adequate. 
(and our kids didn’t apply ED, not that it matters)</p>
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<p>Exactly, and if you run the finaid calculators and the estimate is “adequate” for your family, you can apply ED…if not adequate, then don’t apply ED.</p>
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<p>This is precisely the sort of statement that illustrates how people misinterpret statistics. </p>
<p>The scores reported are MEDIAN ranges and there are other factors that come into play, including:</p>
<p>1) The ED pool often includes hooked applicants like recruited athletes and legacy/development cases who have significantly lower than typical test scores. Within the relatively small number of admitted students, that cohort may be enough to bring down the median, even if the unhooked applicants had higher than typical scores. All you know from the reported numbers is that there were enough lower scoring students in the admitted group to bring down the median – you don’t know who those students were or why they were admitted.</p>
<p>What you do know is that of 408 ED students who enrolled at Bucknell, admitted student #306 had an SAT verbal score of 600, and that when you combine those students with the entire group of RD enrolled students (combined total 920) – student #690 of that group had an SAT verbal score of 630. (So you know that in all, Bucknell enrolled 230 students with SAT scores below 630, which included at least 102 students from the ED pool). </p>
<p>(Same story with Lafayette, different numbers).</p>
<p>2) Students in the RD pool have an opportunity to submit late scores from the final test administration of the application year, and colleges generally follow a practice of super-scoring. So you aren’t necessarily seeing a true picture with the test scores – a small but significant number of the RD admitted students simply had the opportunity to improve their scores along the way to getting considered for admission. The student with lower SAT scores might do a lot better to study and enroll for the November or December SAT and apply in the RD round with higher scores.</p>
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And if you think that the finaid calculators give an accurate indication of what financial aid will be awarded to most families, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.</p>
<p>^ Good point; the award may be adequate even if the calculator suggests it won’t be.</p>
<p>Which calculators have you found to be poor predictors, and in which direction? This could really help potential ED applicants.</p>
<p>I did an online calculator before my son applied ED (two years ago). As it turned out, the prediction matched nearly to the dollar the final award. (The actual final award was a tiny bit better.) He applied ED to a need-blind/meets-full-need-without-loans college. It was a terrific choice for him… and for us, for that matter. I’m not sure how we could have afforded anywhere less generous. I am grateful every day!</p>
<p>I have never yet found a so-called “institutional methodology” calculator that comes even close, and with both my kids aid awards at various colleges varied by +/- $9,000 in terms of overall expected contribution – even more variance if you consider the variations in packaging of grants vs. loans and work study. Other posters have reported even greater variance. </p>
<p>I do think that if a family has negligible assets and poverty-level income then the calculator would probably be pretty accurate for them. In other words, if they are 0 EFC and don’t have any sort of asset that is not considered on the FAFSA but would change the picture with the CSS profile (like an ex-spouse with higher earnings) – then there’s no reason for the calculator to be off the mark. </p>
<p>Just for starters, there is no consistency whatsoever in terms of how colleges treat home equity assets, so the calculators are virtually useless for homeowners.</p>
<p>As far as the direction – it goes both ways. That is, my kids have ended up attending colleges that offered MORE money than the online calculators said that they would – but in neither case was that their first choice college. In both cases, they were accepted to their top choice colleges but the aide offers were so patently inadequate as to be laughable, whereas their second choice colleges were quite generous. So either kid would have been in trouble with ED. (Though, in fairness, at the time the ED application was due, my daughter’s order of preference was different).</p>
<p>I’m 100% sure that if you can get in ED than you can get in RD. If you are denied ED than you had no chance RD. These are the same Adcoms reviewing your app. If you are competitive than they’ll defer you into RD. The only reason a person should apply ED is if they know that they would absolutely attend if they got accepted. The idea of which is easier to get into really doesn’t matter. If the school WANTS you they will take you ED or RD. It’s not like there would be different results if a person applied ED or RD. Same result except maybe deferal in ED.</p>
<p>Well, I think the results may be different because the circumstances change over time, but I don’t think that the ED “boost” is what people expect. I agree that a kid who is marginal is just as likely to be rejected in the ED round as later on. But the ad coms are trying to shape a class with their selections, and their priorities change day by day as the season continues. And being accepted or not can probably be a influenced by the time of day that the ad coms happen to read a file, or what file they happened to read immediately before that one, etc. But those factors apply in the ED round as well. I mean, if the application reader has a bad headache, or is simply exhausted after reading dozens of file that day – its going to tend to diminish chances of admission, whether the headache occurs in November or March.</p>
<p>But it could work the other way as well. Every step of the way the dynamic changes. The college is crunching numbers all along. Maybe in March someone reports that the acceptances are very lopsided toward women, and it would be nice to have some more men admitted – so they admits some males with weaker stats than they would have considered in November. It could be any other diversity factor (racial, geographic, etc.). If the college is need-aware it could be the state of their financial aid budget. It could be any other factor related to the class profiles.</p>
<p>^ calmom, you are right there could be some differences based on an applicant’s “luck”. What the adcoms are looking for one day can change the next day. But an applicant can’t anticipate any specifics so applying ED and RD is quite simple unlike most people like the OP assume. There really isn’t an easier chance of getting in ED than RD. Anyways a person shouldn’t apply to a school early just because they think its easier, that would be the completely wrong mindset to follow.</p>
<p>I agree entirely.</p>
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<p>I don’t know how you can be sure of that at all.</p>
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<p>Every adcom at an ED to which I have spoken refutes that statement. </p>
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<p>Every adcom says that there is. Every study shows that that is. Are adcoms lying to boost thier ED apps? </p>
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<p>Our experience was exactly the same, only it was four years ago. Unfortunately, we also have experience with RD choices (kid #2) and none are even close to the no-loan, finaid package that #1 receives from extremely generous, need-based ED school. Not even close!</p>
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<p>We are homeowners and not “0 EFC” nor “poverty level” and, as I said the online calculator was quite accurate for us at my son’s school – which uses institutional methodology. We have a middle-class income, but we do have fairly simple finances, no non-custodial parent issues, etc.</p>
<p>I grant you that what people call a “middle class income” on CC is usually ridiculously high, much higher than what is truly a middle class income. But we are far from poverty level.</p>
<p>I also think my son’s chances of admission were definitely enhanced by his ED application.</p>
<p>bluebayou: There are colleges that say that applying ED is not necessarily beneficial. Here is what Brown says:</p>
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<p>Several years ago when my daughter was applying, we got a letter from a college – I think it was Trinity in Connecticut – that said there is an advantage to applying there ED, and compared acceptance rates. My conclusion is that policies vary from school to school, and students need to do the research and ask the school.</p>
<p>I know this has been said already, but I’ll repeat anyway – at a school that accepts recruited athletes early, the ED acceptance rates will be skewed. If there are 1000 applications, and 200 of those are recruited athletes, then for 200 of those 1000 the acceptance rate is a guaranteed 100%. The acceptance rate for the unhooked drops to a number a lot closer to RD for everyone else.</p>
<p>Bluebayou, I’m glad it worked out well for you. We are also in the same boat of having our older kid at a generous private where the financial aid package makes it very do-able, and having a younger kid in a college where is it costing us far more. In our case the younger kid’s school is the flagship state univ, which is great and it’s a terrific place for her… but egads! the cost is killer even with her partial aid (need-based) and merit scholarships. We definitely could not have gotten both kids through college if not for my son’s very generous private.</p>
<p>f&d:</p>
<p>Brown never says that there is ZERO advantage from ED, do they? (I’m a natural cynic on PR-spin announcements and try to read them for what they don’t clearly state.)</p>
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<p>And upon this I concur. But even your own statement infers SOME advantage for an unhooked ED applicant. </p>
<p>Even a small % increase on a 12% acceptance rate can be significant. A small bump from 12% to 15% for the unhooked, for example, is a 25% increase in chances (% of a %). Add in the generous finaid and its a game worth playing/considering, IMO.</p>
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<p>I too, have no doubt that Son’s chances were improved by ED. We are definitely unhooked. Big time finaid. Scores below the median.</p>
<p>Fireandrain, I also think it varies by school. At my son’s school they said that the main advantage to ED was that they had more time to spend reviewing the applications. My son (who was middle of the pack in terms of stats) had a rather idiosyncratic transcript, did not got to high school in the typical way, did not graduate in the typical way, did lots of his learning in other situations including independent study. I think the fact that his application was looked at by someone who had the time to spend to actually understand how all that fit together into an integrated whole, and time to really digest his essays --not the slickest, not the most polished or the jazziest-- came together to create a whole picture of an interesting kid… I think that was a huge plus for him. When I think of someone looking at his crazy application among a stack of thousands, rather than a stack of hundreds, I feel virtually certain that the extra time they could spend really looking at it carefully had to be a concrete boost.</p>
<p>^Based on your theory, which may be absolutely right, ED benefits angular applicants more so than others. Would you say it is therefore better for the well rounded kids to apply RD to avoid competing with the angular kids in the ED round?</p>