Are acceptance odds better applying ED than RD?

Parents Forum
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<p>You know, I just have never seen that sequence of events. Not in real life and not here on CC. Which is not to say it’s never happened, but it’s just too far outside the course of normal experience to base a decision on. Only a small minority of applicants apply ED anyway. If they come to the decision it makes sense for them, that’s their business. I do recommend they do their research, and they must understand that if they get an acceptance and they can afford it, then of course they won’t be applying to other schools, but in real life I have never met a student that got in early to their #1 school with an aid package that worked for them that had the slightest interest in applying to other schools. Those that do don’t normally apply ED.</p>

<p>But fortunately ED is not mandatory, so people who find it objectionable are off the hook!</p>

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<p>“after they have reneged on the ED application”</p>

<p>Declining an ED offer because the FA was insufficient is not reneging. From the actual Common App ED agreement:

<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/docs/downloadforms/ED_Agreement.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>No one has ever produced any evidence of retribution or blackballing by any school.</p>

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<p>I’m talking about the student who gets in to the ED school, thinks that the aid package is unworkable, pulls out of ED expecting a better outcome in the spring, and then finds that the other choices are no better. There’s no going back. </p>

<p>And there have been plenty of students posting on CC who are dismayed at the financial aid from their ED school and struggling with the choice they have to make. I have also seen posts on CC from students whose aid was cut back in the spring from what they were promised by the ED school, because of some sort of change in circumstance that impacts the financial aid calculation – they receive their notice of a reduced package at the same time others are weighing options among a number of schools, but they are left with no alternatives.</p>

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<p>Calmom, are you against ED generally of just for students with financial need?</p>

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<p>We seem to have addressed my question from both ends. On one hand, an overpackaged application – perhaps even an essay or two authored by someone else – may be confirmed with a more careful read. Adcoms have told stories of spotting “daddy’s essay” because of inconsistent writings between long and short essays. I’ve also seen admissions website telling the applicants that excellent essays may be given to faculties for analysis. More careful read may even discover inconsistent description or listing of EC’s.</p>

<p>Otoh, an outstanding applicant may have inadvertently created a diamond in the rough situation by not spending more time and effort putting together his/her app. His/her great accomplishments are not presented in harmony to advance his/her candidacy in the best light. Such applications may benefit from a more careful read.</p>

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<p>Calmom makes an excellent point about how sending in an application which requires careful reading to find the diamond in the rough does a kid no favors- early, late, hooked, unhooked. Any school which has the luxury of rejecting over 80% of its applicants has one resource which is in scarce supply- the time of its professionals. Whether the professionals are faculty, adcom’s, students who work in admissions, or temps who just code data and input statistics onto a spreadsheet, the harder you make it, the worse your chances are.</p>

<p>That’s why the single most important step a kid can take to increase their chances is universally ignored… although I try to be helpful in preaching it every year to the newbies. READ THE TRANSCRIPT and READ THE PROFILE. If your school insists on calling HS classes by some PC title instead of a universally understood moniker, your kid will suffer. If your school has an outdated demographic profile, or lists AP Physics as an option when the last AP Physics teacher retired in 2005, your kid will suffer. </p>

<p>Do not delude yourself that adcoms want to sit around and in PCP’s words, give the application “a more careful read”. If your kid took “Voices and Experience” senior year, do not expect the adcom to plow through the application in order to figure out that this was a high level English seminar comparable to AP English, focused on memoir and non-fiction post WWII. If your school insists on calling US History from the Civil War-today “The Melting Pot” (I’m not making this up) you can’t expect adcom’s to sit around pinging each other, “Hey, Little Jimmy did take four years of social studies! It’s not a ceramics elective, it’s a required US History course that follows the NY State Regents curriculum! Gosh that’s exciting, let’s admit Little Jimmy”.</p>

<p>The application should stand on its own. Your audience is a college educated adult who understands in broad strokes how the K-12 educational system in the US operates. Frequently, that person will be familiar with your HS if they have admitted kids in earlier years, although the staff rotates at most colleges. The person who reads the application is not a forensics expert, does not have a week to devote to parsing the clues your kid has tantalizingly dropped along the way. This person gets paid to assemble a highly qualified class which meets the institutions strategic objectives, and does not get paid to hunt down every obscure piece of nomenclature in order to justify admitting kids with funky transcripts. This person does not get paid to mull and brood over every essay with an eye towards figuring out if your kid actually wrote it, or paid someone else to write it for him/her.</p>

<p>In most cases, outstanding applicants are not that tough for adcom’s to identify out of the pile on their desk. They have taken the recommended courses that the college suggests and have done well in them. They have scores in the range of other students like them who were admitted in past years. They have excelled outside of the classroom in an activity or venture or job that is meaningful to them and can explain why it’s meaningful. The adults who know them well (teachers and sometimes the GC) can describe why the kid is held in high regard. And for the schools at the tippy top of the selectivity rankings, the kid brings “something else” which is also easy to understand and easy to identify whether it’s something this institution needs and values. By the time the adcom has read a list of 15 awards, do not assume that they care to figure out what the “Daughters of Dayton Scholarship” prize is. </p>

<p>Do not make your kid be the “diamond in the rough” by making it hard for an Adcom to figure out the above.</p>

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<p>There is a couple hundred page thread from a month or so ago that shows not only are you wrong, but that reneging on an ED application is unethical - and that data is often shared among competitor schools.</p>

<p>As to the OP’s questions, the stats definietly show an advantage for ED applicants vs RD applicants</p>

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<p>There is just a significant bias against ED on cc. </p>

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<p>I’ve always been curious about this…in all my time on cc, I’ve never read a post from anyone in the know that actually says that this happens. A lot of theory/speculation that it happens, but I’m surprised that with all of the wisdom from the parents/active alums on cc, that it just remains a theory…</p>

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<p>A two-second question to your GC can dispel/confirm this speculation. :)</p>

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<p>Bluebayou, I can speak as someone in the know. In December, my D. was accepted to an east coast LAC as an early decision candidate. They sent her a letter reminding her to withdraw all her applications as they would be sharing information with other schools and it would cause problems if she hadn’t withdrawn her applications.</p>

<p>Prior to receiving her early decision admission, she had begun preliminary applications at a number of schools, including Wesleyan. As the application had never been completed (she never sent them the common app) she did not bother to withdraw.</p>

<p>Last week, she received a letter from Wesleyan, letting her know that they had been informed that she had been admitted early decision to another school and they were therefore closing her application.</p>

<p>So yes, schools can and do compare notes.</p>

<p>Back to the question by the OP, “are acceptance odds better applying ED than RD”, I would have to say that in the majority of cases, they are better. As to why there is such a bias against ED here on CC, I have no idea. For a kid who knows exactly where they want to go, and who is either full pay or has researched the financial aid aspects, it seems that there is little to lose and much to gain by going ED. The sheer fact that the application is reviewed early in the process when the admissions counselors aren’t overwhelmed from reading applications non-stop for weeks on end, is an advantage. </p>

<p>ED can be a legitimate way to gain an edge. Why not take advantage of it?</p>

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<p>^thanks for sharing your experience.</p>

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<p>BB, considering that the yield on ED about 97% at selective schools and above 90% nationwide, it is possible that the number of CC students who were accepted at their ED school but declined is rather small. Further, isn’t possible that number of CC students who were accepted at their ED school but decided to attend another school without notifying the ED school (or obtaining a release) is simply close to zero? </p>

<p>Also, if you happen to own Karabel’s The Chosen or are able to get it from local library, go to chapter 17 and read the history of the changes to and from ED at Princeton and how the changes helped P 9(re)gain the top spot after being dead last in the HYPS race. One subtle detail that shows up is that, upon offering ED, their yield on ED was … 100% as every student who was admitted decided to attend. Not conclusive evidence by all means, but still an interesting tidbit of information. Fwiw, that chapter offers incredible insights on the importance of adapting admission policies to the marketplace, and how important the exact ranking of the schools are (for the colleges) among their peer schools. In some cases, this importance should be named … obsession. </p>

<p>As far as a list being circulated among schools, there a few anecdotes that can be gleaned in articles. Do you remember how Harvard waffled about “poaching” students who had ED acceptances from competing schools, and how this issue divided officials at the school?</p>

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<p>Vossron</p>

<p>“No one has ever produced any evidence of retribution or blackballing by any school.”</p>

<p>Hmmm. sort of like proving a negative, no? but there have been anecdotes</p>

<p>And then there is this:</p>

<p>“If we find that you lied to us and applied to our regular action process holding an admission from an early binding place,” says Marlyn McGrath Lewis, admissions director at Harvard, “we would either not admit you or we would withdraw our offer.</p>

<p>Some colleges,…, exchange early-admit lists. Ms. Lewis says she throws away the lists sent to her. Who tips her off then? “We usually find out from alumni, classmates, lots of different ways. We have a couple every year and we withdraw their admission, not because we are enforcing some rule at another college, but because we can’t trust the student.””</p>

<p>As a counterpoint, I’ve never seen produced here any evidence: </p>

<p>1) that anyone after getting an ED acceptance ever successfully waited until after collecting RD results and upon getting in to a better or peer institution then declined their ED acceptance for whatever reason and instead attended the peer or better institution</p>

<p>2) that anyone after declining an ED acceptance for whatever reason ever got in to a better or peer institution RD</p>

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<p>^ looks like CC needs to put out a survey thread asking for precisely these experiences.</p>

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<p>I just want to echo 'rentof2, my daughter applied ED with need and her aid package matched the school’s online calculator very closely. It can work out to be the best option for high-need kids with good stats. I would only do this at the small handful of schools which meet 100% of need without loans. It has to be a well-researched decision.</p>

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<p>“So yes, schools can and do compare notes.”</p>

<p>Yes, this is well known; such “bookkeeping” cases as 2girls4me related are proper and to be expected. The issue and question is specifically: Have there been cases of retribution after an insufficient financial aid ED offer is officially and properly declined?

No. Note that I commented on the claim that there has been or can be retribution, in effect asking for evidence. I indeed have no proof that there has never been such. If someone has experienced a case of retribution, I think it should be publicized here.</p>

<p>“I would only do this at the small handful of schools which meet 100% of need without loans.”</p>

<p>If the small Stafford student loans were all that prevented attending my dream school, I would accept the loans without hesitation.</p>

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<p>I agree completely. Too bad it’s not good for those who need to worry about FA; for those of us who don’t, why not take advantage of it?</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, the question raised in this thread is whether chances of admission are increased with ED. I pointed out that it is a mistake to rely on percentages without examining raw numbers, because of the impact that factors such athletic recruitment may have, given the fact that the raw number of ED applicants and admitted students tends to be very small (measured in the hundreds rather than thousands).</p>

<p>Obviously there is no down side to a family where finances are not a concern to applying ED, if in fact it is the student’s top choice. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, the belief that ED “improves chances” creates pressures on students to apply ED when they shouldn’t. People should be using ED if they are certain they want to attend a particular school and they are equally certain that they will be able to afford it. In that case, they benefit from an early decision simply because they don’t have to waste time and energy applying to other schools if their top choice is willing to accept them. For those students it shouldn’t matter whether ED improves chances or not – they know for sure they want to attend College A, so why wouldn’t they want the opportunity to know sooner rather than later whether they have gotten in?</p>

<p>I’d note that many recruited athletes have the answer to that question even before the ED application is submitted. I know a kid who was recruited at Stanford – he knew in August or September of his senior year that he was going to Stanford, and probably even knew then what his financial package would look like. The ED submission is just a formality in that case – the coach has already worked extensively with the student and family and the admissions office to ensure the result. </p>

<p>The problem is when students who do not have that dual certainty (college choice + financial) feel that they are under pressure to apply ED because they have become convinced that they are giving up the chance of admission if they don’t apply ED. Hence the “chances” question. </p>

<p>I do think from some CC posts that in some cases there is parental pressure on the student as well, either because the parents want Ivy or elite admissions for their kid, while the kid simply hasn’t yet had the opportunity to explore options and come up with his own preference list; or because some CC parents would like to hurry along the process and avoid the stress and angst of multiple college applications and waiting until the end of March for results. No one should be opting for ED when they are not absolutely certain that the ED school is their top choice simply because they feel that their “chances” are improved.</p>

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<p>But did you ever answer the simple question calmom? In your opinion, does it improve “chances” for the unhooked, or does it not?</p>

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<p>Blue, the data from past years suggests that it helps the unhooked at schools below the top 25 (or thereabouts) and neither helps nor hurts at the top 25.</p>

<p>Someone with a better eye for stats than I can parse whether this is universally true for these two groupings of schools- but from past years results this seems to be the pattern that holds.</p>

<p>YMMV.</p>

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<p>Yes, bluebayou, I have given my opinion on that exact point repeatedly on this thread.</p>

<p>I don’t agree with blossom’s view that it could possibly help lower scoring unhooked applicant. I do not know of any evidence that the students at the lower end of the spectrum who are admitted ED are unhooked, as opposed to the median test scores simply being brought down by a large segment of hooked applicants. (I’m including the ability to pay full freight as a potential “hook”, at least at need-aware colleges). </p>

<p>It does not make any sense to me why a college would tie up space during the ED round by accepting students with weaker credentials than their other likely applicant, unless that student has something specific to offer the college. It defies logic to think that the college would act against its own interest in that manner.</p>