<p>High scores definitely help for all of these schools.
Pomona definitely does not have holistic admissions- test scores are highly valued there.
I think if you have a 2300+ SAT that you will get into whatever place you choose to apply ED.
Remember, that a lot of people who apply ED are lacking in many areas (the people who NEVER get in these schools ED or RD- lol)</p>
<p>What about RD for a high scorer w/ great grades, tough schedule, good ECs, hopefully good essays (still a work in progress!) & recs?</p>
<p>Obviously no one actually knows, but should I stop worrying about doing all RD?</p>
<p>Mondo: where did you get those stats about SAT scores? I don't find it on the US news site.</p>
<p>Contrary to what others have posted, I don't think there is a right answer for you. ED or not ED? No way of knowing now. Maybe no way of knowing 6 months from now, when the results are in.
All of the schools you listed are well endowed and won't nickle and dime you as an ED applicant.</p>
<p>If you need financial aid, you are likely to find significant, or even massive differences in what you are offered at each school, should you be accepted. And what those differences are will be unpredictable. </p>
<p>"Does anyone know if Pomona & Amherst have different admit rates for ED1/ED2?"</p>
<p>The question is not the admit rate, but whether the same candidate would do better in the ED or RD round. There isn't a shred of evidence at any of these schools that it would make a difference. What the schools consistently SAY is that they don't accept candidates ED who would not have been accepted RD. You can choose to believe them or not.</p>
<p>I remember looking at ED stats last year for Dartmouth, and I think Amherst is similar. Once you filter out the recruited athletes and legacies, there didn't seem to be much advantage in applying ED. And that's not even factoring in the diversity recruits, who often are encouraged to apply ED but don't show up in an published stats like legacies and athletes.</p>
<p>My son had a few friends with very high test scores who were rejected ED/EA from Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Dartmouth, and ended up getting in RD to Harvard (x3), Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford and Williams. For them, at least, the RD round went much better than ED. </p>
<p>Even if money is no object, one downside of ED is that there's a tendency to fall in love with the ED school. Once you're convinced you belong there, it's so much harder to work on the apps for your RD schools. And if you wait until the ED news, there's not much time left.</p>
<p>mini: Agreed about the admit rate thing, but I was asking about the difference (if there is one?) between Pomona and Amherst's two rounds of early decision.</p>
<p>I'm lucky (?) enough not to qualify for financial aid anywhere... so that's a non-issue.</p>
<p>It's not that I'm a "borderline admit" who applies ED so s/he doesn't have to compete against better applicants. It's more like I would fit in well into any accepted class, ED or RD - but so would many, many of my peers. Admissions at top colleges just seems so screwy these days. I'm scared!!!</p>
<p>I highly doubt that you don't qualify for financial aid anywhere. Even very wealthy students often get financial aid and merit scholarships. Apply for financial aid.</p>
<p>Also, listen to Mini's advice. There is no evidence that applying ED raises a single applicant's chances of admission -- the program was designed for students who are at least 95% sure that the school is their first choice and 100% sure that, barring an economic crisis in their family, they would be able to attend that college financially speaking. If the program was designed to raise chances of admissions for individual "borderline" students, they would defeat their own purposes. Every college with an Early Decision program will tell you that your chances are no better when you apply ED.</p>
<p>Besides that, the idea that applying ED means you don't have to compete against better applicants is a myth. The ED crowd is often a self-selecting one (which is the reason for the higher admit rate). They are usually MORE competitive than the RD crowd.</p>
<p>My advice to you is to stop agonizing over these four -- which are all very, very good schools -- and just apply regular admissions to all of them. It's normal to be a little nervous, but to be terrified would be a problem! Try to enjoy the rest of your senior year and let the admissions process run its course. In a year's time, you'll be at your new college and you'll probably be very happy and not even thinking about the other schools you applied to.</p>
<p>ED is self-selecting, yes, but anecdotal evidence shows that at least some top colleges use it to lock down part of their enrollment--managing yield, test scores, diversity, etc. They all claim otherwise, of course, but it BENEFITS them to admit more students through ED--and if they know that a qualified student is committed to attend, they will be more inclined to offer acceptance.</p>
<p>For instance (no source because I'm quoting from memory, so correct me if you can), I believe Swarthmore accepts ~50% of its class through EDI/EDII. Is half of their class really all athletic/diversity/legacy/super-amazing admits? That's for you to decide.</p>
<p>juillet, how do very wealthy students get financial aid?</p>
<p>Keilexandra, I'm not sure I understand precisely why these schools think ED benefits them? Because they are taking uncertainty out of yield management, test scores, etc.? These are variables that they can select for in RD, but they will have less control and thus less certainty. Is that what you are saying?</p>
<p>^ Yes, exactly.</p>
<p>The best study by far on the early admissions boost is "The Early Admissions Game". It exists almost everywhere in elite private college admissions, but there is a wide variance in how much by school. Amherst by policy limits the percentage of the class taken early, and from what I can see, there is little help at Dartmouth, where the difference between regular and early admissions rate can mostly be accounted for by recruited athletes and legacies. But at Penn and Columbia (and previously at Harvard and Princeton) there has been a fairly longstanding history of taking 50% of the class early.
"The Early Admissions Game" also blew up the argument that the early admissions pool is stronger- it is almost everywhere far weaker, even subtracting athletes and legacies.
I almost never trust what schools themselves say about the early advantage.
The book is getting long in the tooth, but colleges are no more honest about this now than they were in the past.</p>
<p>Of course it benefits schools to have ED programs; that's why they have them. The way Keilexandra discusses is exactly the way they do it. By December, these schools already have a good portion of their slots locked down, which helps them plan their budgets and services for the next year and also gives them less slots to fill in April and May.</p>
<p>Still, even with that, people understand what statistics mean in a wrong way. Even if Swarthmore did accept 50% of it's entering class through early decision (the actual number is closer to a third), that Does Not Mean that a student who applies early decision has a better chance of getting admitted than if that same student had applied during regular decision. Nor does it mean that half of their class are athletic, diversity recruits, legacies, and the top 1% of applicants.</p>
<p>The fact is simply that if a student is likely to get in during regular decision, they are also likely to be admitted during early decision; more students who are likely to be admitted apply during the early decision rounds, and thus the admit rates for early decision tend to be higher. If a student is NOT likely to be admitted during the regular decision round, that student is also not likely to be admitted during the early decision round. What about "borderline" students? It's possible. But then you also have to consider the fact that if you are really so borderline that the deadline you apply by changes your chances that significantly, it also means that you probably won't be offered any merit aid; but you are contractually bound to then attend the school.</p>
<p>"If they know that a qualified student is committed to attend, they will be more inclined to offer acceptance" -- there is NO evidence, absolutely none, to support this claim. Beyond that, the definiton of 'qualified' and makes this claim even shakier to support.</p>
<p>I always tell students that if they want to compare financial aid packages, then don't apply ED. If they are trying to decide in mid-October which school they want to apply ED to, that's a good sign that they should not apply early decision <em>anywhere</em>. Early Decision was not intended as a chances-booster and that's not the way it operates.</p>
<p>Very wealthy students can often get financial aid by the way they move money around. For one example, money in the parents' name is often tapped at a higher rate than money in a students' name (or vice versa, I can't remember which one it is) so they'll move the money to the appropriate person. Also being wealthy doesn't necessarily mean that you can afford college, especially if you don't hold any assets or have any savings. At least on the CSS, that stuff is taking into account. The federal government found that about 25% of its subsidized Stafford loans go to students whose families make between $50K and $100K a year, and a little less than 10% go to families that make over $100K.</p>
<p>What definitions of "borderline" and "qualified" are you working on? For me, "qualified" means someone who can do the work and would fit with the campus culture--someone that the college would accept if they had no enrollment numbers to meet, no budget to consider, etc. At the elite schools, qualified students far outnumber available spaces, especially after allowing for hooked admits. Let's say that 25% of the class is hooked and admitted ED; that leaves 25% of the class still, in ED, for "qualified" students. So the college accepts enough of that pool to fill the 25% and defers the rest, rejecting those applicants whom they deem unqualified. In the RD pool, the deferred applicants would still be "qualified" and thus receive two shots at admission instead of one. </p>
<p>If one is a "borderline" student, ED changes the odds even more. Obviously merit aid is unlikely, but that is irrelevant to the point; the four schools mentioned by the OP all offer excellent need-based FA, and a "borderline" student is equally likely to benefit from need-based as from merit-based aid. If you need merit aid, you shouldn't be applying to Brown/Pomona/Amherst/Swat anyway, because they don't offer any (Swat has a minor exception for students in the Delmarva area). But I agree--if you want to compare FA packages, don't apply ED. If you're considering this very top tier of schools, though, and qualify for need-based aid, then you don't necessarily need to compare FA packages.</p>
<p>ED was not intended as a chances-booster, but in many circumstances it CAN operate as such. Is that good? Probably not. But that's life.</p>
<p>"The Early Admissions Game" was good at documenting how different applicants at a particular ED school might go from a 1% to a 3% chance, from an 88% chance to a 95% chance, or from a 25% chance to a 65% chance. Of course the greatest likelihood of a different result is for students in the last category.
The book described who these folks might be. So did Montauk and Klein in "How To Get Into the Top Colleges".
The individual results threads by college can provide information here on CC, but the LACs tend not to have enough posters to be very useful.
As I said, Amherst limits the percentage of the class taken early (to 30%?). I don't have the impression that Brown gives a huge boost to early applicants. I don't know about the others. The 14 schools with data in "The Early Admissions Game" that I can remember were all universities.</p>
<p>jarsilver: I actually paid extra money for the premium version.
It's $14.95 but given my level of curiosity and the time I've spent looking at this stuff- it's worth the money for me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm wondering where you got those numbers though... they are different from what collegeboard & princetonreview report.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They are official numbers published by the colleges for the Class of 2012 (HS '08).
The numbers you refer to apply to the Class of 2011 (HS '07)
All colleges are becoming increasingly competitive by year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>High SATs are not entirely relevant to selectivity, especially when schools like Amherst are making a concentrated effort to promote and increase socioeconomic and ethnic diversity on campus. I've observed few people argue that Stanford is inferior to HYP because it's SAT ranges are up to thirty points lower.</p>
<p>A blurb on "The Early Admissions Game"-</p>
<p>Harvard</a> University Press: The Early Admissions Game : Joining the Elite by Christopher Avery</p>
<p>Be aware - the book was published in 2004, using data from 2003 and prior. Every one of the schools listed here (unlike the 14 schools in the book) says publicly that they do not accept candidates ED who wouldn't get in RD. (I actually think is untrue for athletes - once they've got the quarterback ED, it is unlikely they will be accepting one RD. And, if there is one, athletes, legacies, and developmental admits will account for virtually all of the ED advantage.)</p>
<p>Shibboleth, In answer to your question, only YOU can make this decision. Your family, friends, and complete strangers can give you input, but only you know which of these colleges is worth the extra oomph and confidence boost that ED provides. </p>
<p>I assume you have visited all three? This is somewhat puzzling to me as the ambience among them is quite different. They're all excellent choices and as I said would have been on my son's RD list had he progressed to that point; however, they seem too different from each other to be on anyone's ED list. Unless one jumps out and grabs you, I'd advise you to hold off on the ED round.</p>
<p>Having said that, I'm not as negative on Early Decision as the prevailing viewpoint among many parents on this board. If you don't expect to receive need based aid and are willing to forego merit aid then the aspect of comparing financial offers becomes irrelevant. This rankles many who see the ability to pay full freight an unfair advantage. To me this objection simply doesn't make sense. If system forces you to pay fullfreight there's no reason to further penalize yourself by refusing to take advantage of early decision.</p>
<p>I see ED as a risk management strategy which offers a win-win outcome for both the college AND the student. The colleges win because they are better able to lock up desirable candidates -- both paying and those on aid. Not only do their yields stabilize, but they also get to control the cultural content of their class, which is important to small LACs. </p>
<p>It's also a win for the student and the family as the college choice is settled early and everyone can relax and enjoy senior year. Conversely if the ED application is denied or deferred, it can serve a wake-up call to recalibrate the RD list. </p>
<p>Personally, I feel that ED does benefit kids with lopsided or borderline resumes, especially if they don't have any diversity or demographic advantage. I accept that colleges don't accept ED applicants that they wouldn't accept RD; however there's a corollary: They often reject RD applicants that they might have accepted ED. </p>
<p>Selective colleges simply have too many suitable applicants to choose from. Those in the ED pool have a better chance because the colleges know that the applicants really want to attend and will attend. For small LACs, this commitment is important.</p>
<p>It's impossible to ever determine conclusively whether an individual student would have been accepted under RD anyway. Maybe yes, maybe no. This is where the risk element comes in. If that maybe is too much risk for you then you're better off applying ED.</p>
<p>As far as the caveat that you may change your mind in the period between November and May. Well, yes. Kids do make mistakes in their college choices. Again, there is no way to determine if more mistakes are made in the ED round than the RD round. My guess is that the success rate is about the same. One thing that's for certain, however, is that if you are accepted to College A via ED, you'll never know if you would have been accepted to College B. Think about this carefully as it may be important to know if you coudda been a contender.</p>
<p>And as a last comment, if you do decide to apply ED, push the button or drop the application in the mail and forgetaboutit. Continue to work deligently on your RD applications, including those safeties and surebets.</p>
<p>Good luck and let us know what you decide.</p>