<p>My only comment is that turning down an ED knowing that there is a good financial safety either from a public or a private from an earlier EA application is one side of the coin. Future kids and parents reading this need to know that it can have a negative outcome of the student is not willing to go to a public or does not have a financially feasible EA under their belt. Many privates and some publics have merit scholarship deadlines that are too early to play the “maybe ED if we can afford it” game.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad - I agree that publics and privates are in many cases uncomparable on graduation rates. So what about UNC-CH, UVA, W&M (thanks psych_), and UMich? All public schools, and UMich at least is a public of comparable size.</p>
<p>Nothing shameful about being the 4th best public U in the country. Although I think some people might argue about Berkeley being only fourth-best. ;)</p>
<p>Btw–and yes, I know this is often the exception–I know lots of engineers at Swarthmore and all of them are on track to graduate in 4 years. I think this is probably also true of schools like Bucknell and Union, the small subset of LACs that independently offer engineering.</p>
<p>I also know lots of upperclassmen who changed their (intended) major multiple times, and are on track to graduate in 4 years. That kind of flexibility is built in, since majors aren’t declared until 4th semester.</p>
<p>I would be interested to see what graduation rates are like for students who switch into STEM majors after the first semester/year, at privates vs. publics. Not just the UCs but any large public U.</p>
<p>Wrt to the “ED hype” in general–I would like to put in a conditional good word. ED can be a significant boon for students with financial need at need-blind full-need schools (especially those, like Carleton and Smith, that are only need-blind in the early round). Then, the school is more comfortable admitting unhooked/borderline students because having the enthusiasm to apply ED -is- a kind of hook… and they also know, statistically, that the ED pool has lower need, but can’t discriminate against a particular applicant because those details are unknown. (Yes, I do take colleges at their explicit, carved-in-print word. There are indirect ways to measure need, but if a college claims to be need-blind, then they aren’t writing FA awards in each applicant folder–that’s a lawsuit in the waiting.)</p>
<p>You can still apply EA for early merit deadlines, in case ED doesn’t work out. You can’t “compare” packages, but you CAN have a secure backup.</p>
<p>
‘Ranking’ in the 4 year graduation rate isn’t what determines the ‘best’ U in most people’s minds so I don’t think there’ll be too many arguments here.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the whole thread–but my sister majored in econ at UCLA in the early 80s and did not manage to graduate in 4 years. She insisted that everyone (except, of course, her completely out of it family) knew that UCLA was really a “5 year school.”</p>
<p>* Future kids and parents reading this need to know that it can have a negative outcome of the student is not willing to go to a public or does not have a financially feasible EA under their belt. Many privates and some publics have merit scholarship deadlines that are too early to play the “maybe ED if we can afford it” game. *</p>
<p>I agree…this is the season where we read posts from parents and kids who’ve discovered that they can’t afford their ED schools (and likely many other schools), and yet it’s too late for them to get merit scholarships at many of the schools that give them.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can compare the grad rates of UCB and UCLA to elites. Elites have better aid. We don’t know how many kids take longer because they aren’t taking full loads because of a need to work.</p>
<p>The UCs give great aid if you’re low income. But, if you’re middle class, you get little to nothing in free aid from a UC. You get gapped big time. Programs like Blue and Gold (free tuition for those whose families earn less than $70k) are silly because they don’t take into acct families who might earn a bit more, but have 2 or more in college. </p>
<p>So, a family that earns $85k in Calif (which is not a lot in Calif), may get no aid except a student loan. A family that earns $85k in Calif may not have much money to contribute for a UC that has a COA of about $30k. So, such a student may have to work a bit more to help cover gaps, and therefore may not be able to take more than 12 credits a quarter/semester. </p>
<p>I don’t think this happens much at the elites since many of them meet need.</p>
<p>UCs also rely more heavily on GPA for admittance (to allow access to students from underprivileged schools ). So, you do probably end up with a decent number of kids who really aren’t prepared for 100 level courses on day one. Every fall, the UCs and Cal States lament how many of their students aren’t ready for Frosh Comp or college level math. So, some remediation takes place. </p>
<p>I don’t think that happens as much at the elites.</p>
<p>Publics just have some different issues.</p>
<p>^UVA, W&M, UNC-CH, and UMich all face the same issues. What do these superior-to-UCs 
schools have in common? Well, they all promise to meet need for (at least) in-state students. That would be a good start to improving a not-so-great graduation rate.</p>
<p>‘I’m thinking, “what’s in it for the college?”’</p>
<p>Colleges use ED for two reasons: to lock in money from full-list-payers, and to lock in top talent (money or not). Both help with yield management (trying to insure that just the right number of desired applicants accept, and that enough money comes in) at RD time.</p>
<p>^Colleges also use ED to lock enrollment targets in various desired attributes–whether that be URM, first-gen, science, fine arts, girls/boys (engineering and LACs, respectively), or just general ED enthusiasm. Among borderline applicants, why wouldn’t the college prefer someone who has shown commitment via ED vs. someone who has not?</p>
<p>Because the college knows that they will have a significantly larger pool of non-borderline candidates to choose from in the RD round. Unless the ED applicant is hooked or full pay (or nearly full pay) – there is no benefit to the college to admit the student. </p>
<p>Let’s say you have an iffy candidate who will need a $40K grant to attend. Why should the college commit $40K of its limited financial aid dollars to that student, when it can use that money to subsidize a better qualified, more desireable candidate in the spring? See [The</a> Answer Sheet - College admissions? dirty little secrets](<a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/college-admissions-dirty-littl.html]The”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/college-admissions/college-admissions-dirty-littl.html)</p>
<p>The only value to a college of someone “showing commitment” is yield-protection, but ED will protect yield no matter who they select from the field – so the only possible reason that the ad com is going to end up admitting borderline, financially needy students in the ED round is if they have a hard time filling their class and the ED pool is generally weaker than the RD pool – then they are under pressure to lock in those students no matter how weak. But a college in that position would probably not be a very desireable target for the student – that would be a sure sign of a college in serious trouble.</p>
<p>Look at it this way: laying aside the hooked applicants of the ED pool, why would any college admissions officer in their right mind pass over a stronger candidate in favor of a weaker one in ED? So unless you assume a very weak ED pool overall, it makes no sense to think its much of a boost in admissions.</p>
<p>I do think that ED is a way for weaker, full-pay students to get consideration – and “need blind” or not, clearly there are a number of ways an applicant can telegraph to the college the fact that they will be paying full cost.</p>
<p>“The only value to a college of someone “showing commitment” is yield-protection”</p>
<p>There is also graduation rate “protection” and community contribution “protection.” Instead of thinking in terms of stronger over weaker, think “enthusiastic” over "blas</p>
<p>I have to ask- didn’t it used to be typical that engineering majors needed five years to graduate?
We’re getting numbers happy again. The UCs and Cal States are complicated machines with mixed missions- there have been interesting (professional, not media-hype) bits on the web about changes in their mission and admissions viewpoints in the past ten or so years. They need to serve the population, maintain a rep, manage finances, etc. They reevaluate, alter AA, cut, whatever. Constantly evolving.
To understand why any university doesn’t graduate a high pecentage in 4 years, you need to look at that population. Not just the %. Who are the ones who stay past 4 years? Adults returning to school? Kids struggling with the load? Students who may play with the number of classes they take each semester? Kids with a complex major or dual major? Those who take a gap year? Yes, some delay because they realize a needed class is now full. Same can happen at any U. And, at any U, the better prepared and motivated a kid is, the more likely they will grad in 4 years. OP needs to look at his dau’s qualities- not generalized stats that cover a broad range of issues.</p>
<p>There is no loss in studying history at, say UCLA or SJSU. In many classes, the same profs who teach grad students teach undergrad courses. Same library. Often, the same opps for a bright undergrad to work with profs on research. </p>
<p>The real diff, to me, between an LAC, elite U and state school can be the quality and pre-college preparation of fellow students. In that respect, there are some UCs and Cal States that may not offer a consistently high academic experience. But, the schools noted here? If that’s what the family can afford and you’re lucky enough to live in CA and get in, I’d send my kid in a flash. I wanted my dau to go to UCLA but we’re oos and she would not have gotten the FA she got at her LAC.</p>
<p>^^ I think the stat for engineering is somewhere closer to 4.5 years (maybe 4 years + 1 qtr?).</p>
<p>Re post #151 – there is absolutely no reason to believe that students who apply to a given college RD aren’t going to be enthusiastic and committed members of the academic community if they choose to attend. If anything, those applicants who affirmatively choose a given college over other acceptances in May are likely to be more committed, more confident, and more satisfied with whatever financial aid they are given. Because ED forces a premature commitment, there are going to be a certain percentage of ED admitted students who feel trapped; who attend the college because of their commitment despite dissatisfaction with their financial aid or other misgivings – and those students may very well be the ones down the line who drop out because they can’t afford to continue or who later on seek to transfer when their “dream” school doesn’t live up to the expectations they had with ED. </p>
<p>That would be particularly true with applicants who used ED strategically, to increase their chances – rather than simply to get the process over with sooner and attend their true top choice – just one more reason for the ad com to be skeptical of ED applicants with questionable stats.</p>
<p>In case some of the above seems to contradict the scads of totally delightful ED acceptance posts we read on these pages, calmom wrote:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065610747-post34.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065610747-post34.html</a></p>
<p>Just for perspective.</p>
<p>Has your D considered Evergreen State?</p>
<p>Re post #155 – Vossron, you confuse the consistency of my well thought out objections to ED for bias. I have never denied that I dislike ED – I have very good reasons for that feelings. ED is an anti-consumer practice which benefits the colleges to the detriment of students and families, who lose the ability to compare costs and financial aid awards. It preys on those who lack confidence or are afraid of the process – obviously a self-confident applicant would never use ED strategically rather than using it only in the setting of a top choice school that is clearly affordable. (The difference between the two is one of who calls the shots – if I am wealthy and my kid can afford can go to any school she wants, and my kid has her heart set on NYU – then ED is my kid’s way of placing dibs on a NYU spot early on). But if my kid needs financial aid, then ED is the college’s way of avoiding the competitive marketplace – it gives the college the power to admit financially needy students while shortchanging the family on financial aid.</p>
<p>I don’t see a “totally delightful ED acceptance post” in this thread. I see a heartsick parent, who is confronted with a child who has been accepted to a dream school and a financial aid award that is unworkable. So this parent is going to have to deal with a very unhappy child and several months of angst.</p>
<p>Still new here, but I’m really struggling with this whole ED concept. It seems that ED makes sense only if ALL of the following apply:
[ul]
[<em>]completely happy with the choice of school and program to the exclusion of all others
[</em>]an application that could use the extra help
[<em>]total insensitivity to financial considerations
[</em>]no chance that the student could change his mind (this is a HS student!!)
[/ul]</p>
<p>Are there any other scenarios where ED makes sense? It can’t be beneficial to most prospective students and their families. Why is it so popular (or is it just a CC thing)?</p>
<p>MisterK, I don’t like or dislike ED (neither of my kids used it), but it makes many applicants very happy when it works (and, of course, very sad when it doesn’t). I don’t have a cynical view of colleges, though ED clearly benefits them as well.</p>
<p>I would relax your points a bit:
- [<em>]one dream school above all others
[</em>]if app needs no extra help, wanting to get the stress over early
[<em>]no desire to compare financial aid offers (it’s either enough or not)
[</em>]unlikely to discover another dream school
I think ED is popular because of the perceived boost (though minimal in most cases), for getting rid of the stress by Dec. 15, and the knowledge that if it doesn’t work, apply RD elsewhere as if ED never happened. </p>
<p>Some schools fill 1/4 to 1/3 of their classes with ED applicants, so it is indeed very popular.</p>
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<p>The rule of thumb is supposed to be that an ED school is the absolute top choice, but the dream school language makes me a bit queasy. One of the scary things about ED is that it’s the top choice school, but without the surrounding safety net of other similarly timed decisions, including some acceptances. Bad news in December might not get washed away for a few months. This is why D1, who got good news in December, says that she thinks that ED is a bad idea. She’s seen how painful those ED rejections are to her classmates. Not to mention the other ED admits who were rejoicing on the admitted students facebook page, until not-so-happy FA news started coming out. 
</p>
<p>ED makes sense in a few other cases. Some schools award merit or need-based aid more generously to ED applicants. Another may give an admissions tip to legacies, but only during the ED round. There was one unusual case I read about here on CC where a high-stats student’s absolute top choice was a school that looked very much like an admissions safety. The student was very concerned that if (s)he applied during RD that the school would think it was being used as a safety, and would then reject the student to protect the school’s enrollment yield. So, the student applied ED. </p>
<p>Then there’s also a bit of admissions strategizing if the student comes from a highly competitive high school. Jane Doe would love to go to X College. Some of Jane’s higher-ranked classmates will be applying to X College as a match or safety. If Jane applies ED, she won’t be competing with her classmates, and she’ll be clearly signalling to the X adcoms that she will definitely be enrolling.</p>
<p>Remember that the parents get to be the final arbiters of proceeding with ED, or not. If you don’t want your kid to apply ED for whatever reason–because you want to compare FA/merit money offers, because you know your kid changes their mind, because you don’t think your child has had enough time to weigh the plusses and minuses of the different schools, because there hasn’t been time to VISIT the ED school–then you just don’t sign the ED agreement.</p>