Just a guess…but if your kid got accepted ED, I’m guessing you would say this was a benefit to them. If they were denied or deferred…not a benefit 
How much do you think ED deferral rates play into it? There are schools that outright reject a small percentage of ED applicants, deferring the rest to the RD round. Conversely, some give a decision up or down right away, deferring very few. I would think that in the case of the former, it makes a lot of sense to go ED, even if it’s not a given, as you’ll likely get deferred and if you get outright rejected, you had no choice in RD anyway, so better to know and move on sooner.
There’s a great link on here somewhere that was tracking percentage of accept / defer / decline for various schools, and it was pretty eye-opening.
From Naviance, D2’s school, over the previous 3 years, had 1/16 accepted for RD with the 1 having a higher GPA than her, and 1/1 chance for ED with the 1 having a lower GPA than her. We concluded that if she wanted to go there, ED was the rational way to go. We made sure that she did her due diligence via overnight visits at the top two schools in time to make a reasoned decision to apply ED. We are full pay.
True, but looking at who succeeded may reveal something. Of course hindsight is always 20/20 but I think we’ve drawn some useful conclusions. Like in post #16 above. I still believe that, at least at highly selective schools, it does not help the underqualified non-hooked applicant. As others have pointed out, schools offer ED for their benefit, not for the students’ benefit.
Edit: by underqualified, I’m not referring to applicants who are weak in one area (e.g. GPA) but strong in others (e.g., test scores, EC’s, essays, LOR’s). I mean applicants who are overall underqualified but hoping to make up for it by applying ED.
In our case one child was accepted ED, but had stats enough above the middle that would have very likely been accepted RD anyway. The school has a virtually identical acceptance rate for ED and RD around 30%. Only real benefit was having the pressure off.
In the other case, our child was deferred from ED at a much more selective school. The RD rate is VERY low ( single digit). Child was accepted but after months of waiting and truthfully not feeling optimistic.
Look at Naviance (if you have it) and it will tell you the acceptance rate for ED/EA and Regular.
D1’s ED story is very much like momrath’s son’s story. One of her reasons for applying ED was because higher-ranking students from her high school would apply to her #1 choice during RD…and then almost always choose to go elsewhere. Using ED was a way for her to stand out from the rest of her schoolmates.
The year afterwards, another student from D1’s high school really, really, really wanted to attend D1’s college–based in part on hearing about D1’s experiences there. This was a student with stellar stats, a great fit in personality and interests for the school, but the student couldn’t apply ED. I honestly thought this student was a lock, but they were put on the waitlist and never admitted.
I knew that D1’s college was very interested in attracting more students from D1’s high school, so I wrote an email to the admissions folks describing what happened and asking why they’d not taken advantage of growing interest in their school at this particular high school. It was such a pity. They agreed they needed to find a better way to build on the interest created when a student from a “desireable” high school that hasn’t normally been much of a feeder matriculates. Dunno if anything came from that.
My daughter was accepted ED to Wellesley, but I suspect she would have been accepted RD as well.
Six students from my daughter’s high school graduating class also graduated from Wellesley (more than 1% of her high school class!) so I think Wellesley finds our high school grads to be a good fit for them.
(In fact, my daughter sat next to the same person at her high school graduation and her college graduation, since they were next to each other in each alphabetical listing…)
Unhooked son applied SCEA to and was accepted by Princeton. We are not even close to full pay. Sometimes you just luck out, but I’m sure his app needed every little bit of help, including the slight SCEA bump.
My DDs did not apply ED - even to their first choice. They did both apply to an EA safety that they liked a lot. So by the time apps were due they knew they were going to college, had the ego boost of merit money, and could cross other safeties off their list.
The down side of ED is if DC gets rejected it makes it that much harder to dust themselves off and write good applications for the RD schools. I watched this happen with my niece, and the rule for my DDs was you could only apply ED if all your other applications were finished.
Good reminder @1012mom about the need for ED applicants to have other apps ready to go. Also ED doesn’t preclude you from going ahead and submitting RD apps as long as you’re prepared to withdraw them if you get into the ED school. My D had several schools with early merit deadlines and had those apps submitted, and the rest of her apps done while we waited to hear. Also she had by then been admitted to the local public university honors college. Another reason to have the other apps basically done is that ED results come out about the same time most high schools go on winter break, and it becomes difficult to reach teachers and guidance counselors during the last two weeks of December.
@1012mom I wholeheartedly agree. My D did apply ED but she also applied EA to a three other schools (which she got into). In addition, with my encouragement my D also had the supplements written for two of the three other schools she would have applied to had she did gotten into her ED choice. And her guidance counselor had all the paperwork in hand so he could send transcripts etc. to those additional three schools before the holiday break if need be. We were happy to not need this back-up plan but I learned this lesson after watching my nephew being deferred ED and having a terrible time mustering up the energy to get his other applications in on time and done well. And my D was so happy to get in ED that she never complained once about spending time doing supplements she never needed.
Ouch is right, Massmomm! Sorry that happened to your son, but so happy to hear he is happy at Oberlin!
I totally recommend Early Action for as many applications as possible, mostly because the not having to wait until April to receive an acceptance is a huge benefit! As one parent wrote, it definitely takes the stress out of second semester senior year. And, I think that anyone needing financial aid should probably not commit to ED. On the other hand, one of my kids fell in love with a college and did apply ED. He did receive fin aid although, of course, we have no idea how it would compare to that offered by other schools (his tuition/board bill is higher than his EA sister’s but his school is also more expensive to attend). Luckily, his expectations for this school were fulfilled and he is going to graduate in May.