The RD acceptance rates at colleges of this type commonly differ from the overall (published) rates by about two percentage points.
@merc81: It will vary by school, but I have seen much wider variations. Williams College, for example, had an ED admit rate of about 35% and an overall admit rate of 15% so the RD admit rate is below 15%, but I have not checked the difference.
WAY more than that. For example, Middleburyâs ED acceptance rate is about 48%; RD is 14%. Williamsâs ED admissions rate is 35%; RD 13%. Swarthmore is at 28% and 9%. Hamilton 40% and 22%. I canât link to my source because itâs against the TOS. You can Google it.
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@Publisher: I calculated the differences for more than one school directly from their most recent Common Data Sets. Williams, for example, indicates an overall acceptance rate of 13% and a regular decision acceptance rate of 11%.
@brantly: I never mentioned early decision acceptance rates.
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@brantley: While your admissions figures seem correct, you have not included the overall published rate of admission. Middlebury College would then be a 3% difference & Williams College would be a 2% difference thereby supporting @merc81âs assertion.
For example: Williams College ED admit rate = 35%; RD admit rate = 13% and overall published rate of admission = 15%. Class of 2021.
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^Agreement that one of the chief advantages of being full-pay is that youâre not limited to the RD admissions cycle (in order to compare financial aid awards.)
In reading over your early posts, it looks as if Brown is a clear contender for ED (itâs an Ivy, thereâs a legacy hook, DD seemed to like it when visited.) I would use that as your tent pole with all the other EA and RD choices arranged around it. The only thing that isnât clear is why did she like it? The campus itself is not that imposing - there hasnât been a stunning architectural addition to it in nearly a century. The one thing they have that perhaps came all too easily, is a thriving, historic, museum quality neighborhood bordering campus that caters to college students. Is that what DD found attractive about Harvard, too? If so, itâs going to be tough to find an LAC equivalent. Maybe, Amherst? Maybe, Wesleyan? Both LACs seem to have suffered the same fate of being visited on the same trip as a more glamorous Ivy.
Brown has also acquired a reputation for being the most artsy of the Ivies with cross-registration opportunities at RISD. Maybe Skidmore or Connecticut College would fit under the same tent (I promise not to mention Wesleyan again.)
Brown has an open curriculum, but, this is 2019 and cold comfort to anyone wishing to major in STEM. The prerequisites, the labs, the time spent doing problem sets all combine to sort of level the playing field even with LACs that have distribution requirements (and, I promise not to mention Amherst again.)
Brown also has a reputation for being the most quirky of the Ivies. Bates and Vassar (neither of which DD has visited yet) come to mind.
OTOH, Brown also has the least regarded graduate school of any Ivy except Dartmouth. To buy into the Ivy myth is to also buy into an almost permanent perch at the bottom of that hierarchy. If DD really loves Brown, sheâs going to have to love it for its actual virtues, not because people are going to bow down at the mention of its name (which is why, I suppose, it got relegated with the LACs in your OP, in the first place?)
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@RayManta Did your D take the PSAT? That may give you some indication of how much her verbal score may increase.
As we talk about safeties⊠If your D liked a school like Bard (very intellectual place), which you mentioned upthread, there are ways to apply there and get a decision early that are not binding. With that acceptance in hand, pursuing reachier schools is less risky. And you donât need a super long list.
Just saying that if some of the safer schools she likes are ones with earlier decisions, it can save you a lot of pain. You may want to consider that criteria as well.
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Thanks again for all the thoughtful comments.
I canât say why she liked Brown, unfortunatelyâI wasnât there, and Iâm not the legacy connection. Iâm personally not taken in with the Ivy âmystique,â and it seems like she isnât either. If she does apply to an Ivy, it will probably just be Brown to take advantage of that connection, but it sort of puts us in a bind, which is beyond the scope of this thread: If it isnât her top choice, thereâs no reason to apply there ED, but if she applies there RD, they may discount the import of the legacy connection because she isnât showing a âstrong interest,â which Iâve read anecdotally some schools will do. So thereâs a strategic element we have to figure out.
She says she loved everything about Harvard, which, again, surprised me because it is very different from the other schools sheâs expressed an interest in. I think she only decided to go on a whim, just to see it first-hand, to get a sense of what it was like. Her chance is the same as every other non-hooked, non-superstar, of course, I guess 3% or so, and only if she gets her SAT up to the mid-1500s, so weâre not holding our breath or anything. She indicated that she loved Cambridge, but again, seems less enthusiastic about Tufts, which I think is about three miles away, so I just donât know, and it seems like there isnât some factor that can be duplicated elsewhere. Maybe it was the historyâshe loved William and Mary and is positive to UVa, as indicated earlier, so that would seem to make sense. Itâs not being in a city. She hated Penn, where she is also legacy. Her stated hatred for Penn was a huge help in helping us eliminate a bunch of city schools, so it was a valuable thing to discover.
She will be full pay. Thereâs probably no way to avoid it, unfortunatelyâeach calculator Iâve looked at puts us over the limit. Probably makes sense to bite the bullet and choose one school for ED, but then weâre back to the question as to whether to go with Brown, even if it isnât her first choice.
Great comment about the common data setâI do look them up and find them a good resource, although lacking the context a discussion like this one can provide.
One of the reasons this is a struggle has to do with geography. Coming from the deep south, we started with the assumption that she simply wouldnât be comfortable or happy in too cold a locale, and drew an arbitrary boundary right around Philadelphia. This is a kid who is used to wearing flip-flops and shorts every day, and swims in an outdoor pool 12 months a year. So we were looking at schools in Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina mostly, with some others scattered around going as far northwest as St. Louis. I thought we were doneâplenty of options, not overwhelming numbers. Then she decided to visit Williams and Amherst, insists she wasnât cold, and isnât deterred from the Maine schools. Suddenly, there are now hundreds more prospects, including many more LACs, that we hadnât previously thought about. Thatâs why Iâm here.
If she applies REA to Harvard, make sure she also applies early to a top public university early as well. She will be prohibited from applying to other private universities under any non-binding early action plans. University of Virginia, University of Michigan, and University of North Carolina all have non-binding early action and therefore are popular applications for the SCEA/REA crowd. Your daughter might be interested in the Residential College at the Univ. of Mich. Itâs a small liberal arts college within the university.
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My objective was to come up with a âif you liked X, then you might like Yâ guideline. Equivalencies are subjective and certainly not all inclusive. The student bodies of all 12 of these LAC overlap to some degree.
My methodology couldnât be less scientific. Itâs an amalgam of my sonâs reaction during his search, the experiences other students that I know personally, how other parents describe their kidsâ experiences, how the colleges present themselves especially the tour guides, student interviewers and students who participate in the info sessions. Itâs anecdotal, but a pattern emerges.
Mostly I like to visualize what students do when they are not in class or studying. How they fill their down time. Location certainly plays a role as does the residential living arrangement. The level of political advocacy is also a factor: all selective colleges lean left, but there are differences in their causes and intensity. Support for the arts (visual arts, theater, dance, music), support for each of the different factions of diversity (racial, cultural, geographic, economic, gender), support for team sports and outdoorsy activities, support for minority social positions are other points of differentiation. Over time, a picture of a pervasive personality type, an overarching culture, begins to gel.
You hear again and again on this board about the importance of visiting and respecting your kidâs gut reaction, even if itâs poorly articulated. Thatâs why following the thought process of âif you liked X, then . . .â is useful, especially when moving up and down the selectivity scale.
LAC admission committees evaluate holistically. They have a good feel for the type of student who will fit in and excel. They have their own diversity goals to fulfill, but first they look for students who will fit in and excel. At the end of the day, a studentâs âapply toâ list has to reflect the student, not just academically, but culturally.
What an applicant can bring to the campus community outside of the classroom can become the factor that pushes the application into the accept pile. Ideally what the college can offer and what the student can offer will intersect.
There are lots of great student comments about different schools on Unigo. That might help you get a feel for each school
So, DD likes UVA, W&M, and Williams. And, she probably spent a good deal of time poking around The Yard during her visit to Harvard. They all contain classic, red-brick quads at their core. Thatâs a clue although it doesnât explain her coolness towards Amherst which is practically wall-to-wall redbrick.
Based on the information we have so far, my recommendation would be to substitute Colby for Bates on her Maine college swing. Colby picked up stakes and moved in the early 1950s to a complete tribute to the classic redbrick campus. DD should probably take a look at it. Personally. I donât like Batesâ campus; itâs built around a lake which is pretty useless in Maine in the winter. Brrr.
Along those same lines, thereâs a reason you donât often see pictures of Middlebury with snow on the ground: too hard to see those sparkling white limestone buildings. 
Wow, @circuitriderâthatâs terrific, intuitive reasoningâthe kind I gravitate to. Thanks so much!
@momrath: Thanksânow your lists make perfect sense. In my head, your use of the word spectrum made me wonder if the two lists were polar opposites in some way, but what youâve done is much, much better. Your last two paragraphs really sum it up. Off-point, but some sports sites like www.baseballreference.com like to devise âsimilarity scoresâ to compare players across eras based on their stats --thatâs what youâve done, albeit using subjective factors. What a great gift. that really sums up what I was trying to get at in the first post, the different, distinct âpersonalityâ of each of these schools, and how similar they are to others. Thanks!
@trixy34âIâm unfamiliar with UnigoâI will check it out.
@brantly: Thatâs great advice, too, something I hadnât considered. Thanks!
@gardnestategal: Thanksâwe havenât visited Bard; it is probably a school we wonât have a chance to get to.
@wisteria100: She did take the PSAT several months ago, and offhand I donât know what she got. She is taking a class right now and focusing on techniques for the English section (reading? Whatever itâs called these days). She thinks sheâll do better, but doesnât have a sense as to how much better. What happens, happens. Weâre not stressed about it; we all know that it has limited applicability in life and doesnât measure the important things. Info like @monrathâs lists are immensely helpful, because they will make it much easier to shift our focus to other comparable schools if her scores donât change. Beautiful!
Bates has a traditional brick quad with huge trees. Lake Andrews, aka the Puddle, (really a medium sized pond) is also quite pretty. Hereâs a drone view you can use to explore whether itâs a campus that would appeal to her.
https://www.bates.edu/news/2012/12/18/video-birds-eye-bates/
From flip-flops & shorts & year round outdoor swimming to Winters in Maine.
@RayManta wrote: âThis is a kid who is used to wearing flip-flops and shorts everyday, and swims in an outdoor pool 12 months a year. âŠand isnât deterred from the Maine schools.â
UNIGO is interesting, but some of the reviews seem to be coached & less than genuine for some LACs.
To OP, weâre in the South, but not deep south, and as my D was honing in on colleges I had her add the weather to her phone for each of the cold weather locales. Senior year as we walked the dog during our typical moderate winter days, I sometimes asked her what the temperature was in the various locations she was considering. It was informative and made her realize that harsh winters did move colleges down on her list. Recommend doing this if you want to test her resolve about cold weather.
That said, Carleton was a contender in the end, and if theyâd offered her a better $$ package, she might be surviving the polar vortex today! (I did remind her itâs only 4 winters; not the rest of your life.) However, it ended up being her highest cost option so went off the list. (Weâre a EFC bubble family.)
Also, Mt. Holyoke would be a great match/safety for your D and she might well get merit $$ offer, but only is she shows interest. Not sure if any womenâs colleges appeal though, obviously.
Never mind, saw your edit, @Publisher.
Hey, I attended a university with underground tunnels to get from building to building, so I have a genuine perspective. She, on the other hand, needs help zipping a coat (sorry, hon, I had to say it).
But itâs her choice. I can only present data and information the best I can. I think the real test will be if she spends a weekend at one of those schools, say next November, which I would push for if sheâs still considering them at that point. But I think sheâs with me on Chicago and Minnesota.