From another thread (emphasis added):
Is it common for students to feel that they “need” to apply ED somewhere, even if it means pre-committing to a school that is not their first (realistic) choice?
IMO, yes, it is common, and it comes from the reality that there is usually an increased chance of admission in the ED round for unhooked applicants (though not as high as the difference looks on first blush). With schools filling an increasing proportion of their class in ED (quite a few schools over 50% now, some pushing 60%) that will only make RD more difficult.
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I would have said ‘no’ based on our experience with our ,D but there was a ton of pressure on a family member from her private school to apply ED, and very strategically.
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With 4000+ schools in US, I am confident that students can find multiple “right fit” schools, irrespective of rankings. Somehow there is perception created that in order to be successful you have to do undergrad in certain colleges that are selective & sometimes very expensive. Not sure how much is peer/ parent/social pressure.
Reality is success is determined by what you do in college and how you use that education in future & what makes you happy. I have several leaders in my company at “C” levels that came from no name colleges, or seen several folks in academia that came from all different colleges, even ivy league colleagues who are happy with 8-5 job. I don’t know if I have been asked where I did my undergrad from after my first 1-2 jobs.
Bottom line - Look at your finances, where you would be happy (size/ location/sports/distance) and what you want to do. Then decide on ED or not.
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Our unhooked kid didn’t want to ED anywhere, but he got a lot of pressure to, mostly from his friends. My thought on it was the ED “better odds” was a mirage if you aren’t an athlete, etc, especially with the elite schools. Unless you are super desirable, you will get deferred. The applicant pool can be stronger in the ED round (I can’t know that for certain), so the odds aren’t all that better.
Because my kid didn’t have a strong front runner and his thoughts were/are evolving, buying time seemed the better approach. He applied EA places, but not anywhere that restricted his application choices. He might consider ED2, but I doubt it.
My anecdotal evidence is yes, there is pressure to have “an ED strategy”. My kid is an outlier among his friends.
I wouldn’t say they have to but for some colleges it makes a huge difference. For example, Tulane
https://twitter.com/michaeltrivette/status/1388242228489949188?s=21
I think there is some pressure in wealthier school districts (and certainly among students at elite prep schools) for kids to use ED as a way to increase their chances at super selective schools. It is easy to fall into the trap that “everyone” is doing it when, in reality, most kids are applying to much less selective schools where ED isn’t adding much. My son did not ED anywhere (although he did EA at one school) - we would have only considered it if he had been interested in my alma mater where he is a multi-generational legacy (as it is incredibly tough to get into these days). He wasn’t interested so we didn’t pursue it.
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Also elite prep schools want to boost their own marketing/brand by showing off where their students are going to hence they do try to direct students to apply ED to selective schools.
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I think this is a cultural thing specific to certain towns, high schools, etc. We didn’t feel any pressure for this at all and I am not aware of anyone in my kid’s circle of friends that applied ED.
To abuse a deceased equine, the vast majority of colleges do not have an ED option. Those that do are generally a small set of colleges which are popular among the upper and upper middle SES families. So the large (or vast) majority of high school students are applying only to colleges which do not have an ED option. I would guess that many, if not the majority, of high school students don’t know what ED means.
For numbers - around 180-190 colleges have ED, but almost all are private LACs or smaller private universities. Maybe 600,000-800,000 students, so about 150,000-200,000 matriculating to these colleges each year.
On the other hand, if we are talking about EA, that is available in many more colleges including the some of the largest ones across the USA, to get the application process over with, or at least to allow a student to have options before they apply to the rest of their college list.
There are some 300 EA colleges, and these include a good number of very large publics like U Michigan, MSU, UMN, the UMass system, the U Illinois system, the SUNYs, Ohio State, etc, so the colleges at which more than half of all 4-year undergraduates are enrolled.
I would guess that there is pressure to apply EA in states like Illinois, Ohio, or NY, in which the main state system, including the state flagship, have EA. States like AZ or MO, where the public schools do not have EA, the pressure is likely lower.
In “elite” high schools or high schools which serve wealthy communities, and therefore have a very large number who apply to one of the 180-190 mostly private (three SUNYs evidently have ED, as well UVA and W&M) ED colleges, probably depend on the strategies taken by the high schools to maximize acceptances to the “elite” colleges which have ED.
I would guess that the high schools which push students to apply ED somewhere, only do it if that “somewhere” is an “elite” college.
PS. There are about 11,000,000 students attending a four year college, so around 2,750,000 matriculate to a 4 year college (about 2.2 million new high school graduates and some 500,000 older or international students)
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I know in our school district they discouraged ED unless you had your heart set on that school, knew you could afford it and were willing to possibly give up on other options. They did encourage EA. I only know of one student that did ED (graduating class of almost 800 students) but I’m sure there were a few more. Just not a thing around here. Just like there are no honors courses for Bio, Physics, Calculus or Chem. You take regular or A/P not one then the other.
There is pressure to apply EA at certain public schools but unfortunately many applicants still don’t know that…the issue is that at some publics the more selective and/or popular majors completely fill up in the EA round. Examples of schools in this group include UIUC (which releases both EA and RD decisions at the same time), Purdue, Wisconsin, U Mich, U Mass Amherst. Honors college placement and merit/discounting are often greater for the EA applicants as well.
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I’ve certainly noticed this on r/A2C, especially among international students.
Many “where should I apply ED?” threads, based mostly on admission rate/financial aid, with zero consideration of intended major, and apparently zero research.
Unfortunately, often followed with “can I/how do I decline an ED acceptance” and “do I really need to withdraw my other applications?”
IMO, EA is a completely different topic than ED.
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We live in a wealthy suburb in NY all my DD23 is hearing about these latest two weeks are who got in ED ( and didn’t get in or deferred) to these schools. D wants to apply ED next year because she really wants to know where she is going early in the process so she can focus on a fun senior year. We also believe there is an advantage applying ED to a Target school although clearly that could be a perception and not always a fact. I would guess about 40 percent of the Senior class applied ED to around 12 schools where our district has a lot of prior success //it’s that prevalent in our community and those that are accepted are celebrated with Instagram and FB posts and impromptu parties. Feels a lot like privilege as I am writing this…, but these kids do work hard and there is a lot of pressure to go to a T50 school.
hi i’m a senior right now and yes, i definitely felt like i needed to because there was a lot of pressure from adults in my life and other students to do so. unfortunately, i’m already regretting it and the financial consequences are already stressing me out. it’s just really common around me and the adults around me, including my parents, pushed it very heavily. it’s not a decision to take lightly but unfortunately it seems like it often is for a variety of reasons ://
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My S22 applied ED1 this fall. At his large public HS, I don’t think there’s pressure to do so. We presumed it might help his chances a bit since the small colleges he was interested in put a lot of emphasis on demonstrated interest. OTOH I kept pointing out to him that small LACs recruit a lot of athletes for various teams, and that some large proportion of ED admits were probably in that category. He got in, but we always treated it as an unlikely prospect.
While he didn’t know many others doing ED, it seemed like everyone he knew was applying EA or to schools with rolling admission. Maybe because we’re in MD and UMD is now heavily oriented toward EA? It seems like most of his friends finished applying in November - they had no plans to submit more applications. Meanwhile we were expecting to spend the next two weeks pumping out another round of applications for ED2 and RD.
Just posted today:
My dream school ever since I was in middle school was USC … I was thinking about ED2ing to NYU to improve my shot… I was wondering if boosting my chances of getting in there was worth effectively throwing away my chances at USC.
That is the thread referenced in the first post of this thread.
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If he got in ED1, why are you doing ED2 & RD?
Having privilege does not mean that a person did not work hard for what they got. It just means that your kid’s hard work is more likely to bear fruit than another kid’s who is just as smart and hard-working, but lacks those advantages that your kid has.
There is nothing innately wrong with having privilege. Even in a perfectly just and equitable world, there will be privileged people, because life isn’t always fair. What is wrong is having privilege, and denying it by claiming that everything that one achieved and has is purely because of one’s own work, and not being willing to lend a hand, when possible to help others who are not so privileged.
Fact is, almost everybody is privileged in one way or another, and is also underprivileged in one way or another. Almost everybody has advantages which they did not earn, and almost everybody has burdens which are not their own fault.
Some people simply have bigger advantages and some people have bigger burdens.
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