<p>Preparing For Power (Cookson and Persell, 1985) cited the only data I am aware of that analyses acceptances at Ivy and selective colleges by boarding school status and SAT scores, and also socioeconomic strata:</p>
<p>Woops, got cut off there (see post above). Here’s some of their the data:Ivy acceptance for “top 16 select prep” with high SAT, 66%, medium SAT 39%, low SAT 19% “other prep” 45%, 27%, 27%. Breakdown was similar but a few points higher for “selective college acceptance”. </p>
<p>For “selective public schools” Ivy acceptances were below “other prep” and similar to “national pool”. </p>
<p>The authors concluded that “public school students who were similar to prep school students in terms of their family backgrounds and SAT scores were accepted to less selective colleges and planned to attend less prestigious colleges.”</p>
<p>That is admittedly very old data, but I was thinking about it when my colleague (with a very accomplished son) was told by our local public HS counselor (he is one of 500+ students she counsels for college) NOT to apply early action to any schools “a bad idea”. Almost all counselors recommend trying early action because it is non-binding and many top schools use it heavily, nothing is lost. Unfortunately, they took her advice.</p>
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<p>You are correct. That is ancient history when many prep schools were feeders to the IVY and the vast majority of Prep School A went to IVY A, PS B to IVY B, etc. Those data are worthless to look at now. </p>
<p>My nephew went to one of the “three top Prep schools” in that time period and his roommate wanted to go to Juilliard and was told he could not as it would hurt the school’s IVY acceptance. They refused to give him recommendations for it. He auditioned and explained the “ban” and went anyway.</p>
<p>@ 2prepMom: There are only a handful of top colleges that use Early Action (Chicago, Georgetown, Stanford, Notre Dame, MIT, CalTech and Yale…maybe a couple more if you expand the definition of “top”). Of them, several are “single choice” – meaning if you apply to their non-binding early action program, you’re not allowed to apply early (decision or action) to anywhere else – with the possible exception of rolling admissions at state colleges.</p>
<p>So it’s not awful advice. And for Stanford, the process has a high likelihood of leading up to a rejection. For Yale, a handful – including the athletic recruits – get admitted and the bulk just get deferred until later.</p>
<p>The EA programs usually have a higher acceptance rate, but it’s not because it’s any easier to get in through that portal. In fact, the applicant pool is more self-selected. And that’s when the athletes – some of whom know they’re going to be accepted when they apply – are run through the admission process. In a process like Stanford’s, in which they do considerable rejecting, there’s a big risk when you present yourself against such a highly competitive pool. There’s reason to believe (though one could never know) that some candidates who are accepted RD at Stanford would have been rejected EA when their applications were viewed in the context of the decidedly more competitive EA applicant pool.</p>
<p>There’s a downside in that the application is in a couple months early and that could mean some good stuff gets omitted. The essays may not be as well-tuned and if you’re deferred, you can’t resubmit new ones. Yes, you can send a fax or e-mail detailing your latest exploits, but you can’t incorporate it into an essay or present it in the same context. It’s very possible a regular decision (or ED2) application would give you a better shot because it will be a better application.</p>
<p>And even if a student is accepted, there’s a downside if the college isn’t the first choice and it’s not a good fit…because the point of early action is for the colleges to get a leg up on their peers regarding the most-sought-after candidates and they’re going to get their hooks in, for several months before the student hears from the other colleges. It could lead to a mismatch.</p>
<p>I think it’s a reasonable and legitimate position for a guidance counselor to make it a policy to steer students away from EA programs if the student wouldn’t otherwise apply to the program for binding ED or could benefit from the additional time before first presenting themselves, in application form, to a highly competitive college. The advice may not be great – in that I think these nuances and complex, interweaving considerations should have been spelled out for the student and parents to weigh for themselves – but I wouldn’t condemn it as bad advice, let alone some form of anecdotal proof that public school guidance sucks. For all I know, the advice was brilliant and reflects a level of understanding about admissions that you’d find from someone who is seasoned at helping students of all sorts of pedigrees and possessed of all sorts of gifts get into the best colleges for them.</p>
<p>@D’er, Thanks for your info on Early Action, I suspect it is debated elsewhere on CC forums, but less well know on this forum. My impression is based on from reading the NY Times [2011</a> Early Admission Data - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011-early-admission-data/]2011”>http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011-early-admission-data/) , which published the percentage of classes already filled by Early candidates (in some cases nearly the majority of the entering class is already filled - Johns Hopkins 42%, U Penn 49.3%, Columbia 45%), With the increased competitiveness of international candidates (who are not generally allowed to apply EA), it looks like it’s growing in popularity. Would you say that trying to be the guidance counselor/college counselor for 500 students is reasonable?</p>
<p>Well, if there are 500 kids seeking admission to competitive colleges, that’s a pretty impressive group. But, no, I wouldn’t want that for my kid. Then again, my kid has no college guidance counseling at all…so maybe I would take that!</p>
<p>Now keep in mind that there’s a difference between EA and ED. EA is non-binding, with a reply not needed until the same deadline for regular decision acceptees. Those colleges you named are not EA colleges. The classes are filling up because with ED, the acceptance is binding on the applicant. 100% (or darn close to it) of the ED acceptees are yielded. You would have to know for sure that you’re going to attend that college to apply ED. The good news for RD applicants to those colleges is that remaining slots are NOT 100% yield. If a college has a gaudy 67% yield and a whopping 40% of slots are filled already, the remaining 60% of the slots will get filled by admitting close to 2 applicants for every remaining seat (basically, for the kids who have a choice, the college’s yield only works out to be 55%). And, better still, the athletes are already seated! And so are most of the most competitive applicants; they’re spoken for! </p>
<p>For EA colleges, there’s no way they’ve already filled all of those seats/beds…because not THAT many of the applicants have made their final decisions. That’s why if you scroll down that chart (if it’s the link I think it is) and scroll over to the right, you’ll see blanks for the percent of class already filled. The entire class (except for those who fired back their deposits) is wide open. It’s just that some got their decisions earlier.</p>
<p>One of the big downsides to ED is financial aid. You’ve got to take what they say is your number. You can reject your ED college on financial grounds, but they still may report you to other peer institutions, possibly diminishing your chances there. And if it’s not a total deal breaker where you’ve got no choice but to take your chances elsewhere in the RD round, you’d be giving up your first choice, dream college for a CHANCE that another school will be more generous. In the RD round you can at least pitch your first choice school and show that some other peer institution understood your financial situation better and came up with a more generous package.</p>
<p>The point of all this is that there’s a lot of gamesmanship out there. I don’t think all high school guidance counselors look at ED and EA the same way and it’s not because some are right and the others are wrong. They just arrived at different conclusions in intelligent, reasonable ways.</p>
<p>Check this out: [In</a> historically hard year, 189 students admitted via ED I - The Bowdoin Orient](<a href=“http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2011-01-21§ion=1&id=5]In”>http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2011-01-21§ion=1&id=5)</p>
<p>Another recent thread covers similar ground, there seem to be varying opinions indeed, the newer thread provides interesting data on the EA/ED admission rates at some preps (Hotchkiss 67/107 applicants for EA/ED admitted), others note EA/ED “going strong” at other schools
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1049935-do-prep-schools-hurt-help-college-chances.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1049935-do-prep-schools-hurt-help-college-chances.html</a></p>