EA a D3? Advice please!

<p>We got such a weir situation. Hope to hear your opinions.</p>

<p>D filled out this D3 online form, got invited for a non-unofficial visit, stayed over night. The visit is OK, but D is not "crazy" about the school. After sending Thank You email to coach, coach just replied "contact me if you have any questions". So we thought the coach is not interested. So we moved on.
Last night, coached called D, "surprised" to discover D is planning to ED another Ivy school and said "we hope all our athletes apply during our EA period". This time we are surprised, we did not know the coach was going to though in any support! Then the coach said will talk to head coach and get back to D. Of course, one day passed, we have not heard anything yet.</p>

<p>Giving that coach never showed any enthusiastic in pursuing D, I highly doubt how much support we will get, so, so far, we are still going to ED this Ivy school. Of course, getting into this ivy is still a long shot, like everyone else. </p>

<p>Now my question is, shall we aggressively push the D3 coach? The truth is we will be delighted to go to this D3; we didn't apply EA earlier because we did not think we can get in without coach's support. Now I feel bad to even ask for "support" since we will be ED else where. But if with coach"s support, the chance to get in D3 maybe higher than getting into Ivy.</p>

<p>The numbers, of course, are not accurate, just to illustrate the point:
ED Ivy: 20% chance to get in
EA D3 w/o support: 5%
EA D3 w/support: 30-50%</p>

<p>Any suggestions? TIA!</p>

<p>I’m a little confused. Your D will not be playing her sport if she goes to the Ivy and will if she goes to the D3?</p>

<p>Does she want to play college athletics?</p>

<p>I’m also confused. The purpose for ED/EA would be to help your daughter (get admitted) and the coach (get a qualified athlete). In your post, I got no sense of a meeting of the minds (committment or prelude to a committment) between your daughter and any coach in the post. </p>

<p>I think you and your daughter should sit down and have a heart to heart about where she wants to get her education and possibly play college sports. Once you have them stack ranked, your daughter would call the coaches (preferably head coaches) to see what level of support she can get with EA/ED. If something sounds good, go for it. If doesn’t sound good, move onto the next school.</p>

<p>Sorry, I’m also a little confused.</p>

<p>If your D is “not crazy” about the school, why would you want to “aggressively push the coach?”</p>

<p>Assume this is the same D who switched from gymnastics to PV. If so, I thought the feeling was that coaches don’t “slot” anyway for one-event T&F sports.</p>

<p>Because you have already told the d3 coach that you are applying ED to an ivy I think it would be ok for your D to call the coach and ask for support for an EA application. The coach has probably seen this situation before and his response will help clarify this situation.</p>

<p>Sorry about the confusions. D wants to do sports in college regardless of the school.</p>

<p>Ivy(D1) coach said she will make the team as a walk on, but she will not be “recruited”. So no support there.<br>
She will get some support from D3 coach I assume.</p>

<p>She will be happy if any of the school admits her. </p>

<p>I just don’t know if D3 coach still supports you knowing you are EDing another school, because it’s a wasted effort since ED is binding. </p>

<p>I think you are all right. Just be straight forward to the coach, whatever happens happens.</p>

<p>Thank you all.</p>

<p>Well, the D3 coach might be supportive because, if your d applies to his school then obviously she isn’t applying to the ivy --she can’t do both. The whole thing sounds confused; does she have the stats to be a realistic candidate for the ivy? if so, she probably has them for the d3 as well and, if she committed to the d3 coach, he would probably be happy to support her. the clock is ticking toward november pretty quickly, your d needs to decide what she really wants and move forward. get it sorted out so she doesn’t come across as muddled/confused. not attractive in a recruit --also, be careful with the “we” - “we” are not applying etc. this is her show and she needs to come across as strong and independent.</p>

<p>Lioness, this is from an Ivy League admission site:</p>

<p>According to the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, while pursuing admission under an Early Decision plan, students may apply to other institutions, but may have only one Early Decision application pending at any time.</p>

<p>So you can apply to one school ED (binding) and another school EA (nonbinding) but if you are accepted to your ED school you must go there unless the financial aid offer is insufficient.</p>

<p>Swimkidsdad - are you sure about the financial aid loophole for ED? I don’t think so…
Some schools have what is called “Restrictive Early Action” meaning that you can apply early to ONLY that school…you may apply regular to other schools…and make your decision (based on acceptances) once the financial aid money is settled.</p>

<p>I am pretty certain that most ed and ea choices, even if not binding, are restricted to single choice. make sure you know all details of schools in question. for example, harvard’s ea is not binding but you may not apply to other private schools ea or ed. you may apply to priority rolling state schools however. tulane offers a single choice ea and an unrestricted ea and neither is binding so it varies widely and it is unwise to leave this to chance!!</p>

<p>I think I understand SpringShower’s dilemma. If you haven’t actually pushed the button on the Ivy ED application, then you should absolutely ask the D3 coach how much support is forthcoming! And if you have, but would consider the D3 school if the ED doesn’t work out, I would tell the coach this. My d had very nice responses from coaches when she asked if she could contact them for RD if her ED application doesn’t work out.</p>

<p>And about the ED financial aid loophole, it depends on the school. I read somewhere on CC that there is at least one Ivy where if you do not accept the ED offer for financial reasons, this information will be disseminated amongst the other Ivies, and the applicant will be blacklisted. We questioned NYU closely on what would happen if d were accepted ED but the aid was insufficient (they have a terrible reputation when it comes to aid packages), and they were very clear that they expected you to accept the offer no matter what. On the other hand, we asked the same question of Amherst and Bowdoin, and both said they completely understood if the finances did not work out and they would release the applicant from the ED obligation in that case.</p>

<p>Another thing, our state school requires that the student apply non-binding EA if s/he wants to be considered for the top merit scholarship. D is applying ED to a different school, and the fin aid office there told us that it’s okay for her to also apply EA to her state school. Obviously that is not the school D wants, but if the ED choice doesn’t work out, she needs the backup and the funding.</p>

<p>I echo Lioness4’s admonition, however, to READ the fine print!</p>

<p>everyone</p>

<p>This is from the common app 2012-13 early decision agreement:</p>

<p>“Early Decision (ED) is the application process in which students make a commitment to a first-choice institution where, if admitted, they definitely will enroll. While pursuing admission under an Early Decision plan, students may apply to other institutions, but may have only one Early Decision application pending at any time. Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment.”</p>

<p>The common app covers the issue in the broadest strokes but each school may still have their own policy --like a supplemental essay if you will. the policies are very varied; do not go by the common app statement</p>

<p>-lioness4-EA, by definition, is not binding. I’ve never seen a school where EA is binding. ED, yes, EA, no. Our kids applied to 19 schools between the 2 of them, 17 of them were EA, none of them restrictive. </p>

<p>There is an escape clause for ED if the FA package is not enough to attend. Again, I’ve not come across a school that binds you even if you can’t afford to attend.</p>

<p>There is simply no way a school could force you to attend! There would be repercussions, as mentioned, if you break an ED to an Ivy you wouldn’t be accepted to other Ivies, but it may not matter if one does not want to attend another Ivy. The college could punish the high school by not accepting more kids from there. I believe any school that accepts the common ap would have to follow its guidelines for ED. The financial aid loophole is there for a reason.</p>

<p>The question about “breaking” an ED “commitment” has been discussed ad nauseam here lately.</p>

<p>As an official from NYU said:</p>

<p>“They are, after all, 17 years old. This is not a legal agreement they have signed. If a student (doesn’t want to attend our school) we release them. It doesn’t make sense to have students who don’t want to be here.” </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/ed...tegy.html?_r=0[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/ed...tegy.html?_r=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>True that there cannot be legal consequences for said 18 yr old but the parent and high school sign off as well. no legal issues but it is a mess and word gets out. the financial loop hole is real and necessary but otherwise, breaking the commitment does hurt the school, the coach, even younger siblings. if you can’t pay, fine but don’t apply ed, if you’re not sure you want to attend.</p>

<p>Also, i know ea is not binding but it is often restricted</p>

<p>i think we’ve highjacked this thread from the OP :0</p>

<p>Spring Shower, any developments? Why would you think higher chance to get in at ivy over the D3 without support at either?</p>

<p>yes, so sorry to hijack the thread, springshower! I sympathize with your d’s position…my d had a similar situation. Coach support from the d3 schools made her decision for her.</p>

<p>about ED, just saying…the common app may say one thing but actual financial aid officers told us different things. we decided to believe the humans, so ED was an option at some schools and not at others. in general we have gotten a lot of help by just picking up the phone and calling.</p>

<p>I am in a similar position right now. My S has about 5 schools on his list, and he would be happy to attend any of them. We visited one of the 5 last week, and the coach really wants my S, but wants him to apply ED. I had planned to have him apply RD to all the schools and then have the ability to see all the FA packages. If we do that, we might lose the opportunity at the ED school.</p>

<p>I am thinking that we will stick to the RD plan, but the coaches push hard on the kids because they want to lock in their recruits. It’s a very tough process to go through. </p>

<p>One option is to apply ED and look at the package. If it is good enough, we take it. If that happens, we will never know what the other offers would have been, and could potentially cost me tens of thousands of $$.</p>