<p>Definitely. My D is almost completely done with college applications as of 10 days ago. The only one left is one RD school that she does not want to (and cannot) apply ED. Applying EA not only let her get the notice earlier, she may now focus more on school work and also start to look for scholarship opportunities.</p>
<p>billscho - my kids sent their RD apps in early anyway, simply checking the RD box instead of ED. Only one school with one kid sent an e-mail and asked if he preferred to change his application to ED.</p>
<p>^ Yes, I know we can do that, but the school does not like it as they are already overwhelmed with the EA forms right now. Also, we just take it easy so she can polish the essay a little bit more during the Thanksgiving. It will be sent at least a month before the deadline. Also, it may be better to wait for CommonApp to solve most of the issues.</p>
<p>Early action is for wealthy, groomed students with college educated parents, and an adequate school counselor, which are few and far at a crappy inner-city school. If what you guys say is true, about it being easier to get in, it’s just another example of how stacked the deck is against low SES applicants.</p>
<p>It’s funny none of you see the irony in you, middle-class, savvy, college-educated parents claiming how easy, wonderful and helpful early action applications are.</p>
<p>Guess I better pull up my bootstraps and get on it. Womp womp.</p>
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<p>Lol, OK, sure it is. Even though it costs just as much for a student to apply EA as it does RD and how all students that qualify for the free/reduced lunch program are given an application fee waiver regardless of when they apply, it’s so obvious that this program was made to benefit the rich, lol. It seems like you are just making stuff up as you go along. </p>
<p>Sure, you can argue that ED programs are bad, but this is EA. You are the only one I think I’ve ever seen that has a problem with EA. I’m still a little bit suspicious as to whether or not this is your legitimate opinion, or if you are just saying stuff to get a response.</p>
<p>You guys are claiming it is easier for your child to get in. And then you’re completely oblivious as to why low SES wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity. Why doesn’t everybody take advantage of it? Not everybody has college-educated, middle-class, savvy parents. That’s why. Not everybody had a parent pressuring them to prep for the ACT and to do well in school for 10 years, that’s why. Some kids are retaking the ACT. Some kids are working on grades. Some kids are working at McDonald’s so the lights don’t get turned off, again. You guys live in bubbles, I swear.</p>
<p>EA has no relationship with wealthy family, ED may. I don’t see your logic again. If one can achieve the same score later on, it is not because they are poor. It is because their preparation schedule. You may say EA is for students with better achievement. Sure EA is not for everybody and it may not benefit everybody. Only those are admitted would benefit from it. LOL.</p>
<p>@ryanc00per You are pretending as though these applications require weeks of free time to complete. They don’t. The entire Michigan application can be completed in far less than 8 hours, and the application opens in the very beginning of August (and you can easily get started on the essays far before then). If you can’t manage your time well enough to find 8 free hours over the course of 3 months, you don’t have the time management skills to succeed at a university like Michigan anyways. Give me a break.</p>
<p>ryan - so you are saying that being part of a family culture which values education is a benefit to the children and their college prospects. Good insight - hadn’t realized that before. haha</p>
<p>“As a third generation Michigan resident and tax payer I would hope the admissions criteria isn’t the same for in-state students. It’s our flagship University, OOS are just visitors piggybacking and fleeing when they receive their diploma.”</p>
<p>Lol, you’re 17, just how much have YOU payed in taxes? A few hundred dollars at most, maybe, assuming you didn’t get it all back come tax returns. I guess you’ll never leave the state of MI, eh? God forbid you end up “piggybacking” off the success of another state and its taxpayers. Pull your head out of the sand.</p>
<p>I predict that if RyanCooper spent as much time writing his app essays as he does contributing to discussions on cc he’d handily have his app completed by now ;)</p>
<p>The system isn’t stacked specifically against low SES students…the system is stacked against those not planning early, not seeking out salient info in advance of senior year, against those who have shoddy guidance counselors who don’t take initiative to find the wealth of info available through other channels such as the web. I think it does students from low SES a disservice to assume they lack initiative. They might lack resources but that doesn’t meant they’re not resourceful, and Michigan values the resourceful.</p>
<p>In fact, if they’ve got the stats and initiative, I’d say not only will Michigan give them a shot, but it will give them full-need funding while the so-called middle class softies scramble to dig up the $100,000 + it takes to put our “precious snowflakes” through school instate even :)</p>
<p>While its true lots of our “middleclass” kiddos don’t know what they have, or how hard won it may have been, its also true that there seem to be a lot of entitled-feeling low SES kids these days who also don’t value the incredible opportunities before them and prefer to spend their time hatin’ on others :)</p>
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<p>And I predict you have no idea what you’re talking about. Who said I was even talking about myself? This is bigger than me, this is bigger than the University of Michigan. You are a wealthy, college educated parent spending hours monitoring and guiding your kid’s college path and you can’t see how most kids in America don’t have that luxury? Do you not realize the average low SES student doesn’t even know how to sign up for a community college class, let alone what it takes to get into a highly competitive school like Michigan? All of you are in lala land.</p>
<p>Whatever, paint me as a rabble-rouser all you want. From everything I read on here you guys don’t care how favored you are in all of this, and you love it that way. Early action is just another vessel to maintain the status quo.</p>
<p>^I just think you’re tilting the wrong windmills ;)</p>
<p>I am abundantly clear on the comparative ills and inequalities in education across America, and in fact, have contributed a lot of time, thought and money toward effecting legislative change and meaningful compensatory programming. I also volunteer counsel students from my son’s former school and am equally clear that many young applicants – from a surprising range of varied backgrounds that are not necessarily super low SES – are comparatively uninformed. </p>
<p>However, UMich is a symptom of a larger social ill, not the problem, and UMich is pretty exemplary when it comes to assessing the obstacles an individual has had to overcome in order to be a high achiever. The school has outreach programs targeting low SES; the school has scholarships for low SES matriculating students who were involved in TRIO programs; the school hosts summer Bridge program to help students from under-funded urban areas ensure that they have the base from which to succeed at Michigan. Yet the school is a rigorous entity with a plethora of applicants and it has to also preserve the integrity of it’s talent pool. That fact happens to inadvertently favor kids with involved parents, good advisers/mentors and the access to superior resources for everything from SAT/ACT prep to accomplishment in ECs. (It’s hard to carry a lot of ECs when you’re working 20 hrs a week to help support your family.) </p>
<p>To suggest that EA advice somehow advantages the school as opposed to the student is misinformed. Your comments instead of being helpful to the original poster are actually detracting from the sound advice people are trying to offer.</p>
<p>Get mad at the partitioning of our society – you’re right, it sucks! More people should be (productively) mad. But pick your spots and find effective avenues to “rabble-rouse” instead of railing against the common sense “what’s-so” about the process.</p>
<p><a href=“You Got Deferred. Now What? - The New York Times”>You Got Deferred. Now What? - The New York Times;
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<p>Early action = only for slam dunks, according to NY Times</p>
<p>What’s new? LOL.</p>
<p>So why are campus reps and everyone on college confidential telling EVERYBODY to apply early action? Why not say, “If you’re a slam dunk, yes. If you’re not, don’t bother.” Seems to be more genuine.</p>
<p>ryanc00per, why you are obsessing over this? The fact is, applicants lose nothing by applying early, slam dunk or not. Michigan does not reject many EA applicants, and those that are deferred stand at least as good a chance as RD applicants. Personally, I would expect the admissions office to give priority to deferred applicants over RD applicants of equal caliber, if only because the yield for such applicants is higher.</p>
<p>Perhaps sour grapes.</p>