<p>I’d like to see restrictions on the total number of apps from a kid. Let them hone their lists.</p>
<p>I went back and don’t see (or missed) any info abut the number of MIT deferrals this year. Did someone post that?</p>
<p>@lookingforward --4456 were deferred by MIT this year. MIT reports the RD admit rate of deferred applicants. I posted last year’s rate a few pages back on this thread.</p>
<p>625 accepted and 1327 rejected from EA round this year.</p>
<p>Thx. I was wondering for a young friend.</p>
<p>Thanks.
An anxious prospective will be happy to learn.</p>
<p>@JHS: I don’t follow.</p>
<p>How is it that some colleges assert their ED applicant pools are “measurably stronger” than their RD pools? If an applicant is quite strong, why would he or she give up the chance to apply to several schools? I would have thought a more average applicant would jump on ED in the hopes that his or her demonstrated interest would sway the school into saying “yes,” whereas stronger applicants know they’ll have multiple offers.</p>
<p>@lauriejgs, the thing is, it’s rather difficult for 99.99% of applicants at the beginning of the process to be able to tell whether they’d be strong enough to garner a spot at a target school if they are aiming for HYPSM or other Ivy/equivalent.</p>
<p>I know someone who’s D is top 10 in a (non-NCAA) sport with other spectacular ECs and near perfect stats who said (before she got in SCEA) that he didn’t think she’d get in anywhere in the EA round. Granted, maybe he was just mentally preparing himself, but because the bar is so high at these schools and the RD admit rate so low (and holistic admissions makes many of the admit decisions extremely idiosyncratic), virtually no one aiming for these schools feels confident that they would get in to some Ivy/equivalent if they only submitted during the RD round.</p>
<p>The ED pool tends to have the students who have families and infrastructures that can give them a jump on the process. Questbridge and other programs have added students from low income families and challenging situations to the early rounds. But, yes, the ED pool tends to have those kids who have strong stats along with those who absolutley want to go to the school. The athletic recruits at my son’s school all knew they were accepted a full month before the ED releases, but were accepted ED. “Measurably stronger” does not just mean test scores. Legacies often also use this card. So it’s tough to figure out whether a given student has a much bigger chance ED than EA when not so hook, and in fact not in the top of the pool in terms of stats. At the most selective schools, that’s not going to be much of a boost. As the schools get less selective, it does become an issue as those schools are increasingly going to be concerned about yield A high stat applicant applying ED at such schools can have a significantly higher chance of accept, as demonstrated interest is a big 10 out of 10 by applying ED. </p>
<p>For HPY, where the pool tends to be most all highly qualified student, EA can be beneficial because the % accept rate simply is higher significantly. Not as though the RD pool is going to be significantly less qualified and there are far fewer spaces left. You lose some of your novelty in the masses. You can be an interesting catch as one of the few Physics or Classics major in the EA pool, but take your chances as the rest of the applicants come on full force. An original essay becomes less original as the chances of another giving the subject a take increases. Also, it’s human nature to be less generous when there are fewer resources, like fewer seats to assign in the RD setting.</p>
<p>But there is that “holding out for better” and “leaving room for some better” students that is there in ED that can cause a deferral in those schools that aren’t as concerned about yield. </p>
<p>Yes, more average applicants jump on ED and they are successful at certain schools where demonstrated interest is a key issue and where they want that yield. But some are not going to get that advantage from those schools that figure they can do better. Thus is the game of ED to find that school that will grab that student but could mean the student giving up on the chance of a school he might prefer. With my kids, I did not encourage ED if they did not have a clear first preference. I wasn’t interested in trying to get a more a selective school for them which is what many do. I was full of trepidation when my son decided to to ED, the first of my kids to so say, and we discussed it right up to the 11th hour literally. He was adamant he really wanted to go there. I was fearful that a lot of peer pressure was involved, because it seemed like a lot of his peers were going this route. In his case, he got a good benefit from ED as the demonstrated interest was an issue at his choice school. </p>
<p>@PurpleTitan, I understand what you’re saying, and I agree that almost everyone has doubts about their ability to get in anywhere. But there’s a difference between feeling as though you’re not a strong candidate and actually being (or not being) a strong candidate, as judged by the admissions office. Adcoms are saying that the ED pool is, in fact, a stronger one.But if I were a 2300 SAT, 4.0 kid with great ECs, I might want to cast a wide net and see who bites.</p>
<p>@lauriejgs, but how would you be able to judge whether you are a strong candidate, as judged by adcoms, before decisions start rolling in?</p>
<p>Kids with 2300 SAT + 4.0 GPA + great ECs get denied by HYPSM (and other schools) all the time.</p>
<p>If a school is actually your first choice (and you know that it is affordable & you don’t need/want to fish for merit money), what is the downside to ED/EA?</p>
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<p>@lauriejgs: That may be a workable strategy if the kid doesn’t have a top choice, but considering that nearly all of the top ten schools now fill between 40% and 50% of the seats in their class in December, sitting out the early round risks putting the student in competition with a pool that may be five times or more larger for the other half of those seats and spending the entire winter/early spring wondering whether a favorite school has already filled its slots for “2300/4.0” kids and is looking for something different to round out the class. </p>
<p>The system sucks, but any one individual within it has limited options other than playing the game. </p>
<p>Where I see the early mania working at a disadvantage is when a student is a candidate, yes the chances are small due to the low accept rate, to a school like, say HPY, and the student genuinely wants to give those schools a shot, but decides often with discussion with parents playing the strategy game to apply to , say Penn, ED. to get a more sure shot at that school. I understand the strategy, and it can work well, but that is often a kid who just might have had a shot at the school preferred. It seems to be awfully early to start settling and not take some risks and the stakes really are not so urgently high to have to settle. </p>
<p>When the peer and family pressure starts to hit, there are some picks that are not first choices but crazy grabs to get something There is a strong momentum ED has and it’s not always healthy. These are young people, often still kids and they can change their minds Who they are in October with their picks may not be who they are in May when they can have choices. </p>
<p>Having fooled around with the college process for many years, I could pick some pretty good choices for my son as ED picks. But I abstained, because I wanted him to have the choice and flexibility, as well as the risks. It would have been no tragedy for him to get accpeted to his safety and match schools as he liked them just fine. When he did visit and decide he wanted to go ED to a school I really wanted him to think about it long and hard so that he wasn’t just doing it to have an ED “elite” choice. Hopefully it is the best choice for him–good chance it is, but there are some who EDed in sort of panic or in a strategy that did not take into consideration what the true first choices were. </p>
<p>"Where I see the early mania working at a disadvantage is when a student is a candidate, yes the chances are small due to the low accept rate, to a school like, say HPY, and the student genuinely wants to give those schools a shot, but decides often with discussion withparents playing the strategy game to apply to , say Penn, ED. to get a more sure shot at that school. "</p>
<p>I don’t see this as a downside. If someone is willing enough to ED to a school that isn’t the first choice because they want to game the system, that’s on them. No one holds a gun to anyone’s head insisting that they ED. No one prevents anyone from saying - I’ll wait til March and take my chances. </p>
<p>The optimal strategy to enroll in a top 10 school would be to apply non-restrictive early action to Chicago, MIT, and Caltech, plus ED to the top ten lac of your choice. </p>
<p>@SomeOldGuy, I agree with you that waiting for RD puts a lot of stress on kids, but if the ED/EA are “significantly stronger” than RD, what’s the downside of putting yourself into a pool that’s weaker, especially if you need FA?</p>
<p>@lauriejgs, well, the downside is that the admit rate is far lower in the RD round at many of the most selective colleges.</p>
<p>Also, I think that, at least for some schools, that’s marketing-speak. IMO, for virtually all schools, you have at least as good a shot and likely a better shot of getting in ED than RD (as I mentioned before, EA is a different beast as those schools are giving their admits essentially a free option).</p>
<p>My kids attended both a very strong, sophisticated private school that at the time sent about 25% of its graduating class every year to Ivies or the equivalent, and another 20% to top LACs, and a large public magnet that was sending about 30 kids per year to those colleges. At the private school, having an early application strategy was practically mandatory, and almost half the class every year was finished with their college process by Christmas. At the public school, an early application strategy was the norm among top students. There were always a few who were searching for the best merit-based deal available, and they would not apply ED anywhere (but most would apply EA or rolling to multiple schools). But most of the students who were eligible for substantial income-based financial aid throught they understood the policies of the ED colleges to which they were applying well enough to overcome any hesitation about applying ED.</p>
<p>No one, not even the very, very best students, the ones who eventually got in everywhere they applied, was confident enough to forgo an early application strategy. The ones with the most confidence applied SCEA to HYPS, but many kids who had the same grades, etc., would apply ED to Penn, Columbia, Brown, or a top LAC. In some cases (especially those headed to LACs), they affirmatively preferred their choice to HYPS, and in others they were happy to trade a longshot chance at HYPS for a better chance at admission to a college they thought was perfectly wonderful.</p>
<p>I just think it’s odd how it’s assumed that there is a pecking order and that HYPS are always at the top of the heap for everybody. They are just 4 of the nation’s top schools. That’s all. There is no actual reason why any given student shouldn’t personally prefer another school to those 4. Maybe it’s because I live in the midwest where there isn’t the bowing and scraping to those 4 schools as representing the Ultimate Meaning of Life. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, even in the Midwest, at least in some circles, HYPS represents the pinnacle now. Definitely wasn’t the case in my HS 20 years ago, when some of the top kids pursued merit money, some pursued BS/MD programs, and the rest looked for the best fit (and back then, while Harvard was Harvard, the rest were just seen as “good schools”).</p>
<p>Don’t know if the applicant pool in general is even more rankings/prestige-hungry now or if it’s just certain circles.</p>
<p>“In some cases (especially those headed to LACs), they affirmatively preferred their choice to HYPS, and in others they were happy to trade a longshot chance at HYPS for a better chance at admission to a college they thought was perfectly wonderful.”</p>
<p>Right. I’ve got a couple of kids in my practice this year who were deferred from a #1 choice and are doing EDII at the 2nd choice. They feel confident that they’d rather be in and committed to a school they love than take the RD long-shot at the first choice and potentially miss out on both.</p>