<p>One clear advantage of ED that no one has mentioned: Every ED application gets a good, clear-eyed look by admissions officers who are far less overloaded and exhausted than they will be in the RD round.</p>
<p>Perhaps just the opposite, as admissions officers don't have the full pool in front of them, completed contacts with GCs regarding all applicants coming from a single school, a clear take on the total financial aid budget, a comparison of all "clarinetists" who are applying, etc. Every ED applicant might thus get a less clear-eyed assessment. What will be known more readily is whether the applicant is prepared to pay full-freight (and that might be the most important qualification of all, given a pool where 80% of the applicants can do the work, and 50% of those accepted and attending will end up in the bottom half of the class.)</p>
<p>As for not being exhausted...have you ever seen an admissions officer at the end of fall recruiting and weeks on the road? ;)</p>
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completed contacts with GCs regarding all applicants coming from a single school
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<p>Are you saying that top colleges are still “contracting” to accept a fixed number of kids or a fixed proportion of the class from selected feeder schools? I thought those days were over.</p>
<p>Carolyn -- I guess I thought that with far fewer files in front of them, admissions officers would be less stressed, less rushed, and more "there," mentally during the ED round than they are in the RD round. I'm remembering the descriptions of the exhaustion factor late in the admissions cycle in The Gatekeepers.</p>
<p>I agree with wjb's opinion (actually I said something similar earlier :)).</p>
<p>Mini, you have provided evidence in the past suggesting that need-blind schools give a boost to low-income kids, but you seem to be suggesting above that they are actively taking full-pay students above FA applicants. </p>
<p>I stand by my opinion that my kid got a more clear-eyed looksee in ED than he would've in RD, and was much more likely to get taken because of that. He was a solid, thoughtful candidate, with no fireworks in his profile, but very endearing to everyone (recommenders, GC, interviewer, etc) we got a chance to know him. I think, in a pool of athletes, URMs, AP Scholars, Intel finalists, etc etc, he needed a more personal introduction, which I believe ED afforded.</p>
<p>Oops, sorry I missed your point earlier, garland:)</p>
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What will be known more readily is whether the applicant is prepared to pay full-freight (and that might be the most important qualification of all
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<p>Mini: I live in one of those areas of the country where, fortunately for them, most kids have parents who are able to pay full freight. By and large, these kids attend top public high schools. This is obviously anecdotal only, but the vast majority of these same kids who apply to Ivies early are rejected, or deferrred and later rejected, and this scenario repeats itself year after year.</p>
<p>Wjb, I was just joshing. The biggest complaint I hear from admissions people about their jobs is the constant on the road travel in the fall so that's why I reacted to your comment about them being less exhausted then. :)</p>
<p>Wjb, I was just joshing. The most common complaint I hear from admissions people about their jobs is the constant on the road travel in the fall so that's why I reacted to your comment about them being less exhausted for ED applications. :)</p>
<p>"Mini, you have provided evidence in the past suggesting that need-blind schools give a boost to low-income kids, but you seem to be suggesting above that they are actively taking full-pay students above FA applicants."</p>
<p>I'm not suggesting, I am STATING, that 99 out of 100 schools have a financial aid budget, and that the admissions office is part of administering it. I am not suggesting, I am STATING, that despite major changes in the applicant pools over time, except in those relatively rare instances where schools have made a concerted attempt to attract non-full-paying customers (Amherst, Princeton, Smith, and a few others), the percentage of full-freight customers remains extraordinarily static year after year, and that the chances of that happening by chance are close to nil. </p>
<p>As regards ED, I am not necessarily suggesting that schools accept full-freight candidates ahead of FA ones; only that in the ED round, for very good reasons, they will receive a much higher percentage of full-freight candidates (they wouldn't have to provide an advantage). I am also suggesting that this is NOT necessarily a bad thing: once having secured the requisite number of full-freighters, it gives an admissions office much greater freedom to accept FA candidates in the RD round (and to compare them). </p>
<p>"This is obviously anecdotal only, but the vast majority of these same kids who apply to Ivies early are rejected, or deferrred and later rejected, and this scenario repeats itself year after year."</p>
<p>But that's true of everyone, so what's the point? :eek:</p>
<p>"Are you saying that top colleges are still “contracting” to accept a fixed number of kids or a fixed proportion of the class from selected feeder schools? I thought those days were over."</p>
<p>They aren't "contracting" - they are contacting GCs, and using them to help compare candidates (as, by the way, they should.) There is one institution at which my d. took a tour not even three weeks ago where the admissions officer stated that the first thing his office does is rank candidates coming from the same school. I don't know how widespread the practice is (or whether he was telling the truth.)</p>
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But that's true of everyone, so what's the point?
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<p>The point is that a candidate's ability to pay full freight is not the magic bullet you frequently suggest it is.</p>
<p>That's what I am saying...in your lifetime JHS. </p>
<p>Thanks for the back-up carolyn.</p>
<p>I think the number of early recruit admits at ivy schools depends on the athletic 'budget'. I think the number is probably higher than anyone guesses--as the three athletes I know who got October letters of admission were females playing non-helmet sports. </p>
<p>To me, so-called idiot with dubious information, that indicates that ALL sports, regardless of prestige, get at least one or two early admit candidates each year. Football and bball probably get...four or five per year? MOWC might have an inkling on that. Anyway, it's a fair few places already gone by Nov 15th.</p>
<p>One of the athletes I know got a H October admit dropped the team in Junior year--the others are still going strong ( 1 H , 1 Stanford).</p>
<p>"The point is that a candidate's ability to pay full freight is not the magic bullet you frequently suggest it is."</p>
<p>Of course it's not. And I've never suggested it is. What I am STATING (not suggesting) is that admissions officers are highly trained, dedicated, informed professionals who operate with mission statements and budgets before them, and have the ability to craft a class with the budget available to them to meet their institutional mission. If half the class is made up of full-freighters, and is so consistently, Occam's Razor would suggest that the first hypothesis (which is yet to be disproven) is that they intend it that way. Try another hypothesis when the first one doesn't explain the available data.</p>
<p>They prove it another way, too. When specific colleges claim that they are aiming to increase economic diversity (which, at the prestige privates, is at its lowest level in 25 years), and put money into the effort, not so surprisingly, the numbers change. It's not magic - they are really good at what they do.</p>
<p>Mini: There seems to be a theme to many of your posts, and that is that, except insofar as their tuition payments enable non-full freight kids to matriculate, full-freight candidates/acceptees are somehow inferior to those who require financial aid. Forgive me if I read your position incorrectly, but if that is your position, I find it inaccurate and offensive.</p>
<p>WJB, Mini did not say that at all. What Mini has said, over and over, is that so-called "need blind" schools actually have a number of strategies in place to keep their budgets balanced with the requisite amount of full tuition students balanced by whatever dollars they have committed to financial aid. One way many schools do this is through the ED process, which is heavily weighted toward full paying students because it borders on insanity for a student who truly must rely on financial aid to apply ED. Another way they do it is continued reliance on SAT scores, knowing that the higher the score, the greater the likelihood the student comes from a high-income background (a possible alternative explanation for the so-called 100 point boost). They also tend to look favorably on applications from prestigious private prep schools, and they also look favorably on students who have impressive EC's that often also reflect the parents ability to fund the student's participation. So the whole process is stacked to favor students from financially strong families; ED is just one element -- but the point is that year after year, the ratio between full-pay and financial aid recipients at schools tends to remain the same. It is no accident.</p>
<p>What "need blind" really means is that the schools do not make need-based decisions on an individual basis -- rather they play the odds using group based demographic factors.</p>
<p>As to the ED "boost" and RD chances: my daughter was probably the kind of kid who could use a boost as her test scores were at the bottom of the range of reported scores for many of the schools she applied to. In April, she was accepted at all of the reach colleges she was then waiting on -- Barnard, Chicago, etc. -- except for one rejection from Brown. </p>
<p>Obviously she did not apply ED so I have no idea what would have happened if she had. But she did apply EA to Chicago and was deferred in December. She also applied early with a nonbinding early write program to Brandeis (blue ribbon app) and was waitlisted in February. In each instance she would have been having her application reviewed within a smaller applicant pool by less-exhausted ad coms -- so as to that purported advantage of an early application, it did not help a student with a significant weak spot on her record. </p>
<p>My guess is that Chicago wanted to see her mid-term grades before making a final decision, and perhaps also wanted to see the rest of their applicant pool. It is possible that my daughter had something to offer the school that they wanted, but they elected to wait to see if stronger candidates came along to fill that particular role. </p>
<p>There may be a practical and statistical boost to chances from an ED application, but I think it is weak or speculative for students who think that they "need" the boost, and does not really justify foregoing options at other schools if the ED school is not a clear first choice. Again, there is little incentive for a college that will be deluged with applications in the spring to tie up spaces in the incoming class with weaker students -- ED represents an opportunity for them to lock in the top students, so if anything it would give the biggest boost for already strong candidates who simply want to make sure that their application gets a close read or that they are first in line to present their tip factor/hook. In other words, the college orchestra may need a bassoonist during the ED round -- if they find one then, they won't need one any more in the spring.</p>
<p>^Ego would like to agree that this is why S got the nod ED :). Maybe they needed a trombone player...I dunno. Certainly wasn't a weak candidate, and certainly knew that it was his absolute number one. In the end, he was just happy to know he was going there in December--he ended up being the most unstressed senior I have known.</p>
<p>Wait a sec...adcom aren't making those financial decisions. The Board is. The Board doles out the money and the policy.</p>
<p>Adcom may be the other things you state mini, but they are also young. The salaries are not enough to support a family. The schools like to have a younger review of young candidates. Says me.</p>
<p>I'll also offer up the opinion that young adcom are idealistic, based on my friendships with one or two veterans of top 25 uni adcoms. They are not junior Ibankers in the making. Adcom is not a good Bschool or Medschool or Law school internship. The adcom I know have a streak of what my son calls the 'save the world type'.</p>
<p>How does this affect ED? Well, the ED round may be full of poncy full-freighters who have stunning GPAs and ECs, courtesy of their parent's ability to boost them up to those opportunities. However, that does not necessarily make them adcom favorites. They may well be development favorites, but not necessarily adcom favorites.</p>
<p>Adcom favorites, from what little I know, are kids who come from left field or kids who achieve despite the odds. Most of those are in the RD round.</p>
<p>"How does this affect ED? Well, the ED round may be full of poncy full-freighters who have stunning GPAs and ECs, courtesy of their parent's ability to boost them up to those opportunities. However, that does not necessarily make them adcom favorites. They may well be development favorites, but not necessarily adcom favorites."</p>
<p>Adcoms can like or not like whomever they choose. If they don't carry out the institutional mission, they don't have jobs. And, given different institutional priorities, they can turn on a dime (or hand out more of them if that's what they are told to do.) The low-income candidates at Princeton or Amherst did not all of sudden become "better" the years the schools decided to enroll more of them, and the full-freighters didn't become worse. What changed was behavior in the admissions department, and in the financial aid department. And in the years before the change, where they were able to calculuate (even with the vagaries of yield) the percentage of full-freighters down to the percentage point, they carried out the institutional mission with equal vigor.</p>
<p>They are very good at what they do. Professionals, who can put aside their personal likes or dislikes, good character or peccadillos, to do the jobs they are paid to perform, and they do it very well.</p>
<p>"Mini: There seems to be a theme to many of your posts, and that is that, except insofar as their tuition payments enable non-full freight kids to matriculate, full-freight candidates/acceptees are somehow inferior to those who require financial aid. Forgive me if I read your position incorrectly, but if that is your position, I find it inaccurate and offensive."</p>
<p>I don't believe anything of the kind. I don't have the data to support such a theme (on either side); the colleges have done a good job of masking how many students even apply in each income quintile, no less what their 'qualifications' are. But when each and every year need-blind schools end up with a class with exactly the same percentage of full-freight students (say 50%) coming from the top 3% of the population, I think it is fair to say as the best working hypothesis that it is not an accident, and rather insulting to an admissions office to suggest that it is. They are very, very good at what they do.</p>
<p>I think it goes without saying that if somebody applies ED, it is clearly their first choice......</p>