<p>Some EA schools don’t release their EA decisions until mid to late January. Better check the decision date for your specific EA school.</p>
<p>Even for schools that has no supplement and application fee, there is still a cost (score reports, transcripts, recommendation,etc). If you don’t think you want go to any of them, don’t waste your resources.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t suggest this approach. First of all, many if not most EA results–especially for reach schools–come out in mid-December or later. </p>
<p>Second, you want to make sure that each application is done with care. The supplements can’t just be ground out like clockwork, especially over a holiday weekend. Much better to have fewer well-done applications than many slapdash ones. Students should ideally start working on their essays during the summer before senior year. That gives plenty of time for tuning up prior to submitting. </p>
<p>Ten supplements in a four day weekend sounds brutal. Some of the supplements were quite time consuming (examples for my kid, U of Chicago and Harvey Mudd). Some require more than one essay. And the essays can’t just be dashed off, or cut and pasted. I think one reason my kid had such great results (accepted everywhere) is because her essays were crafted and specific. We would be lucky if my kid got ONE essay in a weekend, even a weekend that wasn’t too busy with other stuff. She would often write 5-6 drafts before considering an essay to be final. 15 schools is still a lot… 10 is actually plenty if you focus on what is most important to him.</p>
<p>And as others have said, just keep right on rolling after the EA app is done. He won’t hear back for a while, and even if he does, his EA school may not end of being his top choice (my kid was in EA at U of Chicago, and ended up not picking it, for example). He should start earlier and just keep working on his apps. I would advise that you limit travel plans over winter break, that is crunch time no matter how early he starts. Get all the apps in and see where he is admitted, then go back for a few accepted student visits at his top options in April. </p>
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<p>Are there any schools which he would choose over the safety school that he loves? Given a safety school that he loves, the rest of the list can be cut down by eliminating all schools which he would not choose under any circumstances over the safety school that he loves.</p>
<p>That would leave him with a list of one school, if it is a 100% certain safety that he loves. Easy and no stress!</p>
<p>(But make sure that it is a 100% certain safety.)</p>
<p>Apply to 2 safeties (I actually prefer the term “likely” to “safety”). Avoid Tufts Syndrome.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus, that is a really good observation. OP, maybe that is why your son seems ambivalent about the rest of the colleges you have visited – maybe he has found his preference already. I sense some desire on your part for him to get into a higher ranked school, but maybe that is not what he wants. I certainly wouldn’t allow him to apply to just one school, but maybe this is a starting point for a conversation with him. If you can figure out why he loves his safety, then look for other schools like that. Forget ranking, just zero in on what makes him happy about that school to try to build his list based on that. One of my kids ended up loving her safety and choosing it (with merit aid) over several higher ranked schools, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa after a great experience. Trust me, a school that your son is excited to attend is worth dozens of ranking slots. </p>
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<p>A 100% certain safety would have a stated automatic admission or scholarship criterion that the student meets with stats alone and no subjective/holistic criteria applied (especially “level of applicant’s interest”). Of course, it must be 100% certainly affordable as well.</p>
<p>If the “safety” is not a 100% certain safety, then a real 100% certain safety must be found and added to the list.</p>
<p>Oh, c’mon. Not the “applicant interest” line again. If your kid’s stats are above the 75% mark and you can afford the school, acceptance rate is above about 40%, then be sure he shows interest (visit, essay that reflects his interest in the school if part of the supplement, go to presentations in your city for the college). Then it can still be a safety. There is nothing wrong with a couple of them, though. Neither of my kids would have been remotely happy at any school that has automatic admission for their stats and no holistic/subjective criteria applied. The kid also has to LIKE their safety. I don’t think you have told us your kid’s stats, but my kid (fairly high stats) had Lawrence and Mount Holyoke as safeties. She got into both with very large merit awards. And both consider applicant interest (shocking!).</p>
<p>Well the safety is Denison - the students were incredibly nice and happy, and the student center had a real vibrancy that we haven’t found in any other school. We received a private tour from a very enthusiastic student. The whole experience was totally professional. We received thank you cards from the tour guide and the person we interviewed with. They have been totally responsive with respect to my questions afterwards. I know I’m wandering OT here, sorry. We just haven’t found that many happy students at any of the other LACs. Some of the other LACs seem to be filled with jaded hipsters. At another LAC the kids were sleeping everywhere. The only other LACs we’ve visited with kids that came close to being that happy were Williams and Middlebury, but those of course are reaches.</p>
<p>Are you sure Denison is a safety? It’s an excellent school, DD1 attended, but unless your son is a NMF (and I don’t think that’s the case based on some of your prior posts) that may not be the case. A comparable school my other D attended was Lewis and Clark College in Portland OR. Very happy, engaged student body.</p>
<p>@billcsho Just to set the record straight, S had already been accepted to 4 rolling admissions schools with solid scholarships so he was covered by multiple safety choices. He also had completed some other apps but had not yet submitted them. I was just trying to point out the intangible of human nature that may or may not impact the rest of the applications when applying ED. I think SlitheyTove’s precaution is a good one to cover this potential downside although that means the supplementals are probably rushed which is not a good thing either.</p>
<p>Definitely one should not be overwhelmed with supplemental essays. To write 10-20 essays (some schools have more than 1 supplemental essay) within a few days is likely a good way to ruin the holiday and kill the applications. Very often, people underestimate the importance of a good essays. A generic essay may not worth anything. Even worse, I have seen several times that student cut and paste among essays for different schools and left a wrong school name on the essay. For the “why this school” or “why this program” essay, you need to put in something really specific/unique about that school or the program that attracts you. Not just saying the school has good reputation, the faculties have excellent research, etc. </p>
<p>Denison offers ED1 (apply 11/15, decision 12/1) and ED2 (apply 1/15, decision 2/1).
<a href=“Apply for Admission | Admission & Financial Aid”>http://denison.edu/campus/admissions/apply-to-denison</a></p>
<p>If Denison is his clear first choice, and it is certainly affordable, and he will go there if admitted without needing to compare with other schools’ financial aid and scholarships, why not make it the ED school?</p>
<p>If he gets admission on 12/1, then he is done with college applications and can just concentrate on finishing high school the rest of the school year. But he should have some less selective safety school applications ready to submit if he gets deferral or rejection on 12/1.</p>
<p>Also know that in almost any long list, there are a few schools that have deadlines after Jan. 1 - those schools can often but put on the back burner - but just be aware that getting your kid to fill out that 14 and 15th essay can be a struggle, they so want to be done with it. I knew a kid who was so done with it, he wouldn’t even hit the submit button on a Common App school with no supplemental essay.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t the following application strategy make sense for this situation (first choice is Denison, 3.95 GPA, low 600s in each SAT section, interest in music, based on other posts), and assuming Denison is affordable?</p>
<p>Apply to Denison ED. If it really is a low match or safety, then it is highly likely that he will be admitted by 12/1 (and ED changes “level of applicant’s interest” from a potential risk into an advantage).</p>
<p>Find a few other, even more likely, safety schools, or an automatic admission/scholarship school like Truman State (which has both BM and BA music majors) as backup(s) in case the Denison ED on 12/1 is something other than admission. He should have all of those applications ready to go by 12/1 (i.e. done except pressing “submit”, or submitted if the deadline is earlier than 12/1).</p>
<p>No need to apply to 10 or 20 match or reach schools that is not really that interested in – they would just be a waste of his time and your application money.</p>
<p>Denison has some generous merit scholarships–I’d want to check to see how Denison awards those before applying ED. Heck, I would even straight-out ask your admissions representative. </p>
<p>OP, you could also head over to the Denison and Parents forums (if you’ve not done so already) and ask folks for schools with a similar flavor–or just look to see where else Denison denizens 
applied. </p>
<p>The initial top two choices for D1, who was an academic star, were EA schools both of which she got into and is graduating from one shortly. ED was never an option. She half-heartedly applied to two additional top schools RD because she thought that they had the possibility of being a top choice and got a waitlist and a rejection. </p>
<p>D2 was a little more challenging. We knew that she would really benefit from ED in admissions, but didn’t want to force it on her. Our plan was to make sure that she visited enough schools and had learned enough to be able to make an informed decision. Basically, during the spring tours, a clear first choice emerged, one where from Naviance, we could see that not only would ED make a huge difference, but make all of the difference - nobody had gotten in with her stats RD. There was another school that she thought had the potential to be her top choice, so we arranged an overnight there with one of D1’s friends around Labor Day weekend before senior year started. Then we arranged another overnight visit in October at the one she liked in the spring and she was able to honestly commit to that one as her ED school.
She got in and just finished freshman year with an extremely high GPA. Had she not done the visiting and the due diligence required, she likely wouldn’t have gotten in. </p>
<p>The largest scholarship at Denison is the full tuition Paschal which is awarded to NMFs. I’m not sure if they have something similar to non-NMFs. Other places my DD1 applied to were Macalester, Reed, Oberlin, Earlham.</p>
<p>I’d still check carefully. </p>
<p>D1’s second choice school was GWU. She was NMF, and GWU offered generous but not guaranteed merit to NMFs. When she interviewed, she asked the admissions folks if she would be better off applying ED or RD in order to get that scholarship. They told her she should absolutely apply RD. In the end, she was accepted ED1 elsewhere…but if she’d been rejected from her ED1 school, she wouldn’t have applied ED2 to GW. </p>
<p>Things vary from school to school, and from year to year, this might not be the case at Denison (or at GWU any more). Caveat emptor.</p>