<p>For those of you with experience of Early Decision - how did you stage the pieces of your Regular Decision applications along with the Early Decision application?</p>
<p>For example - did you ask those providing references to prepare and send them for all of the schools on the list at the time of the ED app? Did you send in test scores to all schools?</p>
<p>If so, do schools accept references and test scores before a student has even applied?</p>
<p>Did your student apply to the regular decision schools and then withdraw the applications once s/he was accepted Early Decision?</p>
<p>Or did your student have to scramble to submit applications on hearing from the Early Decision school?</p>
<p>This is a case where I would say the Early Decision school is more of a match than a reach.</p>
<p>My S prepared and applied to all of the schools that had admission deadlines prior to mid-late December - the time he was to hear from his ED school. When he was accepted to his ED school, he then contacted each school to withdraw his application. There were a few schools with January 1 deadlines that he would have been “scrambling” to submit apps had he been rejected ED.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t say his ED school was a “match” but more of a reasonable reach. He would have done the same even if it was a huge reach because he had the other applications complete in a timely manner.</p>
<p>I have twins so this is very timely for me. They have done all their standardized testing (ACT, SAT II, AP) at this point and will not be taking any fall tests.</p>
<p>Each is applying to 8 schools.
D: 1 ED, 2 EA, then 5 others RD … one of which she will convert to ED II if the ED I is a no-go.
S: 1 ED, then 7 others RD … one of which he will convert to ED II if the EDI I is a no-go.</p>
<p>Both of their ED’s are reach schools - D’s with acceptance rate in the mid-thirties, S’s with acceptance rate in the mid-twenties. Their ED II schools are more high match to low reach. </p>
<p>I deliberately did not have them list any colleges on any of their testing formats, because I wanted them to have control over what scores went to whom.</p>
<p>So, their project over Labor Day weekend is to assemble all the necessary student ID’s, college codes, etc. so each can submit their scores to all 8 of their schools. </p>
<p>Yes, I recognize that this is more costly than just submitting to the ED / EA schools and then waiting til there is a “no” before sending to the others, but there is a peace of mind component for me to know that it’s all out there and done versus panic that they’ve forgotten to send scores. This also “opens” the application files and enables them to start on the interviewing process.</p>
<p>The idea of scrambling after an ED I “no” makes me queasy. Understand, however, that I am the proverbial J on Myers-Briggs, and love to have a sense of completion. I’d much rather have everything ready so that it’s just a push-the-button and in the case of the ED II’s, a quick conversion of an RD application to an ED II.</p>
<p>The regular apps were due on Jan 1, so they were ready to go if needed. D had also applied to an EA school, and received their acceptance a day or so after the ED acceptance (too late to withdraw it). I think she asked for the recs all at the same time and the test scores and transcripts were already sent. So we wasted a little money that way, but we didn’t want to have to scramble if she hadn’t gotten in.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I was thinking about the EDII option. Will your twin want to apply EDII if deferred from the EDI school? … just another scenario to consider, which actually may be more likely than being rejected outright in the EDI round.</p>
<p>I am also pondering whether to recommend my d send ALL her scores or just the best of those required – for example, her SAT II scores, while not bad, were not as outstanding as her ACT with writing scores.</p>
<p>My son made a terrible mistake about timing. He applied ED to Brown (along with 29,999 others). They “required” ED students to refrain from applying EA anywhere (although this wasn’t enforced, as we learned that numerous students applied EA many other places.)</p>
<p>But, when my son read that he couldn’t apply EA to other schools, he changed his Georgetown application from EA to RD. They totally screwed up. They notified him about wrong deadlines, and notified him about interview sign-ups that he already had had. He sent them emails and emails, but they never once responded. (And phone calls were no better.) In the end, they didn’t even notify him of their decision. Days went by when everyone heard. More days went by, when I KNEW they hadn’t even looked at his application. I called them. At first, they just gave me a hard time, like I was some anxious parent. Two days later, when it was clear he should have heard, I called them again. This time, the receptionist admitted the file had been “moved”. I asked him what the decision was, and they gave him a 2-minute read (if that). He was rejected.</p>
<p>What totally irked me was that he should have gotten in. Why didn’t they just waitlist him? With 2270 SATs and amazing ECs, he got into W&M, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, WashU and WL at Columbia. In addition to his acceptances, all schools offered him fabulous merit based scholarships or special placement. But G’town? Ha!!</p>
<p>In summary, DO NOT expect GEORGETOWN to give you a fair read if you make any changes (if at all).</p>
<p>My oldest finished all her ED application stuff on time (including transcripts and letters of recommendation)</p>
<p>Filled out but did not submit the common application portion for her RD schools in advance</p>
<p>Worked on drafts of the school specific essays for her RD schools</p>
<p>Asked teachers and GC for RD recommendations and transcripts … but also told them she was applying ED to a school and that they could wait to start until she heard from her ED school. (no idea if they worked on them in advance or not)</p>
<p>Did not ask for scores to be forwarded until after ED decision.</p>
<p>Basically, she did some of the grunt work in parallel with the ED applicatioon but left all the things others needed to do or cost money until after the ED decision came back. Overall this worked very well for her (and us since it saved us over $1000) however it only worked because she would have been OK finishing about a dozen essays in the time span between the ED decision and RD application deadline; some kids would not work well with that time pressure (and some kids won’t start their essays to a day or two before they are die anyways)</p>
<p>My son applied ED. He had his RD list of colleges to which he’d apply if the ED school didn’t work out, and he had his teacher recs sent ahead of time to those schools, as well as his transcripts. He did not send in the Common App or send his test scores to all the schools as that would have involved additional cost.</p>
<p>Had his ED school not worked out, he would have fired off his SAT scores and his Common App to all those other schools. His basic Common App essays had already been written, of course, so he would have to had written any additional essays over his Christmas break, but that would have been very do-able.</p>
<p>In the end he was accepted to his ED school, so none of that had to happen. However, approximately 10 other colleges got his transcripts and letters of rec. And, yes, they will collect all that stuff and hold it until an application is complete, at which point they’ll review it on whatever their schedule is.</p>
<p>That’s a great question. D’s ED I school does defer, but she really does like the ED II school as well, so I think it’s a strong possibility that she would just ED II there and call it a day. (Personally, I’d rather see her at the ED II school than the ED I, but not my call to make.)</p>
<p>S’s ED I school was one of those that historically was “in or out” at the ED level … meaning, if you were denied early decision, you were done. Just last year, they started deferring. Ugh, that’ll be a toughie. You people aren’t helping me here :-)</p>
<p>Limabeans - Georgetown is on my S’s list (it’s sort of a hail mary pass, I think, with sub-20% acceptance rates) but because their EA precludes ED elsewhere, and there are no diffs in the EA and RD acceptance rates there, S is just going to go RD at Gtown and hope that lightning strikes :-)</p>
<p>When did your kids start writing essays (or drafts)? My son was very lazy and did everything last minute. I don’t recommend that. Have at least a few done before Septermber. Although that might seem like a miracle for some kids.</p>
<p>Mine are about 85% done with their common app essays. S has written some of his top-school supplements, D not quite yet. I told them to start over the summer and use the time wisely.</p>
<p>Yes, that would be a ideal time to do it…and if one can get one’s kids to do that, that would be fantastic. I looked at an essay a few days back, almost done, great planning by the kid!</p>
<p>BTW, this is also why I think deferral from ED is a complete racket. I had more respect for S’s ED school when, indeed, their policy was “in or out, babes” and think that their move towards deferring is not a good thing. I’m at least hopeful that they are a low-deferral school – that is, they don’t do those stupid courtesy deferrals where everyone and his brother gets deferred til RD / put on a waitlist.</p>
<p>D1 is contemplating ED for her top reach school. She knows it’s a reach, and is planning on completing all of her other apps on the assumption she won’t hear good news in December. 3togo’s strategy will be what we’ll use. I feel that if the apps are completed and ready to go that there is no harm in waiting before paying for app fees and testing reports. The only exceptions will be our in-state public (Nov 30 deadline), an OOS safety with rolling admissions, and an OOS low match with early action. The OOS schools are free apps, so the expense for those is only the testing reports.</p>
<p>I like to think of the $$$ saved as a couple of round trip plane flights to visit. That’s worth a certain amount of potential scrambling. </p>
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<p>Same with D1. She will only send her SAT scores to UC (which requires SAT IIs, even with the ACT) and National Merit. For the rest, she’ll send just her ACTs. I’ve been calling schools to find out which will superscore the ACT; no sense in sending two reports if the school only looks at a single sitting.</p>
<p>Good questions. My son struggled with how to submit EA when the schools used Common App and he was still trying to get all of the essays right. In the end he just did all RD, and in his case it was no big deal. So we never figured out if there was a way to stagger Common App to different colleges.</p>
<p>My oldest and youngest both applied ED and were luckily accepted at their first choice schools. One good piece of advice I was given was to have the boys complete a few of the other applications FIRST…as a way of getting things perfected for the most important application . So each of the boys completed a few of the rolling admission-type applications…and getting a couple of early acceptances made the wait for the ED decision a little bit easier. Of course, once the ED acceptances were received, the boys declined the offers of admittance they had already received.</p>
<p>Yes. I’ve heard that as soon as a school gets any item related to a student’s application, they open a file, and start gathering.</p>
<p>My S applied ED, and also applied to a rolling admissions safety and another school with an early deadline for merit scholarships. He had his high school send transcripts and reference letters to ALL of the schools he wanted to apply to before he knew if he would get in ED or not, because of the timing. Notification was Dec 15, and other applications were due between Jan 1 and 15, and the high school wanted 2 full school weeks notice to send a transcript. He had the common apps for all of the other schools ready to go, except he hadn’t done all of the special essays. Had he not gotten accepted ED, it would have been a busy Christmas break getting all of the essays done.</p>
<p>He didn’t send test scores to the second batch of schools, since there would have been time between Dec 15 and Jan 1 to send ACT and SAT scores if needed, so why pay the money?</p>
<p>D1 did ED at a school where she thought she had a fairly good chance. She didn’t work on other schools’ applications as much as she should have. When she got deferred from ED, we spent remainder of Dec to get 10+ applications done. She was writing most of her essays in tears.</p>
<p>Second time around with D2 in two years…We will push to get ALL applications done by Thanksgiving. If there are any rolling admission schools on the list, she will get them out as soon as possible. She will hold off on sending RD applications out until she receives her ED/SCEA decision. I don’t think she will do any ED IIs.</p>
<p>My advise to any first timer is to have all applications done before ED/EA decision comes out. It is very hard to focus to do a good job on RD applications if rejected by ED/EA.</p>
<p>To me, Dec 15 to Jan 1 is “no time at all.” That’s when I envision the internets breaking, the credit card being declined, the College Board being overwhelmed, the impact of the holidays, etc.</p>
That’s worth a certain amount of potential scrambling. </p>