<p>If you are at all relying on financial aid to help you go to school and don’t have a reasonable expectation that you could afford Swarthmore no matter the circumstances, do not apply Early Decision. One component of ED is that you are 100% sure you can go there. Another component of ED is that you have to be sure you can afford it, too.</p>
<p>There is absolutely no evidence that Early Decision is an admissions boost, and admissions officers constantly deny that it is. A student who wouldn’t get in during the regular decision round likely won’t get in during the Early Decision round, either, and a student who gets in during the Early Decision round probably also would’ve gotten in had they applied regular decision. The admissions rates are higher with ED, but that’s because ED applicants tend to be a self-selecting crowd with already high stats who likely would’ve gotten in regardless of when they applied.</p>
<p>I don’t know why people are so eager to disregard what they will get straight from the mouths of admissions officers, time and time again, for illogical and fallacious speculation. It’s probably because people want to feel like they have some sort of control over the process.</p>
<p>I think it’s kind of presumptuous in a rather amusing way to assume that only Swarthmore, out of the over 3,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. has the faculty exertise to teach you in your field of interest – especially at the undergraduate level.</p>
<p>“I have no way to measure this, but anecdotally, I know among my kids’ friends, the ones that have gotten into very selective schools have most applied under some kind of early app --ED or EA, but mostly ED.”</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence doesn’t prove anything, and how do you know that your kids’ friends wouldn’t have gotten in regular decision, either?</p>
<p>With that, I strongly disagree. I’ve sat in quite a few admission sessions. When asked, EVERY admission rep admitted that binding ED was a boost from a “few points” (Dartmouth) to “ten percent” (Duke). Not one rep, not one, said it added zero value to unhooked candidates.</p>
<p>Applying ED is one of the best ways of showing an applicant’s level of interest in a school. Schools that publish their Common Data Set disclose to what extent an applicant’s level of interest is factored into admission decisions. Check out section C7 to see whether your school considers level of interest to be very important, important, considered, or not considered.</p>
<p>In all written communications with admissions officers, they will say that ED has no effect. If they do say that in admissions committee meetings, that’s not what they are telling the general public (and publishing and saying in public statements and such). Again, like I said, there is no <em>evidence</em> that this is the case besides a couple of people’s anecdotes, which is not viable evidence.</p>
<p>and vossron, that’s only if a student is offered a financial aid offer that makes attendance impossible, not “my parents don’t want to pay this” or “this will cause us a bit of financial difficulty”. What is the point of an ED agreement if a student can just get out of it whoever? You can decline the offer only if it does not make attendance possible, which lines up with my statement that you should be sure you can afford it.</p>
<p>ED definitely counts. The percentage of accepted students, as at other competitive schools, is higher for EDs than it is for RDs (because it reflects positively on calculated yuield in college ranking measures). Swarthmore is generous in its estimation of family need, and, as stated in a prior post, you can withdraw if it does not meet your expectations. If you want to go there, apply ED. My son applied EA to Caltech, and when he was accepted, withdrew his aps to MIT, Princeton, et al. We have been very happy with the level of aid he has received, but most importantly, he is where he chose to be.</p>
<p>^^ The problem is that you can’t be sure you can afford it without applying. </p>
<p>The family makes the affordability decision, not the school. The point of applying ED is that it’s the one dream school, whether the family can afford it or not; if the FA offer is insufficient, the dreams are dashed. The point of ED for schools is that they can lock up promising applicants and it makes RD yields more predictable; losing some who can’t afford the offer is factored in and expected. I believe schools don’t want needy students to hesitate applying ED to their dream school out of fear the FA offer will be insufficient.</p>
<p>We read on these pages of cases where ED FA is considered both generous and stingy, certainly not consistently predictable.</p>
<p>I’ll throw in my 2 cents to a couple of the points that are being made and this is just my opinion based on my experience this year from my daughter applying to schools.</p>
<p>With some schools early decision helps, to what degree probably varies between schools. My daughter’s first choice was Middlebury which fills up half their freshman class with early decision candidates. They don’t relax the standards for these candidates but a school like Middlebury gets way more qualified applicants than they can accept. I don’t care what the admission representative says, when a school fills up that much of their class with early decision then that is an easier way to be accepted.</p>
<p>My daughter couldn’t go the early decision route because we needed to shop around for financial aid. We couldn’t afford the sticker price at a place like Middlebury and it looked like we were eligible to little or no need-based assistance from any school. I second the people who have been saying that if you need to compare financial aid packages then you can’t go early decision. From what I have been able to ascertain packages vary greatly between schools.</p>
<p>With all due respect, please post a source, any source, of published documentation that indicates that ED has no benefit.</p>
<p>fwiw: the only credentialed study (now ten years old) shows that ED has a 100 point test benefit. Before he retired, Lee Stetson from Penn was consistently clear of the benefits of ED…</p>
<p>Something I read from one admissions head; (paraphrase) “One big thing with ED is that we have more time to read your application. It’s easier to spend the time to get a sense of each applicant when we’re reviewing hundreds, rather than thousands of applications.”</p>
<p>That makes a lot of sense to me, and is no small benefit. </p>
<p>I think ED can be a very good thing in the right circumstances, and needing FA isn’t necessarily a reason not to do it, <em>depending</em> on the simplicity of the student’s family finances and the transparency of the school’s FA policies – and when loans are not packaged or are capped. Unfortunately the small number of schools with such aid policies are among the very hardest to get into.</p>
<p>When a student is not sure of where they want to go, or isn’t a candidate for one of those very selective schools with such generous aid policies, or family finances are such that aid is hard to predict and FA offers need to be compared… that’s a different situation.</p>
<p>I think ED helps a lot at some schools. I think it will help even more while the economy remains bad and private colleges outside of the top ones fill more seats with ED applicants to lock in paying customers and protect yield. I think at colleges where it helps significantly adcom are open about it.</p>
<p>I don’t think ED/EA helps these days at ivies accept for maybe Cornell and Penn to a small degree. As they get to the 15% accept mark I think that will also change. Even 5-7 years ago I think ED/EA helped at the ivies. But as things changed–aid packages getting better, some bowing out of an early round, the increased number of international applications, institutional priorities shifting to include broader socio-economic representation --early stopped mattering at many top schools.</p>
<p>At ivies EA/ED is largely a round for the hooked. At Dartmouth most of the 17% of the class that are recruited athletes and the 12% that are legacies are admitted then. Do the math, they take 400 out of just under 1050 ED.</p>
<p>the conclusion of your second Par is not logical (to me). The increase in scores, increase in apps, etc., should make ED even MORE important, IMO.</p>
<p>And, yes, due the math at D…there is STILL a difference, albeit small (which is what I’ve been saying all along). Regardless, just six months ago, the west coast Adrep clearly stated that ED gives a small benefit after “stripping out” all the special apps. And, since this person is the first reader of the apps, why is there reason NOT to believe her?</p>
<p>Blue, I think why it makes less of a difference now is that yield is more secure for these institutions given the huge numbers applying, increased competition and magnitude of difference in their aid vs. other school’s. And I think they’re not jumping at internationals to get representation when they know RD may well bring them more they want to compare. Also the desire for the first generation, low income students (14% this year at Dartmouth) who don’t apply ED.</p>
<p>I really think the top schools that are still in the ED game are there to lock in their athletes, legacies and top URMs.</p>
<p>I do think their are kids at these schools who benefit from showing the love. My son who got into Dartmouth last year ED without a hook is probably a good example. But he was a val at an extremely competitive school with very high scores. I think a Dartmouth looks at an applicant like that as decides to lock in a high stats kid they might lose to HYPSMC.</p>
<p>But I don’t think they give any breaks on stats ED–I don’t think they are letting in a kid who they would not let in RD. So what ‘help’ means in the eyes of your adcom is probably the question. I’ve personally heard that person’s boss say it doesn’t help. In my son’s case I think ED helped him become one of the high stats, white, private school kids they took from NYC that year. He may not have gotten in RD because there are so many applicants who look a lot like him and they won’t take them all despite great stats. But what many here continue to believe is that it will tip a kid in who doesn’t quite have the stats.</p>
<p>“Locking in” a high-stats kid is one distinct type of ED boost–the numerical standards may not be lower, but the overall standards often are. They might not let in a clearly subpar kid, but in a competitive season with thousands of apps, those high-stat kids start blurring together and who knows who will be accepted vs. waitlisted? JMHO.</p>
<p>Given two kids with the same stats and features, one applying ED and one RD, the school may take the ED kid and then not have room for the other (but similar) one at RD time.</p>