<p>My son's #1 Super Reach Dream School does not offer early decision. His #2 Also A Reach Dream School does, and applying ED dramatically increases the chances of acceptance there.</p>
<p>As a result, he isn't sure which approach to take.</p>
<p>One option: Apply ED to #2 Dream School. If rejected, then apply RD to #1 Super Reach along with other schools. This strategy undoubtedly gives him the best possible chance of getting into one of his top two choices. However, it may wipe out his already slim chances of attending #1 Super Reach.</p>
<p>Another option: Go all out for #1 Super Reach. Who knows? Maybe he will be one of the small number selected to attend. However, compared to the first option, this strategy greatly increases the likelihood that he will be rejected by both of his top choices and will end up attending his safety.</p>
<p>I know everyone says not to apply ED unless the school is absolutely the student's first choice. However, I'm sure there must have been others who faced a decision like this one where pursuing #1 Super Reach could result in overall rejection, while pursuing the second choice could lead to acceptance at the type of school that he hopes to attend. I'd be interested to hear others' experiences.</p>
<p>I suggest that he go all out for Super Reach Dream School because if he applies ED to #2 Dream school and gets in ED, he’ll always wonder if he would have gotten into his real dream school. This will be even more the case if he sees people with stats similar to his who get into his super reach.</p>
<p>He also needs to find a safety that he absolutely loves and would be delighted to go to.</p>
<p>My attitude toward ED is somewhat different than the norm here at CC. The few specific statistics I’ve seen on ED admitted students say that they are a typical cross section of the overall class. Common sense tells me that a school with a particular academic track record has no reason to accept students who are below that profile just because they apply ED. It’s just sensible to populate a major portion of your class (30%+/-) with a group of ED students who are representative of the overall school, defer a handful who are borderline and then wait and see how things turn out in the RD pool.</p>
<p>Where do your son’s stats fall for the two schools? If he is 25th%-tile or below for GPA and standardized tests then I don’t think ED is going to “save” him. But if he’s around the 50th%-tile for either of these reaches, then I think ED could be the tipping point in his favor.</p>
<p>I have no idea if this is accurate, but it has become my understanding that only those students who would likely to be admitted regardless are accepted ED AND that of those, a large percentage are athletes (regardless of division I, II or III), URM or have Alumni/Legacy connections. This said, I agree that no one should apply ED unless it truly is their number one school. Of course, this said, student could submit applications to both dream schools 1 & 2 at the exact same time and BOTH would perhaps recognize his early bird status. Of course, both could not care less either. If we’re talking HYP or similar, please note that all students will be of “perfect” quality and at some point it has nothing to do with qualifications, but everthing to do with at what point in the process you land on someone’s desk. Certainly these schools and their application numbers could make two and three very similar classes out of the same group of overall applicants.</p>
<p>Our experience was that S applied ED to his dream school with no expectations of acceptance and/or hooks because it is DI. At the same time, he could have pursued his number 2 and on using his athletic background and would have definitely been encouraged to apply ED to these schools. Even after rejection from said dream school, son did not want to apply EDII because after dream school, he wasn’t truly convinced. He ended up getting in to most of his other schools and certainly the top ones so he had options and has ended up at a great school.</p>
<p>The point: He never had to live with “what if” and while maybe not a big deal today, I think those kinds of things nag at you as the years go by.</p>
<p>"Of course, this said, student could submit applications to both dream schools 1 & 2 at the exact same time and BOTH would perhaps recognize his early bird status. Of course, both could not care less either. "</p>
<p>NSM, I didn’t read Modadunn’s advice as applying ED to two schools, rather that by getting the apps in early, the adcoms might read them while they’re fresh (i.e. October or Nov.) rather than when they’re dog tired (March).</p>
<p>This is a completely personal choice. Lots of kids choose Door #1, and lots of other kids choose Door #2. </p>
<p>As a matter of game theory, it’s a simple problem. In theory, you have to calculate the difference in value between SRDS and ARDS as well as the different probabilities of success, but in reality there would have to be a huge difference in value between the two schools for the Hold Out For Princeton Charming strategy to produce a higher expected value. For example, lets imagine two universities, that I’ll call Harvard and Dartmouth (for want of imagination). Student believes that if he applies to both RD, he has a 10% chance of admission to Harvard and a 15% chance of admission to Dartmouth. His expected return from that strategy is .235 D + .1(H-D) (where D = the value of Dartmouth and H = the value of Harvard). He believes that he has a 30% chance of early decision admission to Dartmouth. So, without contemplating the possibility of deferral, his expected return from the ED strategy is .37 D + .07 (H-D). The only way the ED strategy doesn’t produce a higher expected return is if H > 5.5 D. Which seems unlikely and unreasonable.</p>
<p>That example has lots of simplification, of course. It does not address potential financial aid differences, and it pretends that the probabilities of admission to Harvard and Dartmouth are independent of one another, when really they aren’t. It doesn’t take account of safety value, which if it is high will make the expected returns from the two strategies much closer. But none of that would change the basic idea that if a student likes Dartmouth anywhere near as much as he likes Harvard, it is rational to apply to Dartmouth ED.</p>
<p>I have made choices like that in my life. When I was 23, I might well have dreamed of marrying Debra Winger or Isabelle Adjani, but the probability of making that happen seemed low. Instead, I applied early decision to marry my wife (a strategy with a high probability of success), was accepted, and that was that. My life has not been poisoned by regret that I didn’t hold out for Debra Winger.</p>
<p>JHS: just saw Debra Winger in “Rachel Gets Married” last night on DVD; maybe if you would have “waited for her” she would have been a happier person in this movie; kinda scary…</p>
<p>LOL to Mrs. JHS: I’m sure you both made the right choice…</p>
<p>(I bet this is the first time that Debra Winger’s name was on CC…)</p>
<p>JHS: But did you mention to your wife that she was only #2 or #3 in your Dream Wife list? Are you sure she does not lurk on CC? :)</p>
<p>How much of a gap is there between Dream School 1 and Dream School 2? What, beyond applying early, might give the applicant an edge in admission at Dream School 2 (legacy, recruited athlete, talented artist, diversity…) The ED edge can be rather slim if one does not have one or more of these tips/hooks. If there is not a great deal to choose between the two schools and if the student feels that s/he could be very happy at School 2, then it’s okay to go for ED, provided that finances are not an issue.</p>
<p>Wow JHS - what a great approach to this question. Despite what my kids say - math clearly can be helpful. </p>
<p>Also keep in mind that ED “preference” often applies to legacies and definitely does not apply to applicants with lower stats. There are tens of thousands of kids with the same stats and early decision is a way of standing out to the ad coms, but it is just a factor.</p>
<p>“NSM, I didn’t read Modadunn’s advice as applying ED to two schools, rather that by getting the apps in early, the adcoms might read them while they’re fresh (i.e. October or Nov.) rather than when they’re dog tired (March).”</p>
<p>In that case, when it comes to applying RD to the top schools that lack rolling admissions, it doesn’t matter when you submit as long as you submit by their deadline.</p>
<p>Agree with NSM about when to submit. Between October and December, adcoms are too tied up with ED/EA applications to read RD apps, even if those are submitted in October. Plus, for RD, they ask for more info, such as first semester grades, and there is always a likelihood that applicants will submit more SAT scores and recs, so there is no point in reading early.</p>
<p>Stanford was my nephew dream school, even though his stats were less competitive than other students, but in the ball park. He was a legacy at Dartmouth, he liked the school, would have been happy there. Based on his stats with legacy hook and ED, his chance would have been higher than other students. It was another, “If I don’t try, I would always wonder…” He applied to Stanford EA, rejected, and rejected at Dartmouth during RD (and a lot of other schools, like so many other kids last year).</p>
<p>Unless your kid has better chance of getting into the super reach school relative to other students and it is THE school for him, I would try to increase his chance by applying ED to his second choice.</p>
<p>For me, it would depend on how close Choice #2 was to Choice #1, how slight the perceived chances are at Choice #1, and how great the perceived increase in the chances were at Choice #2 by applying ED. If the choices are close, chances at #1 are very slim and there’s an appreciable advantage to ED at #2, I’d advise my child to go for #2. I guess my theory is the old “a bird that’s at least looking at your hand is better than one in the bush.”</p>
<p>The real question about ED is whether an applicant gains an advantage in admissions that overcomes any shortfalls in their profile. Through sporadic and indifferent searching of the internet the only moderately consistent data I have found has been from Dartmouth.</p>
<p>The article offers some very interesting insight into the ED class. 62 (15.5%) of the 401 accepted were legacies, a significant number for sure but hardly overwhelming. 87% of the ED class graduated in the top 10% vs. 89% for the overall class (2008 stats). The average SATs for the ED group: 2137; 2008-2009 Total Class 50th%-tile SATs: 2140. In other words, for all the talk of hooks and advantages, the students admitted via ED looked academically “average” when compared to the rest of the student body. </p>
<p>Do legacies and athletes have an edge? Sure. But I’m beginning to question just how big a factor legacies truly are and at least at the elite level, their academic numbers still have to be competitive. </p>
<p>To the OP, I believe that the closer your son is to the 50th%-tile, the more ED will help you. Apply ED to the school that’s closest to his stats, which sounds like Dream School2.</p>
<p>I agree with applying ED to DreamSchool2. Truthfully, when you’re talking about very excellent, highly selective colleges, the subtle preferences a student has for one over the other probably has almost nothing to do with the quality of experience they’re going to have once they get there. It’s just too subjective and based on factors too intangible to waste a possible admissions boost from ED. That’s my opinion, but I am skeptical of the whole “falling in love with” certain colleges or being smitten with the idea of them or that sort of thing. At a certain level they will all be great… certainly <em>different</em> from each other in certain ways, but not inferior.</p>
<p>I advised my son not to even think in terms of Dream School, but to think of a variety of schools which he’d be happy (and lucky!) to attend. Then, from that list, we looked at financial aid, location, how his stats fell out compared to other admitted students, sports, academic programs, ED/RD admission rates, etc. He decided to apply ED to one of the very excellent schools on his list because it was a great school, he liked it a lot (but not to exclusion of other schools he liked a lot), and increasing his odds of acceptance through ED was WAY more important than dissecting slight differences between his subtle (and shifting) preferences of one excellent school over another.</p>
<p>It was a very good decision. He’s in that great school now, loves it, and is getting an amazing education.</p>
<p>I agree that ED admits look pretty much like RD admits as far as their stats go. The BIG difference is that in RD equally qualified applicants are rejected in very high numbers just because there isn’t room to admit them all. In ED those equally qualified applicants are more likely to get an acceptance.</p>
<p>Wow, what a great thread! To answer some of the questions that have been posted:</p>
<p>Yes, Super Reach Dream School is of the HYPSM variety, where admission can be a roll of the dice even for someone with perfect stats. </p>
<p>Son’s GPA, course rigor, awards and ECs are excellent. However, his standardized test results are a bit low for both schools – within the middle 50% but below the midpoint of that range.</p>
<p>He has a legacy connection at School #2, which could help a bit. I don’t know whether this matters more in ED than in RD.</p>
<p>I think this can be a major issue. However, it also cuts both ways. </p>
<p>If ds aims for Dream School #1 and ultimately gets rejected from both #1 and #2 (as Oldfort’s nephew did), he’ll always wonder if he would have gotten into School #2 had he applied ED.</p>
<p>So I’m not sure it is possible to escape the what-ifs and if-onlys.</p>