I’m trying to decide whether to let my daughter apply ED to Skidmore - it is a perfect fit for her and by far her first choice after visiting pretty much all the LACs in driving distance of Boston. She has 31 ACT, 2070 SAT, GPA 4.64 out of 5 (unweighted, 3 APs). I should qualify for some finaid (CSS calculator says about $40k EFC - twins - so around 22k each).
I want to optimize her chances of getting into her first choice by going ED at Skidmore, but I’m worried that I am losing the option to compare financial packages.
Your daughter’s scores seem to put her above the 75th percentile for both ACT and SAT. As Skidmore has a 36% admission rate for females (according to NCES’s College Navigator), I would not think she would need to so drastically restrict her options as to go ED.
I would recommend using her love for Skidmore as a way to focus her list of colleges, to create a final list of colleges she likes, and which you can afford. Certainly apply to Skidmore–and the application should be easy for her to fill out. She should have no problem demonstrating why it’s a perfect fit.
It would be heartbreaking for her to be unable to attend Skidmore if you couldn’t afford it. As there’s a twin in the mix, do you really want to potentially have to balance one child’s ED love with another’s choices?
Generally, you don’t apply ED when FA is important, and in this case, where the stats are so favorable, I would just apply RD. Or, possibly apply elsewhere EA to get a sense of how things are stacking up, and apply ED2 (Jan 15, same date as RD ).
Good luck. Btw, I’m not trying to discourage you because we will also be applying ED; it’s honestly what I’d do in your shoes. Our situation is somewhat higher scores and unfortunately much lower GPA.
Thanks all. I didn’t want to be overly confident about her likelihood of getting in - it would kill me if she applied RD, didn’t get in and could have gotten in ED. She is going to go for a day visit in a couple of weeks - more demonstrated interest can’t hurt either!
I am also in the Boston area and Skidmore is one of the schools my son is considering. I think it is different for New England/Northeast kids – it is tougher, as a lot apply to the schools in the Northeast, while the schools want to diversif geographically. I think your odds improvewith ED. Do you have Naviance at her school? Take a look at the stats for how many students were accepted each year. It won’t tell you if they applied RD or ED, though.
It might. I don’t have access to our high school’s Naviance and while the scatterlots didn’t show early vs regular admissions there was another part of the way they present the info where they would give the raw numbers of how many applied early and how many were accepted. I think they also had a high and low SAT and GPA for them - maybe a mean or average too. I feel like I’ve seen scatterplots from other schools that had more info as well.
In our HS the Naviance that students/parents get do not break out by ED/RD but the guidance counselors have much more detailed information on their system. You could check with the guidance counselor to see if he/she has those stats.
I can offer the tale of two admission cycles in our family. We also toured all the LAC’s within 8 hours driving time of Massachusetts. D1 applied to Skidmore RD with a 2020 SAT, 7AP’s and with 3.7 unweighted GPA/high class rank from our high performing suburban high school. She was waitlisted with a letter stating that there was no guarantee of financial aid if she were to be admitted off the waitlist and would not be eligible to receive aid until her junior year. She needed to be funded approximately 60% so that was a non-starter. She was admitted to other higher ranked LAC’s with her full need met. D2 applied and was accepted ED at Skidmore and her aid award was within $100 of the net price calculator. Her stats were slightly lower than D1- 1960 SAT, 3 AP’s, 3.4 unweighted GPA and much lower class rank. Another classmate of D2’s with similar courseload (they in fact were in several of the same classes together), slightly higher grades, lower SAT’s, and identical EC’s applied RD during D2’s admission cycle and was waitlisted. Skidmore is not easy to predict. I believe that their admissions are not quite as stats driven and is a bit more holistic, creating a class that is unbelievably creative and diverse. I also believe that they are much more need aware during RD. If you search on their website for “faculty meetings” and read the minutes from the meeting there are status reports from the Head of Admissions several times a year which details what they are trying to accomplish during each admission cycle. They state that for the class of 2018 they were overbudget in Financial Aid during that admission cycle and their goal for the class of 2019 was to come in underbudget. They in fact did yield an incoming class this year that was underbudget. To the OP, to me, it sounds as if your daughter is the right kind of student for ED and if I were you, I would try to meet with someone from financial aid and/or admissions to determine if ED will work for you while you re-visit.
Is Skidmore the only college at which your daughter could thrive? I suspect that’s not true–she could find her niche at many different colleges. I suggest you would do her a great favor by not allowing her to back herself into the mental corner of “Only Skidmore.”
Certainly, she should apply, and she should make clear that it’s her first choice. However, with $40K EFC with two children, you don’t have the financial freedom to take any financial deal that’s offered.
My D had nearly the exact stats as your daughter and is attending as a freshman this year. She also received fantastic aid. That being said, lots of kids with these stats don’t get in, its a crapshoot. D didn’t get into a few schools we thought were a slam-dunk given comparable stats etc so you never know.
Hi! I am an international student also applying ED to Skidmore. I want to know, are there too few international students on campus? I know Skidmore is trying to become more diverse over the years, but will the small international population give me a slight edge in the admissions process? Especially if I am from a South Asian country like Pakistan?