Anyone trying to convince their S or D of the benefit of applying ED? I just failed in that endeavor as follows:
Me: Not applying ED may eliminate one of your top schools from your options.
D: Yeah, and applying ED eliminates all of my other options.
Mama can’t argue with that. No ED app in our house.
ED isn’t a magic bullet and it isn’t right for all (or even most) students, so I wouldn’t have tried to convince my kid to go ED.
What you’ve described above is a very good discussion and summary of the benefits and risks. Your D appears to understand the options and consequences and is making a reasonable choice. As long as she has a few realistic safety/match options, sounds like a level headed kid who will do well.
Thanks @milee30, I agree with you. She will be just fine, wherever she goes. I pushed because it was such a clear favorite for her when we visited and she interviewed. I think she is at least partly not applying ED out of fear of committing then being rejected. But she knows herself best and if she is not sure, she is absolutely right not to apply ED.
Kids change so fast at this age, and it’s quite possible she’ll change again between now and May 1. Sounds like a smart kid.
For a minute there, I thought this thread belonged in the Cafe. 
@Turquoise52, yep in concurrence with you 
My daughter said about the same thing, “I will change so much in 9 months. I dont want to just commit to one school I like them all.”
She doesnt care about stats. Her previous favorite Davidson dropped after her overnight. “Still cool far too many drugs from what I saw. I wouldnt go even if I was accepted.”
My daughter didn’t ED anywhere either. Her favorite programs only had EA.
If your kid has interest of getting into some top schools where ED matters, I am just going to be very blunt to say she is throwing a free option away. Her RD chance of getting some of those schools is a lot lower during RD.
I agree with your D. I think ED should only be utlitzed if 1) an applicant has a very definite #1 choice and 2) if the family has no need to compare financial offers between schools. The answer of “to ED or not to ED” will be different for different families and for different children within the same family. If the OP’s D isn’t ready to commit, then best to forego ED.
@oldfort I know. That was my point to her; that is the risk she is taking. She is adamant and understands the consequence. In the face of that, I must cede the argument.
My daughter just did ED - but hates the idea that she might not know if she would have gotten accepted to other places. I don’t think it’s the commitment that she is uncomfortable with.
D1’s college application process was probably the worst ever. It was not over until mid May. Not something I would want to wish on anyone.
I hired a private consultant for D2. As we were full pay, we didn’t have to compare FA. D2 did a spreadsheet on a handful schools she would absolutely attend (not one). She then weighted on her probability of getting into each school ED vs RD (with the help of her consultant), and how much she liked one vs another to select her ED school. The school she selected was the one she knew she had the best chance of getting in during ED, and it was also the one she wouldn’t look back and regret. Did she think it was going to be 10 out of 10 relative to other schools on her list? No. There were probably 2 she would have liked better, but she was not going to take the chance of getting rejected by one of those 2 during ED and then getting rejected by her ED school during RD.
It happened to D1. It took a lot for us (me really) to get her off her WL schools. As long as your D is comfortable with her decision…At the same time, college application is probably the first time our kids get rejected/disappointed. Unless it is due to finance, I think most consultants would advice their clients to do ED or some sort of early admission.
If you read some earlier threads on ED, there are many people who claim ED is unfair because it gives full pay students advantage over other students. If you could afford to, why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?
@oldfort I can remember my own personal decision way back when went into early June. I was actually enrolled in two schools. One was a full-ride and the other was need based. Some funds came in last second and I went to the need based school. Some guy probably got lucky and didn’t have a roommate for the first semester.
@oldfort you are preaching to the choir, and we are full pay, but I am not going to require her to apply ED. Our counselor is not recommemding it either. D19’s list is eclectic - she hasn’t yet decided whether school spirit or collaborative community is more important to her. At this point, the only school she would be utterly unhappy to attend is anywhere I forced her to apply ED, even if I for a moment would consider doing that in the face of her strong opposition and I would not. Since they were babies, I’ve told my girls that I will guide, provide advice, strongly suggest, clear the path sometimes, disagree vehemently, and even push hard for what I think is best, but the choices and the consequences are all theirs. And I meant it. I will always be here with open arms, but choices and consequences belong to them.
Flip that script for D and I 4 years ago!
She wanted to apply ED to her then favorite (she’d done summer programs there…). I wouldn’t let her, mainly for financial reasons but also because I suspected she’d change and mature over senior year and want the time with options open.
She had several terrific choices (not the ED school which did indeed reject her RD) and is attending one of them that is frankly much better for her (and me, FA-wise) than the ED school would have been.
I’m not an ED fan.
I have no problem with ED, after all no one is required to apply ED. For some ED works, others EA, and others RD. Just choose the one that works for you.
Our D is currently a senior at the college where she applied ED and was accepted (they didn’t have an EA option then, but do now). She has been thriving there, and she probably could thrive at multiple colleges. Still, I think our entire family doesn’t regret her ED decision. We’re not sure she would have been admitted had she applied in the RD cycle.
When she was in high school and she had narrowed down her college list to about a half dozen or so, we used the Parchment and Cappex websites to predict her chance of admission to those colleges. We also visited the top three colleges on her list, including the one she ultimately applied to ED, which became her top choice. That college visit, which included her sitting on a few classes and the campus tour helped her with the decision.
The good news for our family was that her college search was relatively drama free and she was offered admission to her top choice college before Christmas of her senior year in high school.
The decision criteria is different for every family and situation. Our D received several EA acceptance letters before she received her acceptance letter from her ED college. From our experience, the Parchment and Cappex predictions of admission chances for her were remarkably accurate, although I can’t speak for the experiences of anyone else who has used those sites.
If possible, I recommend trying to visit colleges your S or D might consider applying ED to.
My DS went ED and is now a freshman at American. It was his top choice by far and the acceptance rates for ED (90%) versus RD (23%) are extreme. He is very happy and has not had adjustment issues. I would not have wanted to take the chance of him being rejected in the RD round. So for our situation, ED was the best choice. ED is not for everyone and each family should weigh the pros and cons for their situation. DD is not going to ED, she has applied EA to her top choices and we hope to have acceptances in hand by Xmas.
For D17 , she wanted to go ED to her top school, but because on paper we might have been thought as full pay, she ended up going RD, and in the meantime had gotten into EA schools, so it was wait until March 30th. We got lucky that she did get in , and got merit. If she had not, she did still have a solid number 2. Now for S19, we are doing ED at his top school. They have a liberal ED policy that allows you to drop to RD if you dont like the finacial numbers. It is clearly his top choice. WE still have other schools , including safety just in case though.
My point, it is really is a kid by kid situation, even in the same family. Our risk with D17 worked out, but even if it did not, she had other choices.
I think ED is great for a kid who is very mature and 100% sure of that 1 school.
We have a sort of funny story in that our oldest S did not fall into the above-stated category. In fact, he would not even research the colleges suggested to him. (We realized later he was avoiding anything college-related out of fear of moving on).
Anyway, his HS kept pushing that he should apply ED to one of the schools where he had legacy status. We refused. My H was afraid S might actually get in! And, we’d be on the hook for 70k a year for a kid who just didn’t seem a good fit for a top school. S was beyond angry at the time because, according to him, “everyone” else’s parents were allowing them to apply ED.
S is now very happy at his RD school (and we are very happy that he received some merit aid). Based on his trajectory thus far, those legacy schools would not have been a good fit for him.
ED is not best for every kid, and I think the GC’s should stop pushing it on every student as the answer to the ever decreasing admission rates.