For my eldest DD, she had a variety of schools she was interested i. No clear favorite right up until the end. I wanted for her to get some merit to ensure college was affordable. She did not apply ED nor did I suggest it.
For youngest DD, I thought one of our state colleges would match what she was looking for and be affordable. I had her visit it early in Junior year. SHe also visited a bunch of others in the spring of Junior year… So come senior year , I asked her if she wanted to think about applying ED to State College…she kept comparing everything to it and it was affordable for us full pay…and she has a terrible time making decisions and I thought this would save her from having to choose in the spring. She did apply ED, got in, and is currently a Senior!
I agree w/ those who have said it makes sense for some, not so much for others.
S19 has 2 schools that he ranks very closely and he loves them both. The first is a marginally better academic fit, but there are a few things about it that he’s not especially thrilled about (namely, campus housing). He has about a 50-60% chance of getting accepted. So, not great. The second, he’s a shoe in for acceptance (about 95%). There’s virtually nothing he doesn’t like about the school except for his academic department not being as good as the first school.
So we went thru several rounds of discussion with him & he decided to apply ED to the school with the lower chance of acceptance and EA to the other. Like I said, he loves both schools & will likely flourish at either. So even though there was no clear front runner, this made sense to him. What clinched it for him was when we asked him if he wanted to continue his last HS semester still undecided, or would he like it to be over with before he went back after Xmas Break. That resonated with him, as a spring athlete especially!
I went ED and loved it - it was so nice to know where I was going and relax a little before winter break.I was pretty easy going and would have been happy at lots of places though so I think that helped. My parents were full pay and said I could go for it if I had one favorite. I had two favorites on paper, they drove me to both to visit and to show me how far away they were from home. One was 12 hours the other 6 1/2. I decided I liked the option of driving home once in a while so I did ED at the closer school. Had the best 4 years ever, met my husband and am going back (takes about 9 hours travel time from FL!) for our reunion next year.
D19 on the other hand does not want to do ED. Like @Turquoise52 I encouraged her to do it if she found a clear favorite. I think she has a top 2 and only 1 has ED, but she is not good at making decisions and says she just can’t make such a huge one right now. I explained the extra bump in admissions chances especially because we know some top students form our school also applying but she was adamant that she was not ready so she is applying EA.
American’s common data set section C7 says that “level of applicant’s interest” is “very important”, so it is not surprising that there is a huge difference in applying there ED (the strongest possible expression of interest) versus RD (where apparently many apply thinking that it is a “backup” behind Georgetown or George Washington).
ED is good for a subset of kids. It isn’t good for everyone though. My oldest applied EA to his first choice (CWRU) because they didn’t have ED. My middle went to Belmont, which is rolling. My youngest applied ED to Haverford. The older 2 were happy where they landed. Youngest is happy also.
My DD has applied EA to Parsons but probably would have done ED if they’d offered it, and she’ll probably treat it like ED anyway. My wife took her on an extensive college tour and D did plenty of research, and she’s confident the Parsons BBA in strategic design and management is the program for her. She would have many other options given her grades (in an overseas IB program) and scores, but her safety school is also her first choice, which is cool.
@ucbalumnus AU is very upfront about how much they value ED and Interest. They talked about it in our Info session and had a separate presentation during a preview day for ED. They don’t want to be a “safety” school for Gtown. High stats students are especially disadvantaged by this during the RD round. They told us the kids who ED are their most involved students and they tend to stay for four years. They want involved, committed and happy students. Not kids who are disappointed to attend because they were rejected by Gtown or GW. If you like GW, I’m not sure AU is a fit for you anyway. The campus type and vibe are very different.
Maybe it’s just an anomaly with my kid’s school, but AU has a very strange scattergram chart on Naviance. The highest stat kids (i.e., upper right of the chart) all got wait listed while a large grouping of applicants with lower stats got admitted. Just looking at the chart, you would think that it’s actually an advantage to apply there with good, but not outstanding stats. Maybe a case of Tufts syndrome.
@TheBigChef That scattergram is exactly why my DS applied ED. High Stats students are more likely to be viewed as using AU as a safety in the RD round.
While I appreciate the caution in applying ED, i believe my daughter regrets not doing it. She had a first choice school that she waffled on many times throughout the process and she applied RD (only offered ED & RD). In the end she was waitlisted, a list they never used. We believe she would have gotten in ED. She still talks about trying to transfer there.
If all of your child’s top choices are reaches I would seriously consider going ED. Our personal experience was that last year was a brutal year. She did get into her safeties and waitlisted to number of matches & top choice reach.
Cof22mom - I sympathize with your situation. Another phenomenon is the kid who regrets “wasting” his/her ED applying to a top choice with a low acceptance rate instead of using it on a second choice school with a slightly higher acceptance rate. For example: “If I had applied to Wesleyan ED instead of Brown, I probably could have gotten in. Instead I ended up getting rejected by both schools.” It can really mess with your mind.
My DD did ED in conjunction with sports recruiting. It was not stressful because after an overnight she was comfortable with the team and school, and after a financial pre-read I was comfortable with the cost. Muhlenberg has a really late ED date though (Feb 14?) so it hardly fits the standard definition.
Given that American University says that “level of applicant’s interest” is “very important” and what @sahmkc said that they openly said about not wanting to be anyone’s “safety” in #26, that is an expected result.
The rich people here - of course they don’t consider themselves rich - will go on and on about how ED is wonderful. But for the folks who have to compare FA offers, ED is just more proof that the system is tilted in favor of those who can afford it.
@3puppies You can opt out if the FA doesn’t work. We are no where near full pay. We used net calc’s and had the schools our S was most interested in do early estimators for us to at least get a ballpark if the FA would be enough before he applied.
@ChaosParent23 - right, but that presumes you can afford not to have to choose the best offer. The Net Price Calculators may be several hundred, up to few thousand off from the full FA offers. The NPC may ask 10-15 questions, instead of the 100+ questions asked on the full FA application, so it is only an estimate. Many families are fine with it - and it is of course way better than having no idea whatsoever. But for a lot of families, even a few hundred bucks means a big difference. My point is that many of the people who contribute to CC are not in this position, and either don’t remember, or don’t understand, how tough it really is.
We are responding to OP based on her family’s situations. She said they were full pay and didn’t have to worry about finance. I don’t think anyone here is saying ED is right for everyone.
…but then you have given up the chance to compare offers that may vary by hundreds or thousands of dollars a year, and classes are varying levels of full by RD. FA can “work” if the parent decides to spend any savings or give up health insurance or something, but another offer may have allowed them not to have to do that. With ED, they’ll never know.
I agree that in a full pay situation, ED can make sense.
@ChaosParent23 We did the same and are happy so far. We weren’t going to make our kid take the best deal if she had a strong preference anyway as long as it was in the range we could pay. We also have very uncomplicated finances so the estimate from her ED school was very accurate.
oh,I get it, you want to have the ability to “choose the best offer”, great, in essence you want the field tilted in your favor. Nothing wrong with that, but colleges would rather have those who want to be there not the ones who are getting the most aid. The system is in balance with ED/EA/RD.