<p>Especially at top schools, it's a mistake to think that ED improves your chances. ED is the time when the schools take the majority of athletes they are recruiting. It is also the time the take most of the legacies. They do have a better chance ED at top schools. The schools also take a lot of kids, minorities, from programs like A Better Chance in the ED round. The average applicant gets little or no boost. Statistics are often not what they seem to be on the surface. So please people, stop telling innocent applicants that have a great shot ED!!</p>
<p>so is ED good or no?</p>
<p>Ehhh...Please...Canuckeh, even though you might <em>work</em> in an admissions office...please don't act like an admissions officer. Read "Early Admissions Game", its written by two or three Harvard Professors. The whole book is centered around the benefits of Early Admissions (yes, inclusive of your "minorities" and "recurited athletes"). And, it says that if you apply Early Decision, add 100 points to your SAT score...And at this point, after talking to a few admission officers myself...ED helps. EA...on the other hand, does very little. And, since schools like Yale, Penn, and Harvard fillled almost half of their class with ED/EA applicants, are you saying that almost half of the schools' populations are "legacies, recurited athletes (very few), and minorities"? And plus, the way you generalize the many minority applicants is just plain insulting.</p>
<p>And, eh, yeah, one extra note. Penn's Dean of Admissions, Lee Stetson, who is an advocate for ED, says flat out that Early Decision works to both the school's and the applicant's advantage, it does equal a 100 pt increase on your SATs...</p>
<p>These posts of yours are really quite annoying. My friend, who is currently attending Princeton, who, according to you, would not have had a snowflake's chance in hell's chance of being admitted, works a aide/student assistant in Princeton's admissions office around this time of the year too. He tells me the kind of jobs the students get with the admissions office...and according to what he told me, you do not have the authority to make these kind of comments! GOSH!</p>
<p>Well catch-22, this is really a catch 22. You can keep dreaming or get real. Listen, no insults here, but minority stats at top colleges are well below the overall stats as a whole. Just a fact. I agree AA should be happening and diversity is important on every campus. It's also a fact that athlete stats are lower, quite a bit in fact. And then there are legacy/development candidates that slip in. Do these groups make up 50% of an ivy campus? You betcha! As for my work-study job, it is indeed mostly grunt work. However, the adcoms are nice enough to engage in discussion with me. Hey, my point here is that it's crazy to be telling white and Asian kids who do not have something totally extraordinary and an under 1500 SAT that they have a good chance. They might have a chance, but it's certainly not good at HYPMS and several others! Period!!</p>
<p>And exactly, that's why they apply ED. Under ED policy, it is literally +100 SAT Points! My friend says this...at least, it applies to Princeton! </p>
<p>Sucks for the kids applyin' to Yale I guess if Canuckeh's for real...</p>
<p>OK catch 22, we all believe that Princeton is just teeming with 1400s with nothing spectacular who applied early!</p>
<p>Well, I am NOT SAYING THAT THE WHOLE APPLICANT POOL to PTON is 1400s...its just that its a freakin' stupid generalization for you to make based on SATs. I mean, PTON is NOT filled with 1580s neither...believe me...I visited my friend, and it's not! The kids who wants to go the Princeton/Penn/ED schools just have to make up their ok score of 1400+ (And yes, 1400+ is ok...since its better than ALMOST ALL OF AMERICA!) by making themselves stand out. For god sakes, read the CC Archives from last year, the ED and RD applicant pools...yes! There were plenty of 1500+ who got accepted, but also plenty of them rejected and plenty of 1400+ accepted ALL OVER THE PLACE. Those kids didn't have their own country, those kids didn't have legacies (I happen to know like four of them), those kids didn't invent something remarkable...They were just what the colleges <em>looked</em> for. I just simply think you are too damn opinionated about this process. It brings to mind a scene from "Two Weeks Notice"...</p>
<p>"You are the most selfish human being on this planet"
"Well, that's ridicuolous, have you met everybody on this planet?"</p>
<p>Look dude, my only point is to get kids thinking about realistic choices. Go ahead and add 100 SAT points. Even a 1550 has to have something extraordinary to get into HYPMS. A good solid student with good teacher recs and a few clubs is not going to get in. Cornell? Maybe. The others, no way.</p>
<p>What would you deem as something extrodinary? I think you are referring to BWRKs... "Bring-well-rounded-kids." If that, then, I agree, the chances are quite slim (sadly).</p>
<p>Typical at Yale: Published authors, olympic athletes, kids recognized for many achievement on a national level or even international, kids of the rich and famous, kids who overcame unbelievable adversity, kid's who run successful businesses on the side, kids who speak 5 languages and have seen the whole world.....Well rounded straight A students who started their high school French club? No.</p>
<p>ED is an advantage. No need to argue. Taken from the Cornell website:</p>
<p>oh wow animosity</p>
<p>ed/ea is of little help at most schools, and the avg. student is not going to get any boost at all</p>
<p>How can you say you need above a 1500 for all these top schools. If the average score is in the mid-1400's, then that means that HALF of the student body has lower than that.</p>
<p>And don't even try to tell me that a school fills up half its class with minorities, legacies and atheletes, because that isn't true.</p>
<p>Well, first, ;ool up the difference between average and median. Amazing what a bunch of athletes can do to the average. Look, why do you think nine plus out of ten are rejected from top schools? Because a lot of people who don't understand how this works apply. Yale doesn't want to change that.</p>
<p>If you look at PR's Best 357 Colleges book, it shows the % accepted regular vs. ED. For some schools, there is not much of a difference, for a few, like American U, ED acceptance rate is actually less than regular. But for many, ED has higher acceptance rates. For instance, Dickinson's regular acceptance is 52%, their ED is 74%. I'd say that is quite a bit higher.</p>
<p>It's not like athletes aren't semi-qualified though - like they have 900s or something. I know guys that got recruited with 1350, 1440, and 1490. I know another that got into Princeton with a 1280. The coach had to pull some major strings for him.</p>
<p>"Typical at Yale: Published authors, olympic athletes, kids recognized for many achievement on a national level or even international, kids of the rich and famous, kids who overcame unbelievable adversity, kid's who run successful businesses on the side, kids who speak 5 languages and have seen the whole world.....Well rounded straight A students who started their high school French club? No."</p>
<p>How much do you think having lived in 4 countries and speaking 3 (and learning a 4th) helps? I didn't touch on this on my essays or app very much - was that a very big mistake?</p>
<p>Many schools that yield manage give a large advantage to ED apps. Schools like this include Emory, Northwestern, and even Cornell at the top level. Other places use it less. This is common knowledge.</p>