<p>My son, a rising senior, thinks he'd like to apply to either an ED school or a SCEA school as his first two choice schools. Since he will need significant aid, (we fall in the 70-80K range) should I strongly encourage him not to do ED? I know ED tends to have higher acceptance and I don't know anything about SCEA results. Both schools are incredibly difficult to get into but he likes them both very much so he's gotta try. I think he should just do the SCEA school and then if he doesn't get in (likely, I'm sure!), apply to all other schools RD (no ED II or anything like that).</p>
<p>And, to complicate things, there's a third school that's very well regarded that's much closer to home that I think would be a perfect fit and he likes it a lot, too. However, it offers less aid than the first two on the list so it wouldn't make sense to do ED for that one, correct? That should be an RD school, correct?</p>
<p>IMO, you shouldn’t ED to a place unless you are sure that finances aren’t an issue. That’s harsh, I know, but that’s how I see it. </p>
<p>But in general, leaving that aside, you should ED (or SCEA) to a school because it’s your #1 choice that you would be happy to forsake all others for. </p>
<p>I personally dislike SCEA as an option, and respect EA schools more.</p>
Yep. Unless the school has a policy of meeting need, without much loans, AND your opinion of your ability to pay matches the FAFSA Forecaster EFC.</p>
<p>I think ED is evil bad and nasty. (MY opinion, just my opinion) And I don’t like SCEA much more either. Rolling admissions and EA are such wonderful for students and families - it allows you to either be happy in spring while waiting for the RD, or slaps you in November/December so you can get your act together and improve your essays and recs, or rethink the type of school you want to apply to.</p>
<p>And definitely don’t do the less-aid school ED. Besides, if you like one of the other two best anyway, why would you want to? You can only do one ED.</p>
<p>Well, I feel differently since both mine applied ED, got in and we were done in December. I’m a real closure kind of person and the waiting til April / May would have done me in. Having said that, I do agree it’s a “luxury” that only those who don’t have to worry about financial aid can take advantage of.</p>
<p>You shouldn’t just “strongly encourage” him not to apply ED, you should tell him he can’t, period. This is a decision with financial implications for the whole family.</p>
<p>That’s what I thought. I’m not even sure the first choice ED school is a good fit for him at all. He loves the city it’s in, liked the people we visited, but knows precious little else about it.</p>
<p>No ED, then. Now, does he do SCEA (I don’t like it, either; I wish more schools were EA but none on his short list are. Ugh.) or all RD? I am encouraging him to really think about what he wants in a school. He still has at least one more visit, preferably two or three, before he makes his final list.</p>
<p>Well, there’s no financial commitment in doing SCEA. I’d have two concerns. First, how does he respond to setbacks? It can be devastating emotionally for a student to receive an SCEA (or ED) rejection. At least during RD there are other acceptances coming in, and that helps soften the blow. If at all possible, have your son apply to a rolling acceptance school early (Pitt is a nice safety for kids with high stats) so that there is an acceptance already in hand if bad news arrives. And make it a condition of applying SCEA that essays for RD schools are completed prior to SCEA results being announced. It’s no fun to work on apps after getting bad news. </p>
<p>The other concern is how his final list shakes out. Some high-stats kids seem to opt for either SCEA or for a EA blitz (U of Chicago, Georgetown, MIT, Caltech). Which strategy your son chooses depends on his interests.</p>
<p>I think ED is grossly unfair to those who need to look at financial offers and somewhat unfair to kids who haven’t had time to settle on one place in October. SCEA I find irritating, but if you have a clear favorite and that’s the choice it probably doesn’t hurt to use it. I think you should apply to every EA school you like even a little bit! (I’ll never know, but I have to wonder if my youngest would have gotten into Chicago if he’d waited till the regular round.)</p>
<p>If a student is going to be devastated by an EA rejection I don’t think that student is ready for college. I think an EA rejection (or even deferral) may act as a wake up call that one needs to either adjust the list or improve the application.</p>
<p>I happen to believe that anyone who needs financial aid should not apply ED. I’ve seen too much grief from those who did. Saw it 40 years ago and am still seeing it now. Too many to be anecdotal. When you apply ED, you are given an award and may have no idea if this is “good” or not, feel pressured to take it because what a pain to try to negotiate it which happens if you tell the school you are rejecting it as unaffordable. What the school deems as unaffordable and what you do, may be 2 completely different things. You get the offer and the headache right in the holiday season, and the schools usually close shop about that time for Christmas break. You may end up compromised in other apps if your kids name shows up in the ED accepted lists. Most colleges don’t like kids who back out of ED. Your high school may not support you in declining the ED offer. You may end up declining the offer and finding out that is all you are getting from anyone–you have no perspective with that lone offer. For an amateur to have to deal with ED when financial need is there is one pain in the neck. Every year, folks who took a deep breath and accepted the ED package are upset this time of the year when other kids’ packages at schools that were also considered come in and they are so much higher than what the parent valiantly accepted back in December under ED with the school counselor, fin aid and the great reputation of the college all backing up the premise that this is all your kid is going to get because ED is given priority. Also ED kids are at the end of the line if the school has merit awards that are given out in the spring. Those sweetners are to entice acceptance and ED kids are a done deal at that point. </p>
<p>But there are many CC folks who disagree with me whose opinions I greatly respect. Xiggi, for one, has a good case for kids with need going ED at full need met schools. I suggest you look through the archives for these discussions and make your own decision as to what you want to do.</p>
<p>I don’t think my son will be devastated if he doesn’t get into a top college. He’s like many on CC, though, in that people around him tell him and assume he’ll get in. Ugh. We’re trying to be realistic not idealistic. He’s had rejections (RSI) this year and he just rolled with it. He’s had a safety school on his list for a long time and he’d be fine attending that school though he’s never visited but it’s got a number of things to commend it for him. Since he’s rather a non-commital type kid and we’ve been very clear that admissions are crazy out there, I think he’ll roll with whatever happens. </p>
<p>Right now, his top 4 schools are 2 reaches, and two reach/matches. After that, he’s got two matches, a couple more reaches, a safety, and I’m looking to talk him into one or two more NMS safeties.</p>
<p>He’s not interested in the two EA schools that might be good fits, Caltech or MIT. Are there other EA schools of that type (he’s a physics/math kid but likes the idea of a LAC type environment or at least access to good humanities courses) he should look into?</p>
<p>I think if our income was under 60K, ED would make sense but since we’re over 60K, ED could be risky.</p>
<p>When you have schools categorized, if you have need, make sure that the categorization also includes the financials. Some safeties are really reaches if they are expensive and your student needs aid/scholarship to go there. What really changes the picture these days is that with the cost of colleges, even large merit awards are not enough to cut it at times. My son got what I thought (and it is) a large scholarship. Too bad it didn’t even cover half the COA of the school It still didn’t put the school in the range of our state schools. Really sobering when $20-30K awards, half tuition scholarships still make the school unaffordable. And if your student is applying for financial aid, even a school that says it meets 100% of need is no financial safety, unless you know how they define this need, how they meet it. Loans and work study are not awards, in my opinion. Many times the Stafford loans are thrown in the package when just about anyone can get those and the school is really giving the kid anything but taking away a buffer. The same with work study. Anyone can get a job and again with work study that buffer disappears. Puts your back against the wall.</p>
<p>Right, I realize you can’t do both. I should clarify that my son was discussing whether he should apply to one college ED <em>or</em> the other one SCEA.</p>
<p>Yes, cpt, I am trying to be very careful about the schools that go on the list because of finances. I have eliminated a lot (like CMU) that might be good fits but will never work financially. There’s one school that I’m keeping on the list that might still be unworkable because it’s such a good fit. That would be his third choice school and even if he got the top scholarship (full tuition), we’re still left with room and board, which we simply cannot swing. Dh and I have argued over this. I am hoping my son can earn a lot during the next two summers, keep his income in our account, and use it towards college costs. The only other way is loans and dh is not interested in discussing this as of now.</p>
<p>Marian is pretty close - but if you do SCEA, you cannot do EA elsewhere. (Note: rules on SCEA are not fixed so read the fine print.)
ED isn’t a good choice if you need to compare cost, as you have seen.
EA has some advantages in terms of getting you information sooner and giving you more time to consider options. But it also means a LOT of work early in the fall, and if you think your child’s senior year may be stronger than junior, it might not be the best choice.
Note that you will be signing off on any ED/EA/SCEA applications too, so I don’t think your son can do it without your permission. ( I may be wrong.)
Note that the big flagship state universities have their own twist - many now have ‘priority’ admissions deadlines which are around the time of EA/ED and give varying degrees of a boost. This can matter a lot if you are applying out of state since there are sometimes very strict limits on the number of out of staters that can be accepted.
Spend the next few months visiting and making your list, then , in early fall, look at the SCEA/ED/EA/priority deadlines and rules.</p>
<p>When will the SCEA schools announce whether or not a student can apply to a local state univ. early as well as applying to the school SCEA? I heard that’s ok to do but haven’t been able to find that info. My son will apply to the local UC school but that’s all he’d apply to locally.</p>
<p>My son’s stats are pretty set so applying early won’t change things really. His coursework will be strong but applying in October vs. December won’t make any difference except that he’ll take 1-2 subject tests in October.</p>
<p>^ Just look on their websites. I know that Stanford allowed me to apply to UIUC during it’s priority filing period and to it SCEA at the same time.</p>
<p>It sounds like finances are a pretty big consideration. I would apply to as many EA college options as possible. EA demonstrates early interest without commitment. If your child has only one really strong top-choice school that is SCEA, then I would consider that option, but only after making sure that the college demonstrates preference in admissions statistics to students who choose SCEA.</p>
<p>If your child would consider other colleges, then it is really nice to apply to a lot in the early fall, get the applications done, and get answers before Christmas. Getting early fin aid information can also be helpful, so that you can compare merit/fin aid packages, play them against each other, and go back to colleges to ask for more. The other advantage of EA is just getting knowledge early. When our child got deferred by two colleges in December, we knew he needed to expend extra effort to get into those, and notification in December allowed him the time to enhance those applications and communicate with those admissions counselors during the spring. (He was eventually accepted by those two.) And, the December acceptances were terrific stress-relievers.</p>
<p>If your child has a strong top-choice that only offers ED, then another option is to do a lot of EA schools and that one ED school. If the ED school comes back with a financial aid offer that you just cannot afford, you have the ability to decline. This is the path we took this fall. Our child applied ED to Vanderbilt (and was rejected), but before we signed the dotted line we were told that he could decline if we could not afford the package that was offered. They don’t advertise this, but we were told that by admissions. </p>
<p>I don’t think the top colleges want only wealthy people to apply ED. In fact, I would ask the college that question directly, if I were you. “If we apply ED and cannot afford the fin aid package that you offer, what is our option?” We loved the ED and EA options, and we are not wealthy! The funny thing, however, is that in the end, our child chose the only college he applied to that did not offer EA or ED or SCEA, which was USC in CA. Go figure!</p>
<p>I don’t think there is any official announcement about this. You or , better, your son, should just contact the school and ask. There are a fair number of situations in which other applications will be allowed - our counselor told us not to worry about applications to state schools.
ED is not INTENDED to be for wealthy folks only. But, you need to be sure about finances if you decide to employ it. Different schools meet need differently - some simply do not have the same resources and so offer more loans. And, if you honestly can’t afford an ED school, it’s okay to turn them down. What’s not okay is to turn down an ED school because you don’t like the package.
Now, the only SCEA I know about is Stanford - are there others?</p>
<p>Princeton and Harvard will be SCEA this coming year. They have not given many details yet though. </p>
<p>When I visited Stanford with S2 this March the admissions representative told us there was NO advantage to applying SCEA. They claim it is a very strong applicant pool so a higher acceptance rate is deceptive.</p>