Hello everyone. If anyone has any insight, I would like to ask a few questions concerning the difference between early decision one and two, as I am deciding which one to apply to Boston College under. Obviously applying ED provides an advantage (in most cases), but would applying ED2 remove this advantage. In addition to this, does the ED2 application include first-semester senior year grades, or not. Thank you all for your help.
Since ED is new to BC we have no way to know how much benefit each will get. Since ED2 occurs in January, they most likely will include first semester grades. For the answers to each question contact BC admissions
I would think ED1 would be more beneficial than ED2, but ED2 would be more generous than RD. I believe I a saw some stats in that but they are old and, of course, this is all new for BC BC has been having some issues with decrease of apps and yield— I have not checked actual numbers. ED is great for yield.
ED2 is great for those kids who need that extra time for more test scores and grades to be taken into consideration. Also, it may be permissible with some SCEA schools and the deadlines come after some tough ED and EA denials and deferments. I know several kids who rushed into ED2 after being denied and deferred by some EA options they thought were safe. Also denials from the pie in the sky ED.
I think this is a good move in part of BC though I’m glad they had EA options for my kids when they were applying to colleges
@cptofthehouse I agree with you post except for applications and yield issues/decrease. They had a record 35000 applications this year and will take essentially no one from the waitlist. Last year was 80 off of Wl and the year earlier was 16. For a class of 2200 that’s actually spectacular for a school. In that time admissions rates went from 32 percent to 26.7 and middle 50 scores went up to 34 act 1470 sat and 75 percent of the clsss in the top ten percent of their Hs class for this year’s admitted ea.
Eliminating athletes and preferences you pretty much have to be in the upper end of the range unhooked to be a match.
But I haven’t seen final stats for this year?
I know they are going to Ed 1 and ed2 to reduce apps and strains on admissions. Yield will certainly skyrocket and admissions rates will fall. Not sure about the stat line of the average profile. But it should work well for them. Imho.
I don’t remember the year they ran into a snag. Apps went waaay down. The blame was placed on the fact that they added essays to their application. Hate to say it but it did impact at least several all boys Catholic schools that traditionally give BC a lot of apps. Those guys hate to write as a rule and they passed on BC’s app.
BC accepted a good number of kids from certain catholic schools EA, and a lot of those kids would decide to end the app process right there, happy enough to go there
They lost enough applicants that year to significantly drop in their ratings as their accept rate had to go up.
BC taught me the value of EA to a school. I personally saw enough kids stop the app process there both emotionally and in practice. My youngest did the same danged thing when he applied. He made the decision that he was done with the apps and if he did not get into his ED school, he wanted to go to an EA acceptance school. They showed him love and money when he needed a boost and it quickly went up in his personal ratings.
@cptofthehouse That’s good planning.
Hope he’s knocking the cover off the ball!
That was not a “snag”. It was by design. Admissions knew with certainty that apps would drop and that is one reason why they added the supplemental essay. The main reason of course, is to be able to select from apps that really want to matriculate to Chestnut Hill, i.e., to improve yield even tho that is not a rankings factor. (IMO, BC’s mistake was not making the essay limit 100 words – sounds simple enough to not scare off folks, but simple only until you try to write it!)
At the time, acceptance rate was only 1.25% of the ratings points, so unlikely to have made much of a difference. In fact, BC did not move at all, as it was ranked #31 in the year before the supplemental and #31 in the year after the supplemental was adopted. (I guess one could argue that BC might have moved up with a lower acceptance rate, but then we’d have to dig into the actual numbers.)
btw:, acceptance rate has now been eliminated as a factor as of last year.
I was told at the time, that the effect did jolt BC administrators. Son’s school and schools like his are reliable full pay high yield applicants. Not unusual for 10 to go to BC. It’s a top choice venue. They lost a lot of applications from at least 3 schools I know. Head of one school and GC of another told me, BC ADmissions Officer was not happy with result. They come to these schools during app season because they get good yield.
As @“Erin’s Dad” noted ED is new to BC so it is impossible to know the impact it will have on admissions. That said my GENERAL understanding of ED from listening to admissions officers at different schools is that the acceptance threshold (what it takes to get in) for ED1 and ED2 applicants is basically the same. However the acceptance rates for ED1 is typically higher due to:
- the fact that hooked applicants (ex. legacy, recruited athletes etc.) who are almost assured of admittance apply ED1 and
- the ED2 pool can be a bit weaker as these applicants may have waited to show improvement in senior year grades, to retake standardized tests etc.
The other reason why ED2 accept rates may be lower is because some needs and wants that a school has might be covered by ED1 accepts.
I’d be interested in knowing what % of ED apps are from athletes at various schools because not many of the recruited athletes I have known applied ED.
For me, EDI = reach school but not impossible with the better ED acceptance rates or you just love that university/dream school regardless of your chances.
EDII = got rejected by your EDI school - time to get serious about getting into a school on the upper end of your target list that isn’t a reach.
Forbes has a list of schools with EDII. Dig through their stats to see the differences in acceptance rates (keep in mind that some of them don’t break it down to EDI, EDII and RD)
This isn’t specific to BC, but while ED2 can be a bit of a boost because they know you’ll come and you won’t take another WL offer in June, the reality is that it’s a different pool than ED1. It is unlikely to include all of the legacy and recruiting applicants, but in addition to what @cptofthehouse notes, it also tends to get a lot of excellent applicants who got turned down by their ED1 schools.
If you don’t need the extra time to improve your grades or retest and if BC is your top choice, I would think that ED1 would be the better choice.
Clearly ED1 provides the most boost to applicant admission chances. ED2 applicant pools tend to be much smaller, with the admission rates often markedly below ED1 (but still above RD). Schools have tried to explain the higher ED1 admission rates for years based “a higher quality applicant pool”, “recruited athletes”, “legacy”, etc. but this is only part of it. As one admissions officer at Middlebury said to me when I questioned the huge difference between ED and RD admission rates…“Middlebury likes applicants who like Middlebury (=committed to attending)”.
Yield at our hs was 10% this year. BC accepted the top kids using it as a safety and they went elsewhere. ED will certainly help improve yield next year.
What? Really? I assume you are referring to USNWR. Acceptance rate is not an ingredient in calculating the rankings?
@cptofthehouse Here are the acceptance and yield numbers over the years. For 2013 (after they added the essay supplement) the application numbers dropped 28% from 34K to 24.5K. The goal was to increase the yield rate. That happened some, but not quite as much as the University hoped and it faded over time (as you can see acceptance rate popped up to 34%). Outside of the bump down you can see the University acceptance rate and yield rate have been remarkably stable over the last decade. Acceptance generally around 27 - 30% and yield rate about 26%. In terms of # of applications, BC just made up the ground that they lost in 2012. Made up ground is the wrong phrasing, they did it intentionally - I just dont think it worked quite like they hoped. In the same time period, BU’s admissions rate dropped from 54% to 19%. Georgetown went from 20.6% to 11.8% and on and on with other examples of colleges in a world where kids apply to 20 schools.
2007 - Acceptance Rate: 27% Yield Rate: 29%
2008 - Acceptance Rate: 26% Yield Rate: 27%
2009 - Acceptance Rate: 30% Yield Rate: 25%
2010 - Acceptance Rate: 31% Yield Rate: 25%
2011 - Acceptance Rate: 28% Yield Rate: 23%
2012 - Acceptance Rate: 29% Yield Rate: 25%
2013 - Acceptance Rate: 32% Yield Rate: 28%
2014 - Acceptance Rate: 34% Yield Rate: 29%
2015 - Acceptance Rate: 29% Yield Rate: 26%
2016 - Acceptance Rate: 31% Yield Rate: 26%
2017 - Acceptance Rate: 32% Yield Rate: 26%
2018 - Acceptance Rate: 28% Yield Rate: 27%
2019 - Acceptance rate: (27% at best, number was back in March before WL and melt).
Source for most numbers: https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/publications/factbook/pdf/16_17/16-17_factbook.pdf
I couldn’t get great SAT numbers over the years. In part this is because the test has changed multiple times over the years so you cant directly compare them. you can use the FactBook above to compare a bunch of the years, also remarkably stable (and takes you through 2016 or so). Also all schools have been reporting big increases in SAT scores since 2017, so its hard to tell which is from an increase in talent pool versus increases for everyone. ACT isnt listed in a lot of BC factbooks, so my guess is they do not get as many of those reported in and dont think that is a great comparison.
an east (and extremely expensive) way to boost yield is to fatten the FinAid coffers, by reducing the impact of home equity, so the COA is more in line with those merit colleges ranked below BC. (It’s amazing what a $10k ‘merit’ scholly will do to yield at 'Nova.)
BC counts full equity in the home, unlike many similar schools, which cap HE at a multiple of income.
For those who have applied and been accepted to both BC and Villanova, did you find their need based financial aid comparable? It seems like, over the years, I read about disappointing financial aid results from both. I know BC says they meet need, but now reading here about home equity, I can see how the awards may be disappointing. Does anyone have more details regarding what way home equity is factored in?
We need to run the NPC but, like others, there are factors that may not make our NPC result accurate. This is definitely a factor for many when trying to decide whether to apply ED1, ED2, or RD.
Incidentally, my D got an e-mail from BU yesterday, something about them now meeting need. This is interesting because I feel like they have not been the most generous in the past with regard to aid. I know the schools are pretty different; however, there may be overlap with some interested in both schools, so I figured I would mention it here.