<p>If OP is applying EDII, he will get a response back on 2/15 and will have to respond before “early” notifications from RD schools are even sent out. The UCs admit on a rolling basis, but they are reach for him because he is an OOS.</p>
<p>NYU’s common data set says that recommendations are “very important”.</p>
<p>If you want to get rejected by NYU, tell one of your recommendation writers to write that you are being forced to apply ED to NYU by your parents and that you do not want to go there.</p>
<p>Can your parents afford full price at NYU and the out-of-state public universities?</p>
<p>I don’t think the OP wants to spike his chances at NYU–it’s just that he prefers some other schools. If NYU is the best place he gets in, it sounds like he’d be fine with going there. What he needs to do is to convince his parents that applying ED isn’t that much of an advantage, and it has the huge disadvantage of locking him in to NYU if he gets in, preventing him from going anywhere else he might like better.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. My GC talked to my parents and told them that ED doesn’t help as much as most people think (the higher admission rates are mostly because of hooked applicants), and that it gives a tiny advantage. Unfortunately, my parents aren’t convinced and think that ED is a magic option that significantly boosts one’s chances. Plus they think that anything that boosts my chances, even if it’s by 0.0000001%, should be utilized immediately. </p>
<p>Hell, I think the reason they want me to apply ED is that they don’t want to think that I’m “wasting” that option. Even if ED was proven to not do anything, my parents would still probably force me to apply just for the sake of not wasting such an option. </p>
<p>I don’t really know how I can get out of this situation, since purposely getting rejected is certainly not an option for me because for all I know, NYU may be the best school I get into. I might consider calling admissions behind my parents’ back and tell them that I checked the EDII box by accident. Do you guys think this will work? My parents don’t know when the ED decisions come back so I can just tell them that they come back on April 1st.</p>
<p>
They could learn really easily; really, as involved as they are, they’d have to be pretty clueless to not see that.</p>
<p>Do any of your more-favorite-than-NYU schools offer ED?</p>
<p>^My parents are pretty clueless about college admissions so I’m 99% sure that they’d believe me if I tell them that decisions come back in April. And no, none of my other choices have EDII.</p>
<p>I feel for you. It seems you only have 2 options, since your parents won’t listen to your GC either - you can comply with their demands or not. We are not Asian, and my kids would have refused to apply ED if they thought it was the wrong move. You may not feel you can do that. Good luck.</p>
<p>How happy would you be to attend your safety? If you prefer your safety over NYU, or NYU only slightly over your safety, or NYU is too expensive anyway, then there is not really much risk with applying to NYU to please your parents but intentionally asking to be rejected.</p>
<p>^I’d be okay with going to my safety, although I’d probably try to transfer to a top 20 or 30 school after a year. However, given my parents’ eagerness to see me go to a top 30 school, they will be ****ED if I end up going to my safety. Money won’t be a problem, so they’re willing to pay for any school I get into as long as it’s good. I don’t want to get rejected from NYU because I DO want to go there, but it’s just not my top choice. I’d much rather go to NYU than my safety. As of now I’m planning on finding a way to apply ED and then notify NYU behind my parents’ back that I’m being forced to and that I want to do RD instead. Don’t know if that’ll work but I’ll give it a try…</p>
<p>Will your parents be reviewing your application prior to your submission?
Rather than ‘mistakenly’ marking the EDII box, then contacting NYU asking them to retrofit your application, why don’t you simply make a ‘mistake’ by hitting the regular decision box while still submitting in accordance with the EDII deadlines?</p>
<p>What I would do is go back to your counselor and ask him or her to speak with your parents to discourage getting locked in to the EDII trap, which would only allay their fears of you not getting in to a name college for about 6 weeks. If I were your counselor, I would ask them if they are prepared to potentially pay full tuition for four years simply so that they can feel secure in that 6 week interim between the EDII results and the general results?</p>
<p>"…but you could contact the admissions office before submitting the ED II application and ask if there’s some other way to do it that your parents could not detect."</p>
<p>Do not follow this suggestion.</p>
<p>Agree with Hunt and Geekmom. See if you can persuade them to see it from your point of view, but if not, don’t apply ED anyway. They’ll get over it. Apply RD. I would not involve the school in this. You may end up going there if accepted RD, but rejected by your higher choice schools.</p>
<p>Do not consider sabotaging your essays or recommendations. If anything of that nature, “accidentally” click RD rather than ED. But, I would be up front with your parents and tell them you want to apply RD and that research shows there is not a significant difference in acceptance rates, but that it is a binding decision.</p>
<p>How can they “force” you, other than to threaten not to pay for college if you chose to go elsewhere. I doubt they would actually do that, because they want you to not only go to college, but to a top college.</p>
<p>A lot of kids are simply not going to defy their parents on an issue like this–not all families are the same. I strongly urge you not to do anything underhanded or sneaky–you will regret it later. Get some allies to help you persuade your parents–if the counselor isn’t enough, try a teacher who knows and likes you.</p>
<p>Money is not an issue. OP is probably almost 18. OP should explain to his parents what his reasoning is and if need be, take a stand, as long as OP knows parents will pay for college, and I suspect they will. How many parents would force a child to apply ED to a school that is not his/her first choice? Not many, I assume. They are not being reasonable, imo.</p>
<p>Well, I’m not a parent and am not sure whether or not you’ve figured things out by now, OP, but giving my contribution anyway:
I agree with the posters here, and I would do my absolute best to not apply EDII to NYU. Interestingly enough I’m in a similar boat because my mother (also Asian) believes that I should apply EDII to NYU because a) she wants answers back earlier (I would have applied ED elsewhere but unfortunately wasn’t going to finish apps in time) and b) she mistakenly believes that it will improve my chances. I’m not sure what she thinks is going on (she has strong opinions but doesn’t know much about the admissions system. Unfortunately she does have google so if anything I say is suspicious she WILL just look it up) but I’m not planning on applying EDII. She won’t read over my online app so there’s no way she’ll know, and chances are she’ll forget about it/won’t mind too much. Like you, it’s not that I dislike NYU. I actually think it’s a pretty great school and I do think life is what you make it, so I <em>could</em> be happy there, but it’s definitely not the school I like bets. Additionally if you feel that you’ve missed an opportunity by EDIIing NYU, you could harbour resentment against your parents in the future, which would be unfortunate because they probably just want what’s best for you.
If I were you, I would either go ahead and apply regular decision, or alternatively try to get your parents to see your point of view. Cry, if you think that’ll work. Try to express how much it means to you. If they’re concerned with prestige, perhaps explain to them that there’s more to college than its reputation as a “good school”. Pull up charts, statistics, college rankings or any of those, if necessary. Maybe even one of those dubious articles about best-ranked colleges by major or by career opportunities or any of that sort of thing–chances are at least one of the schools you’ll like more than NYU will appear on one of those, and your parents might be more inclined to believe that. I assume they’re operating on what they’ve heard from people around them and what they believe rather than know to be true, in which case the only thing you can really do is throw lots of facts at them and hope it sinks in. Or play up the emotional factor with heartfelt speeches or that sort of thing. Going behind their backs would probably work but it should only really be a last resort because they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to deception if they ever found out that you’d lied. If you don’t think it would be a huge problem, then you should try and get as many people as possible to persuade them that applying EDII wouldn’t be a good idea. However, if they’re anything like my Asian parents then that could also be one of the worst ideas of all time. Chinese parents particularly hate the idea of being humiliated or disrespected by people around them and this is likely to have a far worse effect on your relationship than if you apply RD behind their backs.
To everyone else: there are plenty of ways parents can force you to do something you don’t want to do. And who ever said parents had to be reasonable or respect their children’s decisions?</p>