I don’t see Rice as a ridiculous reach. I’d like a higher SAT but the math is 790. The student has solid grades and strong rigor. He has tenure on the debate team plus a sport - and has kept busy.
Is it a reach? yes.
Is it a ridiculous reach at a school that craves DI?
I don’t believe so.
There’s no better expression of DI than applying ED.
The OP is correct - it’s early and many kids change their minds, even after ED’ing somewhere.
But if you don’t ED to a school like Rice - then where? NEU or BU? And they can be just as tough to get into.
Plus, at least as of this second, Rice is where the student wants to attend.
PS - I’m not a fan of ED but in this case, the OP is willing to fully fund their son’s choice and this was listed as a dream. So to apply ED anywhere else, if it stays the dream after visiting, would be crazy to me.
We have no idea where the student ranks with the 3.84 UW. That could be middle of the class. We don’t know how rigor compares to the top kids at the school. We don’t know how many unhooked kids get into Rice-level schools from his HS. There is no way to assess if it is a ridiculous reach or not, based on the information we have.
Real example, school sends 4-6% to top10ish:
3.9 unweighted, right on the outside edge of top20% , great but not highest rigor. 1500 SAT. Told dont ED to an ivy top-10 because ridiculous reach, no one with their prifile unhooked had ever gotten into a similar school or ones a “notch” below.
4.0uw, near very top of class, 1500, highest rigor: told no school was a ridiculous reach, t10 were reaches but all reasonable.
There is a LOT of nuance to this and without the particular details, none of us can say what Rice is.
public high School (Ranked top 20 STEM high School nationwide and ultra competitive)
We’ll never know how many unhooked are getting into Rice - but given the info OP presented - I’m not suggesting it’s not a reach. I’m not suggesting the student will get in - too many think ED is a must in or was a mistake.
I’m suggesting that if the student is truly dreaming of Rice it wouldn’t be preposterous for two reason:
They’re clearly a solid candidate and
It’s their favorite
You’re correct we don’t have all the info - but I’m assuming someone at an ultra competitive HS with a 3.84 UW is in a good position.
What would pain me as a parent/student is if I applied elsewhere ED trying to game the system and applied RD to my dream, only to get in RD.
@ucla_cs_god Do you know anything about the CS courses that UCLA Cognitive Science students take? Is it difficult for them to get the pre-major courses (Program in Computing 10B or 10C or 15 or 16A or 20A or 30 or 40A) or the CS electives (Computer Science 111-CM186)?
Looking at the enrollment restrictions on the upper division classes I just signed up for this weekend, it appears that both Math of Comp and Cog Sci majors can sign up for MOST CS courses in the early enrollment period (“first pass”), but not all. Some courses that are hard-to-get (e.g. Theory of Computing) and are needed for many majors (all CS/CSE major plus Ling+CS majors) are restricted to those majors only. These tend not to be the “interesting” and “popular” CS classes however; in-demand CS courses such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Data Science are open to all engineers + Ling+CS, Math of Comp, Cog Sci, and Comp Bio.
Cog Sci majors should also have no trouble getting into premajor courses, as they can almost always be “first passed”. In general, it’s not hard to get Engineering/CS courses at UCLA (unless the professor is exceptional, and then everyone puts the class off for that one professor). Basically everyone, even many not in the CS department or School of Engineering, will get the CS courses they want at some point.
On the other hand, it IS hard to get life science, psychology, and chem/phys for premeds courses. It is very common for students in those majors to be forced to put off required coursework to later quarters, despite needing them badly.
Having looked at the previous years school profile and data from Naviance I have to think the probability of getting into Rice with his profile is very very low. You need around 3.95+ GPA and 1550 SAT.
Demonstrated Interest - that’s very important to Rice. They want people who are engaging with the school - doing on line presentations and Rice offers more than just the standard info session. Opening their emails. Playing their videos. Some ask questions of the adissions counselor (if you do, make sure it’s good and can’t be found on the website). Showing - you didn’t apply as a fallback to Harvard - but you really want in to Rice if admitted.
You know what the most effective way to demonstrate interest is? ED - some schools like Penn now take over half their class this way.
They needn’t worry when they accept you - are you going. They know you’re coming - so you get a lift.
Personally, if you’re high school is top shelf and I’m assuming based on what you wrote that your son isn’t far off on the rigor path. His 1500 is at the 25th percentile (I don’t know for engineering if it is) but his math is 790.
Not saying he’s getting in but ED may be his only chance - and this is exactly the type of situation it should be used. So I’m not sure why you would ED elsewhere - that isn’t a top choice.
Rice’s words - along with academics and ECs they list - demonstrated interest. That’s code - for ED so our yield can be good!!! And we have assured revenue.
In our holistic admission review we evaluate the breadth of students’ accomplishments, interests and contributions to their communities within the context of their life experiences. We consider a variety of factors including the rigor of a student’s coursework, academic performance, extracurricular activities and achievements, essays, and demonstrated interest. We are careful not to emphasize any single academic metric, such as class rank, grade point average, or test scores. We evaluate each student within the context of their school and personal environment and consider what opportunities they have had access to as well as the challenges that they may have faced. We value the breadth of socioeconomic, cultural, geographic, racial or ethnic, educational and other perspectives that each student brings to the table.
Many privates value DI - but Rice is up front about it.
And they’ll tell you all the ways you can demonstrate interest - but nothing says DI like ED.
And I’m not a fan of ED btw. My daughter applied to Rice but RD and TO. Her stats weren’t as good as your sons…but I had a budget and if you have a budget and you are full pay, you can’t ED anywhere. That’s why I didn’t let her.
As I told the over selling admissions team at WUSTL - it’s not a question of whether I could afford to ED. It’s a question of do I want to afford it?
For me, the answer was no - so I didn’t allow my kids to do it.
Admissions people are sales people - don’t ever forget that!!
But your son is in sales too - and the product he’s selling - is him. So what can he do to maximize his chances?
And that’s where DI and especially ED come into play.
Your school counselor would likely be willing to tell you at least how many of the green dots are ED, even if they wont say which ones. From our naviance, we can see ED vs RD. ED for Top20s(unhooked kids) tend to be the very slightly lower gpas among the green (accepted) dots, and maybe slightly lower SAT. But they are not outliers. Recruited athletes and major hooks are often but not always outlier acceptances on naviance. ED vs RD is only slightly different.
I agree doing ED to only once top choice and when there is no budget.
If he decides to do ED to some other college I think it will have to be a top 1 or 2 choice.
Have been talking more to S24 about ED or not and as part of the conversation one thing he feels is if does ED and he gets into one of his top 3 choices he feels the stress of the admission season will be done. He has seen some seniors this year and the whole admission season was very stressful for them as they get decision of one college at time over a period of few months. But he agrees that he does not have a clear top 3 then he will wait to EA or RD.
For some reason the counselor has not been open about providing details on ED and few other stuff. In general she is very good but when you ask about ED or where S24 stands in respect to rigor for example she was not as forthcoming.
She just says that his rigor is good but does not say if he would fall under the most rigorous schedule at school. I think they have been hesitant to say as when they say someone is a lower on the rigor then kids tend to push and take more and more AP’s in the school. She may be more open to discussing in 12th grade we will wait and see.
Agree we do plan to apply to some of these college as soon as they open.
I new PITT, Uof A and ASU you would know pretty quickly. Did not know about UMN. I need to look into it.
With a well vetted list, it shouldn’t be stressful. The secret is having safeties that the student is excited about.
Our son had stats that made him competitive anywhere. His final decision came down to three schools with the following acceptance rates: 95%, 60% and 15%.
Kids and families get too hung up on the reach concept because they don’t realize that selectivity is nothing more than a popularity contest, largely skewed by USNWR. There’s no guaranteed correlation between selectivity and quality of education.
More importantly selectivity says nothing about the actual day in and day out experience.
If he’s thoughtful and careful in forming his list, it shouldn’t be stressful beyond the anxiety of not having answers all on the same day. He’ll have many to choose from with a list that starts well in the first place.
I think this overstates the importance of demonstrated interest in Rice admissions. They do note it, and it’s fair to say that they are less likely to admit someone who shows absolutely no interest or connection to Rice. But schools that are truly that passionate about tracking interest and maintaining yield tend to have admission rates in ED that are many multiples of the RD rate - I believe Tulane was around 67% admit rate in ED last year, to use an extreme example. Rice was just 17% rate in ED, and that number includes recruited athletes and strongly hooked applicants - a meaningful component when the whole ED group is only 450-500. And on the CDS, they list 9 factors as “very important,” including GPA/tests/rigor/ECs/recs/etc., but demonstrated interest is two levels lower under “considered.”
Anecdotally, my daughter was admitted RD in 22 having done a self-guided campus tour and viewed an online financial aid webinar - no interaction with AO, no in-person connection, no ED. Not directly comparable with OP’s exact situation (different major, higher stats, etc.), but just saying that you don’t have to bend over backwards showing overwhelming amounts of interest. Just do what you would normally do to investigate a school that you want to learn about.