My daughter attended Have-A-Look and loved it. The only school she liked equally was Williams, where she applied ED1, but got deferred. She’s thinking of applying ED2 to Haverford.
I’m curious how much of a boost to her chances ED2 gives. The main reason I ask is that her top 2 choices just happened to be the only 2 schools where she got to do an overnight stay. (Haverford she was invited, but Williams she just scheduled on her own.) I suspect that if she got into some other schools and did overnight stays, she might love those other schools just as much. She’d be completely happy with committing to Haverford right now, but I do wonder if she’d be missing out on some other opportunities.
The other main reason I ask is that I know that Haverford doesn’t provide merit scholarships. We won’t qualify for need-based financial aid, and I’m prepared to pay sticker price. That said, I know there are some other great schools (Grinnell, for example) that do offer merit aid, and part of me is hoping she’ll get into one of those with a nice scholarship and fall in love with that school. (But if she got into, say, Grinnell, with a merit scholarship but still preferred Haverford, I’d be happy to pay full price.)
All of that said, I’d regret it immensely if I convinced her to apply RD and then didn’t get in. She absolutely loved Haverford and jeopardizing that option would be devastating for her.
How much of a difference is there between RD and ED2 acceptance rates? I see from their common data set that the ED acceptance rate is 42% (vs. their overall admit rate of 20%), but I wonder how much of that is recruited athletes? Also, I’ve heard that for some diversity fly-in programs like Windows on Williams, if you’ve been admitted to that, you’re virtually guaranteed admission. Is that the same for Haverford’s Have-A-Look program?
My marginally educated guess is yes ED2 helps, but I’m fairly sure recruitment plays a diminishing role . D 35 ACT(1time take) 4.0 14 aps (all 5s) state champ debate 9 time state champ swimming(small state) deferred at Princeton now trying ed2 at favorite swimming (LAC) school with coaches help.
I’ve heard fairly often that Haverford coaches do not have very much pull in admissions at all; certainly less than at other schools. My D was accepted ED1. It was important to her to be in the first round, because Haverford was her top choice, but also because she wasn’t sure how much harder the other rounds would each be. They haven’t released their ED numbers from the first round, so there isn’t a way to gauge how much (if any) it drops from ED1 to ED2- it definitely drops significantly to RD, since you arrive at the overall admit rate by averaging the ED and RD acceptance rate. It would be a decent guess that if ED is 40% and the overall rate is 20%, that RD is actually closer to 10%.
Hello,
I just wanted to ask a question about Have-a-look at Haverford since you’ve been through the entire process with your daughter already. I know many fly-in programs say that “there is no guarantee of admission just because of the fly-in participation.” While that is probably true, are admission chances increased by a lot? I heard that some fly-in programs say that on their website but then tell the students during the program that “as long as you keep up the work senior year and write good essays, you will be able to come to the school.” I was just curious if they said anything about an acceptance boost for getting into and going to Have-a-look. Thank you!
My daughter didn’t mention anything about that. I’ll have to check with her to see if any of the other attendees wound up getting rejected. She kept in touch with some of them, so she might know where they wound up. I remember Williams made a big deal out of the fact that if you get into Windows on Williams, you’re virtually guaranteed to get in, but I don’t think Haverford made any similar claims.
Regardless, if you get into Have-A-Look, you have a good shot at getting in. They already know your grades, standardized test scores, ECs, etc., and they’re telling you that they like what they see.