@adlgel I truly believe Lehigh legacies have their best shot at ED; it’s almost as if Lehigh thinks you aren’t really going to enroll if admitted as a RD applicant.
It is what we refer to as the “dream school.” I told D2 not to have one. Don’t fall in love until you are admitted.
@melvin123 Can you elaborate on your tiers of schools? I know there is no definitive line, but is your top tier the Top 10 in USNWR Nat U’s and LAC’s (basically 20 schools) or is it something else? I’m just curious about how people define these tiers.
@allyphoe I also agree with you about choices. We looked long and hard to find a safety school we could all agree on - it was one that has an extremely strong alumni group that has lots of mentorship programs in different fields. But if she didn’t get in there either? The plan was a gap year. And for the following year we would have thought more about ED to a former second tier, as well as some foreign schools, as well as the local directional school for a program she had some interest in, with the thought that she could transfer out of that school if she decided she didn’t like the major so much. So yes, choices. But it was definitely a Plan B.
@melvin123 “I bet your directional school had a strong accounting program.”
Nope. It’s the weakest of the local schools that offer accounting, and grads from both the state flagships usually relocate here, too.
Forty years ago, my mom got her accounting hours via correspondence course (back when that was all by mail!) and then from a branch campus of a tiny HBCU. She went to work right after passing the CPA exam for the top local firm, and said that the impediment to Big Eight was her age (midlife career changer), not her educational background. CPAs are pretty fungible.
I’d love a list of LACs in the top 40 that do not practice yield protection. Maybe Denison and Dickinson? S19 could very well go to school at one of those colleges as he really likes them both. That being said, his 1540 SAT and high GPA might make it look like he wouldn’t attend. Of course he will have other schools on his list that rank higher but we don’t know yet how the chips will fall and he honestly does like both of these schools and would definitely consider them alongside any other schools.
Anyone out there with other LAC options that don’t turn down high stat kids? Extra points if they give merit.
^^ Hobart and Muhlenberg give merit, and take high stat kids because they know the merit will entice them.
With respect to accounting programs, bear in mind, too, that we’re specifically addressing the situation of a kid who is such a rock star that they are head and shoulders above the kids who would typically be top of the class. Professors at low-ranked schools will sometimes cut those kids a lot of slack - I was able to double up with a prereq and the second class in a sequence, for example, because I asked to be allowed to. If I hadn’t been working full-time, I could have taken about twice the normal course load. The kid who does those kind of things while keeping a 4.0 is likely to do just fine in the job market.
I think that many of the LACs like Dickinson and Muhlenberg want to see a kid’s interest. Going on a visit and having an interview is just as important to those schools as the “top tier” ones.
If my D had to pick her number one school in the fall it was Georgetown, although she truly liked all the non-safety schools to which she was applying. Georgetown’s EA Program prevents ED at any other school so she couldn’t use the ED possible bump at Lehigh or Penn or Cornell, etc. So yes, she made a calculated choice to forego any potential ED bump to get an early answer from Georgetown. Now she could have applied to Lehigh ED2 after hearing from Georgetown but again at that time Lehigh wasn’t her clear and obvious first choice compared to her other non-safeties. And we didn’t think she needed the ED/ED2 bump at Lehigh so didn’t want to take the other schools off the table. Obviously if she had been accepted at Georgetown EA or Lehigh RD, we’d be in a whole different spot right now. But she wasn’t so we are where we are at this point.
“The local less-prestigious branch of a non-prestigious directional public school, where I went to school nights and weekends? One of the Big Four firms recruited there. The kids who were doing well in their classes had internships with the most-respected local and regional firms.”
Yes, there definitely is a sliver of a chance of getting good offers at the top firms, but looking at this from the other direction… 75% of the top firms did NOT recruit at that campus and the internships were with local and regional firms, which the top firms do not view as equals. I graduated from a school that’s known for having one of the highest % of students passing the CPA on the first try. All of the top firms recruited there and most of us got to choose between multiple juicy offers from those top firms. The two accounting graduates that didn’t get offers from those top firms got jobs at the regional firms. Different world.
It still may make sense for a student to choose to go to a non-prestigious directional public school that has these opportunities since the cost/benefit ratio makes sense for them personally, but the reality is that that student will have fewer opportunities for top level jobs. Possible - yes. Probable - no.
Since the poster I was responding to was ostensibly concerned about how a superstar kid would do with an employer who had significant prior negative experience hiring average students from a weaker program, the fact that the program is not a tippy-top one was already a given. 
The fact remains that if no tippy-top school accepts you, complaining that the schools available to you are not tippy-top is of little benefit. Better to look for the positives.
Very true. Smart to make the best of what you’re working with. And you’re right that the great students will be able to make good things happen no matter where they land.
Welcome to the world of a kid with an LD. You see, these kids who are also discouraged that their hard work in h.s. didnt get them where they wanted to go b/c no matter how much effort they put in, an A is still elusive, as well as high SAT/ACT scores, b/c their brain doesn’t work the same way as a “normal” person. And please dont make the assumption that kids at third tier schools worked a lot less than the the top stats kid did. I’d venture to guess that there are plenty of LD kids who work as hard, if not harder, in h.s. as the top stats kids but b/c their grades don’t reflect their tremendous efforts, people (parents of top tier kids?)assume, without knowing anything about these kids, that these kids aren’t working as hard or don’t care as much about learning as their own top stats kid. There are lots of kids who are blessed to be born naturally bright and sure, they do put in a lot of effort to be tippy top. But this kind of disparaging remark about kids attending third tier schools working a lot less is tiresome, as is the assumption that they somehow care less about learning and or having intellectual discussions or engaging group projects.
There are many kids who have LDs but it’s like having a miscarriage. You don’t talk about it, you feel somehow less than, you want to keep it private, but then one day you mention it in conversation, and all of sudden the person you are talking to says, “Oh my gosh, I had one too. It hurts to talk about it so I haven’t told most people. I had no idea you were going through the same thing.” That’s what having a kid with an LD is like. For years, we didn’t talk about it with anyone. Our son didn’t want people to know and TBH, it was hard to talk about so I only told my very close friends. Eventually, we were more open about it, and suddenly I learned that there were several more kids in our social/school circle in the same boat.
Sorry for the soapbox speech, but until you are faced with a kid with an LD, it’s easy to make assumptions about those kids who don’t get the highest marks in school. My kid feels “stupid” enough b/c so much emphasis is placed on good grades being the sign of a hard working, smart kid. He will go to a third tier school most likely, but it won’t have anything to do with his lack of effort or a lesser desire to learn than someone with top stats.
Editing to add that my comments are not necessarily aimed at the one poster I quoted above. This attitude/assumption seems to be shared by more than a few posters on CC, as well as people I know IRL.
@oldfort: “This is simply not true. If your stats are too high above the school’s stats then the school may think it is a backup school for you.”
What you say is true of many privates. A lot of publics do not engage in yield protection.
@melvin123: “If you go to a lower ranked school where certain employers don’t come on campus to interview can you still get that job? Maybe, but you’ll have to work a lot harder to get it.”
Fair, but as I have said many times, life doesn’t end at undergrad. Many elite grad programs that also offer those opportunities are easier to get in to.
Also, you don’t have to limit your search to the US, and many top unis overseas are much less holistic (and thus more predictable) in admissions.
@adlgel Your D may get into G’town. For EA, their acceptance rate, is a few points lower than the RD rate. So while at a lot of other schools, an ED/EA deferral usually results in a RD WL or rejection, that’s not the case at G’town. Good luck to her!
Not sure how we got on kids with LD on this thread. I don’t think anyone on this thread said it is not challenging when kids have LD.
I hope OP comes back to update all of us on her D’s results and we didn’t scare her off. Keeping my fingers crossed for everyone who is waiting for the results. It is a stressful time.
@oldfort, I was remarking on the reference that kids at third tier schools don’t work as hard as top stats kids and the poor top stats kid has to go to college with them b/c despite working sooo much harder, they ended up at a third tier school with those kids. It’s insulting to the many kids who work incredibly hard (not just LD kids) whose stats don’t reflect their efforts and therefore have to attend third tier schools.
I’m around! Have been checking in periodically and am still learning from the discussions. Someone asked if this is my first - yes! And we have learned a lot! I will post an update when we have one. No updates to report yet!