You don’t know what I’m acquainted with or not. You are not the only poster here who has experienced life in a bunch of different regions, made professional trade-offs, contributed professionally to work dealing with income inequality.
I’m not prickly- I just don’t agree with you. I can see both the forests (systemic barriers, inequalities which are baked-in, a dependence on local property taxes for funding public schools, redlining and racist banking practices even if the policies are now illegal) AND the trees (successful college students who come out of heavily disadvantaged backgrounds, successful adults who have navigated some awful barriers and have figured things out along the way, scores of organizations and people who are setting up workarounds to identify, mentor and help fund kids who wouldn’t get that help otherwise.)
I believe that the forest and the trees can exist simultaneously, and that working JUST at the macro level (everything is terrible, the privileged are sucking all the oxygen out of the air for everyone else, if you haven’t won the genetic lottery your life is over) ignores the importance of initiative, personal responsibility, and learning to work the system- even if you think it’s $%^&.
You are frustrated about your D- I’m suggesting that she is in a great position to work that system. She’s got a highly educated mom who cares about her education, she’s got the inside track on how academic institutions operate and how professors and administrators think, and she’s seen from your example that persistence, hard-work and focus are more important than just good grades and “being smart”.
Your D doesn’t need to be handed a menu- she’s got the menu. But the trope that she’s $%^& because her Dad won’t pay his fair share, or that she’ll never get appointed to the Federal Reserve Bank because she didn’t go to Stanford-- leave that by the side of the road.
I’m the prickly one? I’m happy to pay more taxes. I’m happy to volunteer to teach kids who don’t know there are ropes, how to “work” the ropes. I’m happy to focus professionally to make sure that the organizations I work for aren’t becoming filled with MORE privileged hires even as we tout that there are fewer white guys than there were ten years ago.
It may move the needle some within that realm (cost of education), but by itself does not address the declining job prospects immediately out of high school, or the desire by employers for employees to come with (post-secondary) education, training, and credentials instead of being willing to hire high school graduates and training them on the job.
If anyone can go to college for free it seems entirely likely that employers will impose even more credentialism, putting those who can’t or don’t want to go to college in an even worse position. And it will encourage those who want to mandate college degrees for jobs that haven’t required and don’t need them, like providing childcare, cutting hair or arranging flowers.
The problems OP identified, if they’re as prevalent as some of us believe, have their roots in K-12. Trying to solve these problems in post-secondary education wiil be not only incredibly wasteful but also ultimately futile.
EA are extremely well-prepared students who know where they want to go, but aren’t rich enough to let the school decide for them how much they’ll pay for college. This is where the middle-class hotshots congregate. In seat allocation, EA is where a college goes shopping for stats-boosters. They’ve done their diversity tickboxing with Questbridge etc.; they’ve picked up as much as they can from the rich/legacy kids with good impressive if not spectacular packages in ED1; now they’re shopping for stats. They’re shopping carefully here, because EA kids are expensive – they need aid. This pool’s enriched with the same kind of kids who can turn into professors’-and-deans’-darlings superstars at State U once they leave home, where maybe they didn’t get the same prep, or maybe they/parents just weren’t interested in playing the elite-U game. Clark Kents. EDII won’t be so tasty-looking but will have more money, which admissions can use to backfill, and then RD is admissions spackle. Fill in whatever diversity/hooks and money are lacking, and if you can goose stats a bit in there with EA-quality kids who failed to get the memo or lacked savviness in round 1, that’s good too. But lean towards money and yield, this isn’t a place for throwing around a lot of invites that’ll get refused.
The admit rate isn’t as important as the composition of each group. This is why I was so impressed, in my first post, by the precision of the machine. I hadn’t realized how clean the engineering had become.
If you’re trying to reason your way there I can see why that’s an appealing conclusion, but in practice it’s wrong. I live this story every day and have done for years. It does however require tremendous energy and commitment, which is why you do have to fund public Us and CCs properly. Asking people to grind themselves into tiny bits for small money at inadequate facilities longterm isn’t a going proposition.
Please stop insulting the people who take care of, and do a substantial amount of the upbringing and early education of, very young children. It’s a thing that’s happened repeatedly here and if it keeps on I’ll flag it. If your view is a matter of lack of acquaintance with what early childhood development entails I’m happy to refer you to people who can educate you on the matter.
We’re all aware that childcare’s gaggingly expensive but stiffing the people who provide it isn’t the way to solve that problem.
“Creeping credentialism” is what we had a couple-few decades ago. Now, however, as I’ve explained above, ordinary jobs have grown complex enough that they actually require strong reading, analytical, and communication skills. We’ve already roboticized the very simple, and we’ve engineered what used to be simple things to be highly complex: maintenance isn’t just a matter of eyeballing stuff and getting in there with a wrench or whacking a thing till it goes into a space. That is why increasingly employers look for at least a bachelor’s degree. It’s much better to get someone who knows how to keep their cool, read documentation, analyze a problem and think through solutions, and communicate before/while actually doing the job. Not only is it easier management, but way less expensive when you don’t have to keep replacing things your “I don’t need a college degree” person has wrecked.
We had the conversation above about whether a German-style technical track which provided such training would work here and I believe the consensus was Americans would never go for being tracked so rigidly into a future. So – there ya go, college, equivalent high-level training, or a lot of busted expensive kit.
How many colleges have both EA and ED? Among the “top 50” or so, it seems like it may be just Chicago, Virginia, Case Western, and Miami. Others appear to have only EA (sometimes restrictive), only ED (possibly more than one round), or neither.
I’m sorry, I don’t know where you’re getting this from. I never said she’s ___d or that her dad won’t in the end pay his fair share (he hasn’t any choice about that). Nor have I ever said that it’s impossible for an extremely bright, motivated, and well-connected kid to get where she wants to go from State U.
blossom, consistently in these exchanges, you’ve sort of keyworded things I’ve said and invented new comments and realities out of them, or taken them to extremes that weren’t stated or implied. I’m happy to go on talking but have to ask you to read more carefully and respond to what I’ve actually written. The most important thing, still, is that I’m not talking about the far-and-wee end of bell curve superstars. I’m one of those, and you’re right, in this territory the person matters more than the school. I’m fine. I’d probably be fine even in this world that’s far more restrictive than the opportunity world in the US that existed a few decades ago. The conversation here has been about the much larger group people somewhat to the left of me, still in multiple-SD territory.
How do you know EA applicants aren’t rich enough to let the school decide how much they’ll pay for college? Suppose a rich kid wants to apply to a HYPSMC type “elite” private. None of HYPSMC offers an option to apply ED, so that’s off the table. Instead the rich kids have a choice of either applying EA/REA or RD. One common approach is to apply EA/REA to their first choice among the group (REA prevents them from applying to peers for which they are likely to lose as cross admit). The overwhelming majority or rich kids are deferred/rejected to their EA/REA first choice, then they apply RD to a variety of lower choices, matches, safeties, etc; so they appear in both the EA/REA round and the RD round.
This is exactly what the the sample from previously posted Harvard lawsuit data suit showed. The bulk of Harvard applicants in both the REA and RD rounds were composed of wealthy kids, but there were also a significant portion of not wealthy kids in both REA and RD rounds. For example, there was only a small 2% difference in rate of kids who were low enough income to apply using a fee waiver among applicants in the REA and RD pools. More information about differences in composition of the 2 groups is at http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-421-134-February-2013-Report.pdf .
If you mean the non-HYP Ivies that offer ED, they don’t offer EA/REA – only ED and RD, so you don’t have any EA group. However, it’s a similar idea . A common approach is to apply ED to their first choice. The overwhelming majority or rich kids are rejected to their ED first choice, then apply RD to a variety of lower choices, matches, safeties, etc.
ED is also not just composed of full pay kids. For example, a comparison of the Dartmouth class of 2025 admitted under ED and full class is below. Both groups had a significant portion of kids who were not full pay.
Dartmouth ED Admits – 58% applied for FA, Average FA grant = $62k, 18% Pell eligible
Dartmouth Full Class – 50% qualify for FA, Average FA grant = $61k, 17% Pell eligible
It’s important if you believe that there are large differences in the composition in the early and regular round. MIT had approximate the same admit rate for their early and regular rounds, so if there are large differences in composition of applicants in the 2 application rounds, it suggests that those differences in composition are likely to have little impact in chance of admission at MIT.
Might I remind members of the forum rules: “Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others."
The conversation is getting a bit snarky; please be mindful.
Additionally, “College Confidential forums exist to discuss college admission and other topics of interest. It is not a place for contentious debate. If you find yourself repeating talking points, it might be time to step away and do something else. Some topics, such as politics, religion and moderation on the forums, lend themselves to debate. If a thread starts to get heated, it might be closed or heavily moderated.”
While I am still wrapping my head around the mass of information in this conversation, I’d like you to address these observations.
This is not just what poor or lower middle class families are doing. It is what upper middle class and rich families are doing. The snow flaking, the snow plowing, the helicoptering, the insane focus on sports.
But somehow this doesn’t hurt the rich scions’ education or their chances at college admission. Is it that prep schools know exactly which sports to play, and how? Which hook to exploit, if not athletic recruitment? How do they manage to educate kids without honest, sometimes negative feedback?
Why do these cultural emphases appear to only hurt the non rich natives?
Poor immigrant families do not do these things for sure.
I find OP’s characterization of EA vs ED students to be a reasonable one. Students who are admitted via EA are primarily either hooked (ALDC, URM, etc.) or academically super qualified (whether they need FA or not). Those admitted and enrolled via ED are more likely to either not need FA or be less sensitive to the amound of FA. They are also likely less confident of their chances via EA and need the larger boost that ED give them.
Assuming we are still talking about elite privates. the same statement could be made about any decision round. For example, students who are admitted via RD are “primarily either hooked (ALDC, URM, etc.) or academically super qualified (whether they need FA or not).”
As been noted, “elite” privates almost never offer both EA and ED. For example, a kid who is not confident about his chances for MIT EA cannot choose to apply to MIT ED instead for a perceived larger boost. Instead his choice is either MIT EA or MIT RD. Similarly a kid who is confident about his chances at Penn (if not a recruited athlete, this seems likely to be a bad assumption) cannot choose to apply to Penn EA instead of ED because he thinks he does not need the perceived larger ED boost. Instead his choice is either Penn ED or Penn RD.
Rather than confidence in chance of admission, I’d expect which application decision to be more dependent on things like confidence in being a first choice and attending a HS in which GCs encourage students to apply early. And yes, I agree that some students choose to avoid ED because they want to compare FA offers before committing. As noted, it’s not universal. Plenty of kids with noteworthy financial need apply ED, and plenty of full pay kids apply RD.
Not nearly to the same degree. Hooked and super-qualified applicants tend to apply EA (rather than RD). They apply RD only if they were deferred/rejected in the early round or they want to shop around a bit more to have more options.
Of course, no school in that tier offers both EA and ED. UChicago is obviously an exception but it accepts few unhooked applicants via EA. MIT (and Caltech) are also the special cases. Other than these special cases, unhooked applicants will likely choose to apply ED or EA based on how much boost they think they need. That decision will determine what type of elite privates they will apply to.
Specific numbers for Harvard are in the link from a few posts up. Legacies were by far the largest ALDC hooked group and composed ~3% of applicants. The REA pool had a higher concentration of legacies than the RD pool by a good margin. However, the REA pool was smaller, so even though it had a higher concentration, roughly 2/3 of legacies applied RD and only 1/3 applied REA. Legacies were far more likely to apply RD than REA.
URMs were by far the largest hook group, composing ~23% of applicants – nearly 8x more URM hook applicants than legacy hook applicants. URMs were far more likely to apply RD than REA, and the RD pool had a higher concentration of of URMs than the REA pool. As such, the RD pool had a higher concentration of ALDC+URM hooked kids than the REA pool. I expect other “elite” privates to show a similar pattern.
There was a significant difference in academic rating between the 2 pools. Slightly more than half of REA applicants had a high 1-2 academic rating, compared to ~40% of RD applicants. While this is a statistically significant difference, it also suggests that a large portion of both pools are academically qualified.
However, the original comment wasn’t about the applicant pools. It was about “students who are admitted,.” I 'd be surprised if any “elite” private does not primarily admit kids who are either hooked or “super qualified”, regardless of whether admitted EA, ED, or RD.
I’m sure you’ve seen many posts on the forum about students choosing which “elite” privates to apply to. How many of those posts implied the decision about which “elite” private was determined by what type of ED vs EA boost they think they need? I can’t recall a single one. I’m sure a small fraction of kids may consider it, but to say what type of EA vs ED boost they think they need determines what type of “elite” privates they apply to is not accurate.
Legacy is the weakest among all the hooks. Such a student may have applied to another school ED (because s/he believe ED gives her/him a bigger boost than her/his legacy status). When s/he didn’t succeed in that strategy, s/he may then apply to the school s/he has the legacy status among others during the RD round.
Yes, that’s why I qualified my original comment on this topic with the word “admitted”.
There’re different levels of “super-qualification”.
Why do you think they apply EA or (specially) ED in the first place?
Our S applied to Stanford SCEA because it was his top college and he wanted to get a quick (relative) start in his applications without getting locked in via ED. He had considered CMU ED but wanted options. I’m sure there are many other reasons.
One of the things all sides of the lawsuit and all relevant Harvard internal analyses agreed upon was that legacy was a powerful hook. The regression analyses found legacy boost was a similar order of magnitude to DC, far less than athlete, and more than Hispanic. However, rather than potency of the legacy hook, the point was that legacy was by far the most common of the ALDC hooks in the sample – more than all the rest of ADC combined, so the remaining ADC hooks aren’t going to compose as large a portion of the REA/RD pools as legacy and aren’t going to have as much influence.
Your first post and my reply talked about admitted kids, then suddenly you switched to taking about applicants, rather than admits. This distinction between applicant vs admit is relevant to things like your comment about “super qualification.” For example, I agree that ED/REA/SCEA can offer a significant boost in chance of admission at certain “elite” privates, which implies that the median unhooked RD applicant may be stronger than the median unhooked ED/REA/SCEA admit, and the unhooked RD admits may have a higher rate of various academic qualifications over REA. So if you are comparing unhooked REA admit vs unhooked RD admit, I’d guess that the RD group has a higher rate of “super-qualification”. However, if you are comparing unhooked applicants, I’d guess the reverse. The significance of this difference is a matter of speculation.
The college choice posts on the forum often talk about deciding among several “elite” privates. In many cases, some of the listed options offer EA/REA/SCEA, and some offer ED. There are a variety of different reasons why students may choose one of these options over the other, but it often boils down to figuring out which of the listed “elite” privates is the student’s first choice and applying to that first choice college in the early round. I’ve yet to see any post that mentions avoiding EA/REA/SCEA schools because the student feels they need an unhooked ED boost. Many students do limit colleges to a particular selectivity level based on perceived qualifications (for example, how closely their SAT scores match to the college), but that is not the same thing. If the student is not confident about which college is the first choice and not ready to make a binding commitment, then that can also be influential, as mentioned in my earlier post and Rivet2000’s reply above.
While applying to a first choice in the early round is a common approach, I used a different approach when I applied to colleges. Rather than apply to my first choice during the early round, I applied to a 5th choice college that offered non-binding EA. I could have also applied to several other less selective non-binding EA colleges since it was non-restrictive EA. After being accepted to my 5th choice, this took a big load off. I didn’t need to apply to a large number of colleges of varying selectivities during RD. Instead I could focus on just the 4 colleges I would choose over my EA acceptance. Had I instead been rejected everywhere during EA, the EA round would still be important because it was a first indication that I may need to emphasize less selective colleges and safeties, as well as figure out if there are any unexpected problems in may application. Applying to a first choice extreme reach in ED/REA/SCEA is far less likely to offer either type of benefit. There are a variety of reasons a student may choose a particular college in the early round.