I’m hoping Clemson is just the anomaly, but with test optional and colleges seeing such a huge increase in number of EA applicants, is this backfiring when these kids just get deferred? It seems like the overall system is broken. I’m nervous my kid with a 4.2, 33ACT, 5 APs, captain of her sport, 100+ volunteer hours won’t get EA into her first choice school that has a 70% acceptance rate! (Not Clemson)
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Sadly Clemson is not the anomaly. Michigan does the same thing and its been creating a lot of angst for years.
IMO, it’s important to just manage the expectations to our kids so they don’t see the deferral as soul crushing. The best thing psychologically is to have an early application in to a rolling admission school. That can make the wait much more bearable.
Have a well balanced list and there will be plenty of acceptances for a student with your child’s stats!
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Wondering about this too. We have a friend whose kid (valedictorian) was rejected ED at Cornell and EA at GA Tech, but got into Yale in the RD round. And we have heard many stories like this.
So we are kinda worried we made a mistake with our daughter applying ED to Vandy, which doesn’t defer. Time will tell…
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I’ll just say this and it is tough emotionally but deferred does not equal rejection or close to it at many schools.
Nor does deferred mean no merit. At Miami, for example, my daughter got the same $25k merit that most kids not deferred got.
And at UGA I read of a ton of deferred kids that got the same merit my daughter received.
It could be many reasons. Seasonal staffing, for example. They bring in readers but not that early and they only review early apps that hit a threshold. Or are below a minimum.
In my mind the school risks the kid checking out on them. My daughter did at The U.
But it is important to stress that it is not a rejection (in many cases).
A 70% acceptance rate is not going to defer your kid based on academics…at least I can’t think of one. A UGA….Miami….yes as a 4.2 is sadly in todays world of grade inflation…not overly high and of course some schools re calc your grades (and they come out in some cases lower).
Good luck.
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If she is qualified or close, then it’s no mistake. If that’s where she wants to be, it’s your best shot.
If she is rejected, she wasn’t getting in RD either.
If you mean you could have used your ED elsewhere then sure. But why ED to a school that’s not where you want to be ?
Both my kids were rejected: one at one of 15 and the other at four of 21 including WL….and I’m glad. It shows me, even though both went to safeties, that they stretched and at least had robust lists. Had we 100% known they’d choose the safeties up front then, of course, the strategy would have been different.
But rejection is good. It tells you that your student stretched (as they should unless their desired school is a safety as many flagship or local colleges are for kids).
But if Vandy is the dream but she has a true list of target and safeties too - then unless you’re a clearly below their level student and as long as you can afford it, then applying ED, even with rejection is ok. And if doesn’t result in acceptance, that’s ok as well. She stretched, she’ll still have great options and for that you can be proud.
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The worry here is about EA, not ED. If Vandy was indeed her first choice, you’re fine. Not a mistake.
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Vandy does defer, they specifically said that in the info session we attended. I think last year was the first year they did so.
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We have a friend whose son was rejected EA out of state at Ga Tech but then admitted to MIT. Not the first time I’ve heard that story either. When you get to a certain level of competitiveness it becomes a crapshoot. I believe these admissions officers when they say they are trying to craft a class, and if your kid doesn’t fill one of their holes then you don’t have the same chance (even with perfect stats) than one who does.
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I think the GPA thing causes a lot of confusion. All GPAs are not created equal. When people list weighted GPA is it really is kind of meaningless. Where does it put them in their class? How do they compare with other students at their school? What sort of weight is added? Is it added for just core classes or if you take honors art does that get added as well? What is the weighted GPA out of? 4.0, 4.3, 5.0 or higher? If you start with an unweighted GPA and then list the number of honors classes and AP classes taken that gives you a little bit better idea but still without knowing the school profile it’s hard to tell.
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You really need to look into the specific school and gauge the overall admission philosophy. Take a school like UMD that doesn’t have ED and takes a majority of their applicants through EA. Contrast that with Villanova that offers EA, ED1, ED2 and RD. They will skim a few off the top EA and defer most to the RD round. For the students that they want they will ask them if they want to switch to their application to ED2.
Certainly the whole perfect storm of changes (common ap, Covd, test optional) has created a big level of uncertainty through the whole process, it’s not surprising to see kids getting boxed out of a t100 to later get into a t20.
Will be interesting to see how it continues to evolve over the next few years. I do think you will see colleges find ways to try and curb the number of applicants applying. Will more and get rid of test optional like Purdue? Stay of the common app like Georgetown? How much of the class will get filled through ED?
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Agree, unfortunately our kids are applying in a time of great transition. It looks like there will be another across the board increase in applications again this year. I do think schools will have to find ways to limit because eventually, if not already, there will be too many applications to review.
As far as how to handle, as parents, we have to help our kids understand how arbitrary the process can be, help them find one or two true likelies they would be happy to attend, and talk them into loving their whole,list, not just one or two schools.
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Firstly, acceptances haven’t been released yet. It’s understandable to feel nervous, but don’t jump the gun. She is more likely to be accepted than deferred if they accept 70% of applicants.
This tactic is super common. Northeastern used it very effectively in ascending the rankings ladder. The system might be broken, but if so, it’s not because of EA.
Your child is clearly a great student, but please understand that there are a lot of other students who fit that profile. If she has a reasonable list of schools with other matches and safeties, she will have a college to attend. Keep sight of the goal.
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I think it may be a bit early to make that assessment, especially on the back of a state school that appears to somewhat favor in-state applicants. Your initial concerns about increased competition aren’t coming from out of nowhere, though.
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It just feels like the system is broken. I know this would never happen, but what if kids were only allowed to apply to five schools max? Clearly that would help with yield as well as alleviating some of the stress for kids to apply to 15+ schools just because so much of this is a crap shoot and they want to be sure tk get in somewhere.
Agree about the comment on the common app making it too easy to apply to so many. My D applied through CA but then had a ton of supplementals so it didn’t completely alleviate all the extra work.
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That wouldn’t work well for kids chasing merit, one of my kids filled out 20 applications, public schools, some acceptances weren’t considered due to not enough $.
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But don’t you think it would be easier to obtain merit because you would actually be working with a smaller pool of applicants?
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For a school that offers both EA and ED (and even ED2), don’t bother with its EA unless the applicant has a strong hook.
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None of it has rhyme or reason. And that is just the reality. Last year my high stats kid (3.94 UW, 4.38W, 12 APs, great ECs) had a terrific EA run and a pretty terrible RD run. For EA, she was admitted to Michigan, Wisconsin, Vermont, Oregon Honors, Fordham, Macalester. No deferrals. But many of her equally high stats friends had terrible EA experiences. But they all ended up having good options and they are all happily attending schools they chose from those options.
It can be hard to wait out the whole process. But that’s the only thing you can do. The show isn’t over for several months. So much will change—including your child’s preferences. My daughter is grateful she was rejected from UPEnn in their ED round. She is very happy where she landed, a school she really didn’t pay much attention to during the choosing and applying phase (UCLA, we are in-state and she thought she wanted to go OOS)
All to say, hang in there. It’s a long, wild ride. Trying to game the system will only get you so far, and it’s unlikely to lead to satisfying results. Applying early is great because if you do get a win or two, it’s nice to head into the long waiting period knowing you have choices. But it really is going to be ok in the long run.
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I have heard this, but then I have also heard of some of those same schools that you shouldn’t bother applying RD either.
Specifically, I am thinking about Northeastern. I feel like people told us don’t apply EA, because it looks much worse since they have ED. But I’ve also heard people say don’t bother applying RD to Northeastern, because they fill all their spots from ED and EA. I guess, maybe what they’re saying is there’s no point in applying to Northeastern if you aren’t willing to commit to ED. And that is a “feature” of some specific schools and how they manage admissions.
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The other issue is people don’t have a realistic idea of admission chances. Even if your kid is valedictorian with a 36 ACT there are literally many thousands of kids with those exact same stats, and a lot of those kids are applying to the same 30 schools. Not sure cutting the number of applications down is the answer. Certainly schools like Alabama, Auburn, Clemson and others that don’t require any essays could add an essay or two to increase the barrier for applying. Same with Georgia. Although Georgia does require the common app and a short supplemental essay about an amusing story, they could add a couple that required a little more work. My child applied to nine schools, and if he gets into Georgia Tech next week it’s over. He still has four other applications out there. But we don’t know if he’s going to get into Georgia Tech, even though he’s a top student and in-state so he tried to have a comprehensive list of schools of varying admission difficulty. He’s my third kid so I have a pretty good grasp on how hard various schools are to get in but until you’ve gone through an admission cycle I honestly think most people don’t understand. Had he been my first child, we would’ve probably assumed he would get in and his list would’ve been much shorter. However when we were putting his list together, my question was so what are you going to do if you don’t get into Georgia Tech? That made him add Purdue, Virginia Tech, Illinois (still a reach) and a couple others like Auburn, UGA, Clemson (already in these thank goodness).
State schools are particularly deceiving. Not only do they have in-state and out-of-state preferences, they also are required to serve the entire state. Georgia Tech is the perfect example of this. Small school with 60% in-state students. 32% in state acceptance rate. That would lead you to believe that if you were in the top of your class at a competitive school you would get in. Not necessarily true, particularly if you are from a populated area.
I don’t love the mass deferral which many seem to use. Michigan for example, does not reject anyone or almost no one who applies EA. I think it does a disservice to kids who are not competitive for admission. But rejecting a bunch of kids is not good for PR either. It is likely that Clemson was conservative with EA admits and many of the deferred will get in in the spring.
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