<p>I know a lot of you are finding these last few weeks of waiting hard, so I thought I would share my son’s experiences with you.</p>
<p>His Penn ED application was a strategic one. He had 3 reachy reaches on his list, and no clear favorite among them. He was a legacy at Penn, so he knew his best chance was in the ED round…and he applied ED.</p>
<p>He didn;t have the time to work on his RD applications after the ED application went in- and many were not common app. We decided to not plan a Christmas holiday trip to take the pressure off him, should he need to do other applications. So the set up was that no other applications were done…</p>
<p>He had 3 other friends apply early to very competitive schools. They all heard before him and were in at Cornell, Dartmouth and Swarthmore…</p>
<p>Well, he was deferred at Penn. It really wasn;t a HUGE surprise. He had above average SAT’s for Penn, but his grades were not as strong. Our HS typically sends a top 3 or 4 student or two to Penn each year, and he was somewhat below this. Penn was probably going to wait to see who applied in the RD round (This was our guess). My son’s reaction was about 30 minutes of feeling angry, and then, and this is true, he sat down and started to work on other essays.</p>
<p>A few weeks later I received a letter I never showed my son. It was from the alumni admissions office. It said that legacy kids who applied ED and were not accepted should not expect to be accepted RD. The acceptance rate would be only about 9% for these kids. I felt a little angry, truth be told, but kept it to myself and resisted the temptation to write a letter in reply!!!</p>
<p>My son had ‘moved on’ by then. Most of his other applications were nearly ready. He did a great job with them. He persisted in revising essays, he was careful with everything he wrote and said. None of the other applications were ‘throw aways.’ His safety school was still a quite competitive place- he had to put effort into every application and he did. </p>
<p>He sent an additional recommendation to Penn (From a teacher who only knew him briefly in September but knew him well by December), wrote another “Why Penn” letter expressing continued interest and committment (Though in his heart I am not sure he was…) and also updated his grades, awards,etc. He sent an additional essay- one of the common app essays he wrote which said things he had not been able to say elsewhere. He also had his best academic semester ever- and his predicted scores for IB and AP were nearly perfect (and these were reported by the guidance counselor). </p>
<p>A few more kids from his class applied RD, #1 and 2 in the class did not, to the best of my knowledge.</p>
<p>Well, he was accepted to Penn after all in the RD round. He was WL at one of the “reachy reaches” and rejected at the other. He was accepted to 5/6 of the other schools he applied to as well, WL at the other. His ‘safety’ offered him a lot of money and a good honors program. He decided to accept Penn and sit on the wait list at the other ‘reach’, but that school did not take any students from the WL. I am not sure what he would have done had he been accepted by that school ultimately.</p>
<p>So far Penn is working out really well for him. I think most of the other schools he applied to would have been great as well, but in fact Penn might be the ‘best match’ in a lot of ways… </p>
<p>By the way, the year before his brother applied ED to a school and was rejected (not Penn). He was accepted to all 7 of the other schools he applied to ultimately and is really happy at the school he attends. </p>
<p>Not being accepted ED, or being deferred, is not the end of the world, it is a chance to re-present yourself and incorporate everything you have done and learned about yourself since. If you get in ED, great…if you don’t get in ED…take it on and run with it and don’t look back.</p>