<p>forgive my newbie ignorance, ellemenope, but why avoid ED/EA?</p>
<p>Queen's Mom</p>
<p>One of the most important things for you to learn as a newbie, is that there is incredible amount of useful info on CC, but not every post speaks the Absolute Truth!</p>
<p>For some kids ED/EA options are excellent, and save lot's of time and money in application fees, not to mention the anxiety relief. Sure worked wonders for our 3 kids. I guess other families had a very different experience.</p>
<p>I'm not sure why someone implied EA (non-binding) should be avoided. In fact, it should be pursued, especially with safety schools. Nice to have a fallback position established as early as possible.</p>
<p>As to (binding) ED - ED is only for a family where paying full tution is not a problem and the student has a clear #1 choice that has no chance of changing. Otherwise, don't even go there. Too many problems with FA falling short, acceptance to a reach school, being killed because of binding ED committment.</p>
<p>Or buyer's remorse. Kids change over the course of a year. But I agree no downsides to EA that I know of. And if you don't get into your EA schools it may be a reality check that you need to improve your application or apply to some safer schools.</p>
<p>With 4 kids to educate I had rules - you must apply to a state school. Also, applications had to be done by thanksgiving.
Around October, my daughter was concentrating on out of state and private schools.<br>
I gave her choices of her state schools, she picked one, I sent for information, filled out the application - no essay required, made her sign it and gave it to her bf with a check to drop off at guidance. This was the only one I made her do but she did feel better having it in her back pocket. so did I.</p>
<p>EA - no downsides. it is not binding and can help with extra $$.</p>
<p>Nearly all of my d's schools could be considered safeties. She didn't care, just picked schools she liked. Ultimately she is going to a private school in another state with a very nice merit scholarship and financial aid package. When she picked the school, I had never heard of it before and it is only 120 miles away! She found it doing a search on collegeboard.com. go figure!</p>
<p>Older D was rejected on EA round at a super selective school and it made for a VERY dismal 3 months until the RD decisions came out. Got into some very nice colleges on the RD round--waiting till RD didn't seem to hurt. You'd have to convince me that the EA bump at a super selective school is strategically warranted in order to put in an EA/ED application.</p>
<p>Agree that EA application at a safety school can be a good idea--I guess I consider it in the same vein as applying to a rolling admission safety school,which I wholeheartedly support.</p>
<p>D didn't find applying EA cut down on work. Since you don't find out whether you are in or out till mid to late December, she had to put all the packages together so that they would be ready to go out in late December if needed.</p>
<p>So let me rephrase: No applying EA to a super selective school for this family...heartache was not worth it. Psychologically, deciding which super selective school to choose for your EA application makes you "fall in love" with one school. And the chance that you'll see heartache are much more likely than you'll see joy come December.</p>
<p>I was actually considering ED at a very selective reach school for D. She would be a legacy since both my husband and I went there and it is her No.1 choice anyway. They generally give very nice FinAid awards. Well, we have time to consider it still.</p>
<p>Since you have double legacies, and it's her first choice, ED would seem to be the perfect way to go! The acceptance rate is usually at least double for ED compared to RD, so you might as well try. However, as Ellemenope warned, if she is deferred or denied, it will make the holidays glum.</p>
<p>If it is a CLEAR #1, and you are not afraid of not getting enough aid, ED at very selective school can really help. I also heard many times that legacies get a boost only if they are applying ED.</p>
<p>I understand what ellemenope means by heartache from EA rejection. However, rejection from a dream school EA can also be a reality check that would prompt the students to apply to a wider variety of schools.</p>
<p>ellemenope - The point of applying EA is that you can take lots of stress away early, and can save some major app fees. The work may still need to be done, but you won't have to submit app fees and test score costs until after you get a response.</p>
<p>And if you get a positive response - it is a great benefit.</p>
<p>EA schools are not restricted to one school. S applied and was accepted to two and was accepted at both. They were schools he would have been happy to attend. He was deferred form ED school, and EA acceptances really helped.</p>
<p>D was deferred from ED school and ultimately accepted. She is convinced that she wouldn't have been accepted if she hadn't applied ED. </p>
<p>And we need financial aid and went against popular wisdom. We saw the two packages. ED package was more. (FA said a little changed in our profile. Maybe true.)</p>
<p>Yes, there was heartache. I don't argue with that, but we had benefit, too. One of the greatest benefits was having guidance counselor less busy and able to focus more attention. Then the school package was completely done.</p>
<p>Pros and cons, like most things.</p>
<p>RE: choosing a Safety school - </p>
<p>I would choose one or two that have rolling admissions - that way you can hopefully have an acceptance or two before spring.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>However, rejection from a dream school EA can also be a reality check that would prompt the students to apply to a wider variety of schools.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Well, it promptly made her go back to her essays and tinker away at them. The resulting product was better! </p>
<p>Some schools may make it plain that if you want to play the "legacy" card, you need to apply ED.</p>
<p>"No applying EA to a super selective school "
I would add ESPECIALLY if you can't apply to other EA schools because of SCEA restrictions[ i.e. Stanford or Yale] The "chances" of getting much of an admissions "bump" for applying early at those 2 schools are in my opinion not a good enough reason to forgo applying early to numerous other EA schools. Unless you are a WOW student, a DA, or a state or national champion in some field[ outside of athletics] etc. etc, your chances of Acceptance SCEA are only around 20%. Weigh the chances of being one of the really lucky few vrs. the wonderful feeling of having an early acceptance in early Spring at a safety/ rolling admission college.</p>
<p>My analysis of a nonbinding but restrictive early action application is much like that of menloparkmom: yeah, maybe there is some slight admission boost to so applying (although the two SCEA colleges appear to claim that there is not), but foregoing the opportunity to apply early to nonrestrictive EA colleges is too great a cost. As of today, two or three colleges on my son's still evolving college application list appear to have nonrestrictive EA programs. If they still do in his application year, I will encourage him to apply early to all of those. If he gets into at least one college out of that set in the early round, he can forego several other applications entirely, saving trees. If he gets into none--that is, if he is flat out rejected at all those colleges--then I know he needs to readjust his application list. We'd like all the early round stuff to happen AFTER already knowing results from a rolling application (really, "on the spot") to our friendly local state university. Safety first.</p>
<p>With S1, he did no SCEA or ED (those were the only parameters we set as parents), but sent three EAs, including one to his super-reach, and two other reach schools. He applied to the flagship (priority decision), but they don't release results until til mid-Feb, and no word on merit amounts til early April. Therefore, S played out part of the his remaining hand. S dropped three schools (safety, match and super-reach) after getting EA news and added one super-reach for FA comparisons.</p>
<p>Four of the seven schools he applied to offered significant merit money; of the four who accepted him, three gave him merit $$. Yippee! </p>
<p>With S2, we may fiddle with things a bit. Am still contemplating what might work best for him, and a lot of that will depend on what schools he really likes. We will definitely be doing some research on that front this summer. I expect an entirely new learning curve! :)</p>
<p>My older bro did 4 safeties, 4 matches , 4 reaches, he got 3,2,1, respectively. And my bro had excellent stats. I made fun of him for applying to 12 schools, but I think the 4,4,4 was a good plan now. We got to compare aid offers, etc, and it feels good to have choices.</p>
<p>A point of clarification: Although students who apply early to one of the remaining SCEA schools are not permitted to submit EA apps to other schools, they are allowed to apply simultaneously to rolling admission schools (state publics). That was absolutely true of Yale this year, and I'm virtually certain it was true of Stanford, too.</p>
<p>last year I studied CC hard and S did 7 apps: 3 reach, 3 match, 1 safety. Since he was applying for nominated scholarships, 2 of the reaches felt like EA as apps were due very early (oct/nov). Result = 1 reject, 1 waitlist (both reaches) and 5 acceptances. Significant merit aid at all acceptances, including two full-tuition offers. 100% need met at all acceptances with no loans. We prayed thank yous for Curmudgeon, Carolyn, Sybbie and several others on this board that educated me in a way I would have never understood without CC
S#2 is in grade 9 and already talking about college - very different interests, though. I think I'll be around CC awhile!!</p>
<p>orjr: Congrats! That's great results. And now you'll be a venerable elder helping newbies.</p>