My daughter came back from her second Skidmore visit today and the love is real. As soon as the AD mentioned last year’s acceptance rate was 25%, she’s now wondering if she should apply ED to improve her odds of being admitted. While it’s not the worst thing in the world, I’m not a big supporter of ED (that’s a whole other post). She loves the school and I would say she’s 75% of the way there, but because she can be fickle and she’s had other schools on top of the list here and there I don’t like the idea of locking in something too soon. It’s a big decision and opinions change plus I think that admitted student days and facebook pages and other events can give you a flavor for your future classmates. She also wants to go to a school that no one from her HS is going to so that wouldn’t be possible.
While I can look at the stats and see a higher acceptance rate for ED, I was curious to know if the advantage is as straightforward as it may seem. Do more qualified students, athletes, etc apply ED? Does RD pick up more students that are below the average, etc?
She’s got a solid application. A fairly rigorous load, mostly honors or AP except for math. All As and 2 B+s. ACT not great (28) so would apply test optional. (They mentioned today it doesn’t hurt your chances at all.) Lots of volunteer work, a good essay and assuming very good recommendations. We are not applying for financial aid if that matters. For context, the other schools that have floated in and out of #1 are American, St. Olaf, Clark and Denison.
She’s going to speak with her GC as well but thought I’d reach out to all the experienced parents here to get your thoughts.
ED could be a real advantage for her. As long as she feels confident she could be happy there, why not? Two visits plus research into the school should have given her enough knowledge to make the decision. Remind her that she will need to make a commitment and then take the attitude that there is no looking back. If she herself is comfortable with that, then great!
Yes, the groups you name contribute to a lot of the acceptances in the ED round. But not all of them! When a school accepts 50% or so of its class ED, if it is a clear top choice, why would you wait to compete with a larger group of applicants for a much smaller chance of acceptance RD? If your daughter likes it best, and there is no need to worry about comparing aid packages, ED may be the best way to go.
ED is definitely helpful in admissions but one needs to be 100% sure the college is the absolute top choice. Would it be possible for your D to revisit Skidmore? Perhaps she can arrange with admissions to shadow a student for a day (go to classes, eat in the dinning hall etc.) before the deadline so she can have a better idea of if ED would be right for her.
@thumper1 My D found spending a day shadowing a student to be invaluable in deciding to apply ED. It was a very different experience as compared to a typical tour/information session. FWIW we made a third visit to the campus of her top choice to allow her to do this and it made her decision to apply ED to that school very clear in her mind. And she never had a second thought. That personal experience is why I felt it was worth sharing the suggestion. I do recognize that the OP would have to find the time and be able to make arrangements quickly for the suggestion to work.
DS applied ED and is now a happy sophomore at Skidmore. I don’t know how much the ED bumped his application (he had a moderate GPA at a very selective HS, had great test scores, and had a pretty good art portfolio). It was his first choice, and he was thrilled to be accepted.
I don’t think it needs to be 100% the top choice, just that she’s 100% sure she’d be happy there. My kids had a lot of schools they’d have been perfectly happy to attend.
Thanks all for the support and advice. We did reach out to see if she could shadow someone for a day and she’s more than happy to go back and do that. Our first visit was in the summer so it would only be her second opportunity to see what the school is really like in session. Another thought I had was wait until ED2. Assume she would still have better odds and that gives her more time to think things through and perhaps revisit Clark and American. We would also be able to see if she got any merit aid from Clark as she applied EA (St. Olaf is too far to visit again.). The Clark decision would also give a feel for how much cheaper some of the other schools might be if at all. It’s not a deal breaker, but would be thrilled for her to attend a school that’s <65K a year especially becuase her current career goal is the Peace Corp or teaching English in South East Asia but we are very fortunate that we can afford Skidmore so I don’t want to make that the deciding factor for her. She feels she would definitley be happy at Skidmore, but she fully admits that if not for the fear she won’t get in at all, she would not be committing herself so early. The schools she likes are so different which makes me worry she’s not sure what she wants! She’s going to speak to her GC tomorrow for some advice and to get her perspective on her chances RD. I think she needs someone less emotionally connected giving her advice here.
It’s not clear that she’s going to make a better decision in April than in October. A lot of the decision-making process is emotional, not rational, and it is absolutely impossible to know what it’s going to be like to attend a school without actually going. Most colleges offer a pretty similar experience in terms of teaching, support, and student life. (I almost fell off my chair laughing when an admissions officer at Dartmouth said that what’s “a little bit unique [sic]” about Dartmouth is that if you don’t find a club that you want, you can start it.)
Important factors in college choice usually take a back seat to gut feeling for high school seniors. Here are some potentially important questions that I can think of are, in no particular order: 1. Is your child considering a field of study that is uncommon, so that she needs to find a school with good offerings in that field? 2. Big school with big classes or small school with mostly seminars? 3. Is thestudent body a good fit? Is she a sporty or artsy kid, and is most of the student body the opposite? (Although this by no means has to be a deal-breaker) 4. Do the finances work? 5. Is this a kid who really needs an urban — or rural— setting? 6. Greek life/party/heavy drug using school? 7. Tolerance of LGBT or differing political viewpoints? 8. Is your child mature enough to handle being a plane ride or long drive from home? You might have a few others to throw in, but barring a major issue like the examples above, I think often when a kid is unhappy at a particular school, it’s an adjusting-to-college problem rather than an I-picked-the-wrong-school problem.
Most schools with ED take a disproportionate percentage of their class in the ED round because it improves their yield, and hence, their rankings. I wish my D2 would have applied somewhere ED and saved the time, expense, and stress of the Christmas vacation application rush.
If she wants more time to consider other schools and see if there is merit aid coming from Clark then ED II might be an excellent option. (I didn’t know that was available at Skidmore.)
And, OP, I don’t think your child’s mix of schools is uncommon or shows a lack of direction. There are commonalities among the schools. Clark, Skidmore, and American in particular seem to have a somewhat frequent overlap of applicants, judging from past threads on this forum and guidebooks that list “students also apply to” information. My family visited all three of those colleges as well.