To clarify, many private colleges also have unrestricted EA.
@dadof4kids My D21 also plans to apply EA at Mac. Have you been able to tour the campus with students? We went in July as guests of a coach. Nice campus and neighborhood but hard to get a real âfeelâ of it.
Oh sorry, didnât know that. Our school doesnât add anyone in Naviance other than school teachersâŠ
Lol, that would be nice. We had a late spring tour scheduled that got canceled b/c Covid. So not only have we not seen the campus with students, we have not seen it without students either, except for online.
We had a couple of trips scheduled for May and then later in the summer, both obviously canceled. So D is pretty much flying blind. She has visited Rochester and Hamilton, both of which she is applying too, quite possibly Hamilton as ED2. She also visited Wash U in St. Louis, Cornell and Bryn Mawr, which she probably wonât apply to.
That leaves a whole bunch of her schools on the ânever seen in personâ list. I hate to say this because Iâm sure that I will get called out for it, but her ED school is one of the ones we werenât able to visit. Oh well. It really seems to check all of her boxes, and the ED boost is too good to pass up. So she is commiting to ED without that valuable data point. Without that itâs a super reach, which also means that even in ED itâs not super likely. We had plane tix for that trip purchased too.
Itâs a weird year. Hopefully the kids can visit in the spring. But I have a bad feeling that the first time many of them set foot on campus will be August 2021. Hopefully they will be able to get a good feel and make the right choice. I moved half way across the country in 1994 based on a glossy viewbook and a friend of a friend who said it was a good place. At least our kids have the internet. Thatâs way better info than I had.
@dadof4kids â first, glad youâre âbackâ!
Your D is not alone. My S has recently flirted with the idea of ED to a college he hasnât visited, surprising us. Anyway, itâs a global pandemic and all bets are off. If she really thinks Mac is the place for her and has explored it deeply virtually, I say go for it.
(Adding usual CC caveat that youâve run the NPC and can afford it!)
I have a question about ED2 applications. Does the student need to wait until they get a decision from the ED1/SCEA school before applying ED2? In theory, the student could immediately withdraw the ED2 application before the ED2 deadline if they get an acceptance from the ED1 school (which comes before the ED2 deadline) or switch the ED2 application to RD if they get an acceptance from the SCEA school. D21 wants to submit the ED2 application just to get it in, but I told her to wait until mid-December and after she hears back from
the first Early choice. Just wondering what is allowed though. Obviously one cannot apply to two schools for ED, but since this is ED2 and there is time to withdraw or change the application status before that second deadline once the student gets the result from the first ED/SCEA choice, I was wondering.
When D18 applied Princeton also only allowed one private school EA.
@AlmostThere2018 agree about all bets being off in 2020. Advising D to apply ED sight seen probably doesnât make the top 10 list of things I have done in the last 6 months that I thought I would never do.
To clarify, she is applying to Mac EA. Amherst will be ED.
I think there are some schools that is more dangerous than others. Amherst is a bit more generic, rather than a âlove it or hate itâ kind of place I think. Smith was on the list, then off largely due to conversations on CC and a concern that it was going to be too politically charged for D (a liberal, but a more passive one). It checks a lot of her boxes though, so she put it back on the list and is still applying. I think committing to a place like that sight unseen is a bit riskier.
But who knows, we are all flying blind a bit in 2020.
Just saw your addition, and yes the NPC works. Itâs a bit scary for me because we definitely need FA and I am self employed. But I donât have the typical expenses that get self employed families hung up. My depreciation is negligible. For S19 Iâm actually getting more than I expected (from a different full needs school). So Iâm guessing we should be ok. Iâm probably being overly cautious on my inputs into the calculator, rather than being too aggressive and hopeful.
I donât know of any prohibition, but I would keep it on the shelf with nothing left to do other than press âsendâ, and save the $50.
Yeah, I donât see any downside to that approach. D21 just doesnât want the feeling of having one last app hanging over her head. It is complete though and transcripts can still be sent, so I am going to tell her to hang tight.
@dadof4kids Good luck to your D! Exciting to have an ED and Iâm jealous. 
@dadof4kids â ah, got it re: Amherst â I misread. Good luck to her!
Question about the CSS profile, do you wait until the application is submitted to send it or can you send it to the schools you are planning on applying to?
Not relevant to the college talk, but to add a bit of color to my life.
D25 was running late (grrr) so I had to take her to school so wife wouldnât be late to work. That involves me being near the best place for a bagel around here, and I havenât had one in a while so I got an everything with cream cheese.
Eating the best bagel I can find here reminds me how much better they were in NY, this is bread with a hole and not worth the calories and carbs.
@dadof4kids And this dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker is still mourning the loss of H&H bagels, nothing like a hot out of the oven NYC bagel.
Good luck with Amherst. Itâs an amazing school in a spectacular location. I couldnât get my D to apply, but she loved Williams and MiddâŠkids!
D applied to 10 colleges and only visited the one in state where she is currently an online PSEO/dual enrollment student. We had planned to visit 2 oos last spring but had to cancel. I am hoping a couple favorites will emerge once honors college/merit decisions come in and we will get a chance to visit in the springâŠif not, she will have to decide sight unseen. She has been reluctant ant to reach out to AOs because I think she feels like she would be annoying them. I can see her point in a way. I have to believe they are busy. 9/10 are public universitiesâdoes demonstrated interest not matter as much?
@dadof4kids, married to a New Yorker, I agree. Nice memories of visiting (when parents-in-law were still alive) and running to the corner bakery in the early mornings to get fresh ones hot off the press.
H also used to sneak off mid/late afternoons for a slice or two of pizza whenever we visited. MIL never seemed to notice his lack of appetite for dinner!
@gotham_mom Iâm glad I was sitting when I read this, I might have fallen if I was standing. Iâve been gone a while, but H&H is gone?!?!?!? Even though I canât get them anymore I gained some peace knowing that others could. Covid, DJT, RBG, H&H, words canât express my disillusionment with the world right now. At least words that wonât get me thrown into the penalty box, I have plenty of words!
At least Mamounâs is still around, or it was a couple of years ago when I took S19 through my old haunts. We were both a bit perplexed with each other that trip. I couldnât understand why he couldnât see the allure of the city, and he couldnât figure out how I lived there. I will never move back, but part of me will always miss it. If I ever win Powerball I will have a crashpad in the Village.
I visited Williams (the anti-Manhattan) with S19 and I loved it. Unfortunately I canât seem to pass that love along. D21 would probably apply there, but she already has too many reaches and it doesnât call to her as much as some other reaches do. If she gets Macalester EA, then she might apply to Williams because at that point her apps will all probably be lottery picks anyway. Midd she is on the fence about. Currently she is thinking it wonât be on the final list. My guess is that it gets put back on, because at some point she is going to throw in the towel on more essays so no essay schools like Midd will suddenly get more appealing. She says otherwise right now, but we will see. The theory of writing that many essays isnât as bad as the reality.
I have 3-4 pizza places I miss in particular. My favorite was Two Boots, which I know isnât âclassicâ NY pizza but I ate there all the time because the original (now closed) location was between my old apartment and NYU, and later after I moved out of the city I would get it occasionally at Grand Central (no idea if they are still there). We stumbled across a Two Boots location accidentally about an hour after lunch on that trip with S19, so naturally I stopped for a slice. 
I was really surprised that my lifelong Manhattanite D fell for Williams and Midd, but not Amherst (which was my favorite, hmmmâŠ). Sheâs gone to summer camp in the mountains for many years and wanted that environment for college. She plans to be back in NYC after college, most likely living in her old room, so she wanted a completely different experience. I guess sheâll be ditching her Doc Martens for hiking boots, but she swears sheâll never wear LL Bean duck boots, LOL.
P.S. I hope youâre still sitting down because I just read that Venieroâs is on the brink. If youâre craving cannoli, thereâs never been a better time to order online.