S has everything ready but hasnt hit any submit buttons yet. I tell him that for my sanity’s sake he should get moving.
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Do schools wait till after the EA deadline (November) to start reviewing applications? S24 got emails from 2 schools saying his application has been marked complete with the SAT scores, transcript, and counselor recommendation. Teacher recommendations are optional at these 2 schools.
His teacher will be submitting a recommendation in a few weeks. Will they add it to his application? Should he have waited to submit until the letter of recommendation was ready?
Your student did the right thing, there is no need to wait on LORs!
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D24 has finalized her college list and is really confident about her common app essay. She has about a dozen schools she wants to apply EA/RD only as we are chasing merit. She doesn’t want to share it with parents but she wants to get a review from a non-family member. Doesn’t trust her parents’ biased opinion anyway 
. She is now working on college specific essays and planning to get them all ready by end of September. Got one LOR and waiting for another one.
Senior year is hectic with club leadership roles and regular academics.
She is not good at checking her personal e-mail for college communications. Checks probably once every 2-3 weeks and that too after multiple reminders. Finally was able to convince her to share her personal e-mail so that i can monitor any important comms from her colleges of interest.
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Why would the % of admitted students who are ED be meaningful? That is just a factor of how big the RD pool is. If, for example, 60% of the class enrolled is ED, that is unaffected whether the RD pool is small and ED represents 50% of admitted students or if the RD pool is large and ED represents 5% of admitted students.
…but they were probably all full pay 
It matters to me because my son is focused on small- and mid-sized schools. If a significant number of seats are already filled ED, it makes RD more challenging.
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I agree. I was responding to another poster. My question was specific to why he used the metric of the ED % of admitted students when the more relevant figure is the ED % of enrolled students, as that is the measure that more accurately shows how many slots are left for all of the RD round.
Honestly I think this Ed discussion is not really useful for anything other than hearing ourselves talk. If you have a clear first choice then apply Ed. If not or if you are chasing merit don’t. The discussion of athletes and donors is interesting but every kid is different and if they are invested in a school there is no better way to show interest than ed.
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While I agree (and S24 is going to ED), I think it is important to know that ED may not increase your odds of acceptance as much as it appears at first glance. While firmly supporting S24’s decision to ED, his GC pointed out that in addition to the prevalence of various hooks, the ED pool tends to be stronger and, thus, somewhat more competitive. She still thinks it is worth it, but wanted to set expectations.
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I was wondering the same thing, if LORs can be appended to sent applications.
My DD has some applications ready but she needs the LORs for merit consideration for OOS schools. She is choosing to wait in case LORs cannot be appended once applications are submitted.
Our school guidance counselor and our private counselor all say the same thing: the order in which things are submitted to colleges is irrelevant. You can send LOR’s weeks before the application or weeks later. You can send scores weeks later or earlier. There is zero order that needs to be followed.
We will be sending one LOR not via the Common App --but just via email. Our private counselor said the LOR should just highlight the student’s name and High School and it will all get to the proper file.
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Thanks for the info!
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Yes, this makes sense to me. At the same time, the college advisors at my D24’s boarding school seem to be saying something a bit different. Obviously, the BS college admissions process can be somewhat different than the process at public schools (even wealthy and competitive ones). The college office says that basically all seniors applied ED or EA to at least one college last year, and that they expect all seniors will apply early somewhere this year. They imply that putting in early applications will maximize the students’ chances of being happy with their outcomes. I’ve got to kind of trust that they know what they are talking about with early apps and they are providing good advice accurate to her specific school. It may not be a huge admissions boost everywhere, but her college office clearly believes that it is a worthwhile boost at many colleges.
Which brings me to the other issue that I am struggling with a bit. As far as I can tell, there are five colleges that my daughter has identified as potential “safeties” with her advisor’s approval. All five of them have general acceptance rates between 30%-40%, which seems quite low to call a “safety.” They are all meet-needs schools (and the NPC are doable though four would require student loans to be affordable) and only one is need-blind as far as I know. This seems risky to me. The conventional wisdom on CC is that a safety should be guaranteed admissions and affordability.
On the other hand, I have looked at the scattergrams for those five colleges; they are popular destinations at her prep school. For four of the colleges, every single student from my D24’s school that has applied in the last several years has been admitted. This includes ED applications and RD applications. For the fifth, there were a couple of waitlisted kids among many acceptances but no one has been rejected in the last three years. In those circumstances, would you trust the college advisor or guidance counselor’s advice that a college is a safety or would you still try to add some colleges with higher admissions rates? After all, couldn’t my daughter become the exception that proves the rule?
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I would add a couple of actual safeties if possible.
For high stats kids, 30-40% acceptance rate schools would be targets.
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Another thing to check is where is the 30-40% number coming from. If it’s on the official website of the college then it’s reliable.
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We are in a similar situation. Personally, if zero kids from our school (with stats well below our daughter’s) have been rejected from a college in last 5 yrs – I call it a safety. Just depends on your comfort level. A 40% acceptance rate school may have a 99% acceptance rate for kids with certain scores/qualities.
No harm to add one true safety to the list if it helps you sleep better tho…
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I’d add one true safety - it’s more than likely that the schools identified as safeties by your BS will work out, but you never know, and better safe than sorry.
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I agree with @Thorsmom66. Is there one school that has a higher acceptance rate that she would like to attend that would definitely be affordable? If so, I’d add that one, but I don’t think she needs to add several more if her boarding school counselor is confident. I’d just call the application fee a payment for peace of mind and call it a day.
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Clemson App question but also somewhat general - They do not require any essays on their application. Essays are optional. Although optional my D24 did one essay, one resume, and 3 letters of recommendation. Again all of those are optional. However, her friend is also applying for Clemson and she did 3 essays. So now Im wondering if we didnt do enough? In my mind if its optional then makes me think it may not have a HUGE impact on your acceptance rate but do it anyways. If this is the case would doing 3 optional essays not be a little overboard? Would they actually take the time to read all 3? Do we need to do more?