Are you sure? I thought ND only prevents you from EDing somewhere else. I think Georgetown is the same?
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Anyone applying to Notre Dame REA can apply as many other EAs they want.
But, they are not allowed to apply other ED or other REA.
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Canadian schools are not for everyone. They are VERY different from American schools. And thatâs not factoring the weather. One should understand the environment before selecting it as a safety.
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Ah, but you are wrong. Prestige is the common thread. 
ETA - upon a second look I agree with you, not even that rational makes sense here.
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I think you are right. I am in error.
But that is then a puzzle. If ED only makes a difference for unhooked applicants at some colleges, then why does every applicant need an ED school? If they have nothing but, say, a bunch of Rochesters on their list, why is that a problem?
Hey guys - does anyone know what scores are sent with the âfree reportâ for ACT? You know how you get the free 4 recipients - is it just that test date or is it the superscore (or both)? Please let me know if you know for sure. I assumed it was superscore or both that date and superscore and told DS to send free report in to the schools that are waiting on them (including his ED school which is very selective) - his superscore is in their range right now but lower-end so he did not send that superscore specifically because he was hoping this October shot would be better. We are afraid it will be just that test date, and he is terrified that it will be lower than his current superscore and it is too late to cancel! Please if you know let me know!
Sorry, never mind, below is how I know it works for SAT. I believe it is the same for ACT, but not 100%.
When you do your free score report you have to include the score from that test date. We also included the score from her April school day administration, and she improved her EBRW by 50 points, but did slightly worse on math. All of her schools superscored, so it wasnât a problem for us. So you can choose whether to include additional scores, but it will include all subscores for those tests.
I donât think every student needs an ED school. Trying to channel the counselors for a moment - not sure I have their thinking right: The purpose of the ED strategy is to optimize a studentâs chance to get into a highly selective school that is on the reachier end for them (or everyone). I believe thatâs why it is a strategy advocated by a lot of counselors at top private or public schools where a lot of students have ambitious/ranking focused goals for their college admissions. If a student chooses not to play that game - either because they have different preferences, or maybe because they are chasing merit - then I suspect the counselors would be very supportive of skipping the ED round. Unless, of course, the student really does have a clear, affordable first choice, in which case ED seems pretty non-controversial.
Note that Iâm by no means advocating that students should focus on simply getting into the highest rank school. Or that highly selective schools are better in some absolute sense and all students should try to go there. There are many students with different goals for whom this whole ED calculus is likely irrelevant - and they may be better off for it. But where Iâm coming out is that for students who ARE interested in going to a highly selective school, applying ED is a real advantage, even if they feel a little unsure about their true first choice school.
Itâs a choice and not a necessary one but so many think it is.
Itâs a marketing machine and game and yes for some it could help.
Itâs a mechanism for schools to better run their business.
But schools sometime get to the point of bullying and badgering, things in society weâd speak against - they, in fact, often create peer pressure.
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Iâm still unsure it actually is a real advantage for many kids applying ED, but I agree if a particular kid is really motivated to get into at least one of several colleges that likely yield protect, it may make sense for them.
I guess my view is that is such a common attitude among kids in certain circles it may feel like nearly universal advice. But that is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy in the sense that if you are going after the same very selective colleges as a lot of people like you, that is often the same thing as going after colleges that yield protect.
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Our CCs donât necessarily push ED as a strategy to game the system but they do encourage ED for anyone that has a clear number one.
Having said that, high stats kids at our school get routinely rejected from their #2 or #3 T10-30 school after EDing at a T10 school where they were competitive from a stats standpoint. Kids who donât have the numbers for tippy top so donât even go there and ED to those same T10-30 have a very high success rate.
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There are some schools, like Tulane, where ED is clearly an enormous advantage. In fact if you donât apply ED/EA there (at least in recent years) you are almost certain to be rejected. Northeastern is another, and there are several more. Where I think ED does NOT confer the kind of advantage people think, is at many T20 schools and top SLACs. At those schools unhooked applicants are likely to realize marginal, if any, benefits from applying early (of course, despite knowing this S24 did apply ED to his favorite reach).
I think this is an important but often overlooked point and may apply to slightly lower stats kids too. ED to a wildly high reach when oneâs stats are not competitive, in my opinion, âwastesâ the ED card. Iâve heard of too many unhooked kids with 3.6-3.8 GPA and test optional using their REA or SCEA at Stanford or Yale (and then rejected) when they could have chosen a slightly less competitive ED choice and been admitted.
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Yeah, if your RD yield is high enough, which is the case with most âtippy topâ schools, you also donât need to yield protect, which means it is easy to actually just do what they sometimes say they do and apply the same standards in every round. Like, Brown says that, and I am sure that is true.
But then there are possible exceptions. Like Chicago is super tight-lipped, wonât answer the ED questions on the CDS, doesnât do press releases. . . . Are they yield protecting? Cynically, do they just want to let people assume that to drive up ED? I donât know.
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Yeah, our counselors really discourage unrealistic reach applications like that. They donât want to have to give kids like that insufficient school support, and they want them to maximize their realistic opportunities. That could mean ED, EA, rolling, whatever plan actually makes sense. But I agree with them it is bad if a no-chance application is the centerpiece of the application plan, meaning it is dictating other decisions.
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The interesting thing about the study I cited is that it actually focuses exclusively on top ranked schools, and does find that there is a clear ED advantage, even after controlling for any hooks. According to the study, applying ED, or EA (which is also included in the study), increases your chance of admission by 20 to 30 percentage points on average, after controlling for other hooks, such as athlete, legacy, or minority status. Iâve reviewed the study and it is a careful empirical analysis performed by two extremely well-credentialed economists. I donât think itâs easy to dismiss. The strongest argument against the study that I can think of is that the data are fairly old. But when I look at the summary statistics and description of the data, I donât see anything that hints at admission patters substantially different from those we see today.
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So that study relies on survey data collected in 1999-2000. This was not a survey of all applicants to these colleges, it was restricted to 10 top seniors at 510 prominent high schools as nominated by their counselors. Actual responses were from 3294 students from 396 high schools. For the 28 colleges in this study, it was down to 2376 applying to at least one, with 1354 applying early to at least one, and 7243 applications overall (which is right about an average of 3 total applications per applicant).
Of course since then, various of the studied colleges have changed their available admissions options. Overall application volumes have changed, as have the ratios of early to regular volumes, as has the typical mix of applications received by such colleges (at a high level, they are receiving a greater portion of applications from a wider range of high schools), as have the typical number of applications per highly qualified applicant, and so on.
OK, so take a case like Brown. Back then, Brown was EA and not ED, and the studyâs model said applying EA at Brown gave a boost to an applicant with mean characteristics in the survey data, from 25% to 45%. This was based on 509 total applications to Brown in the survey, of which 219 were Early Action.
But today, Brown claims:
Please do not assume that your admission chances are improved by applying under the Early Decision plan. The Board of Admission makes the same decisions under Early Decision that it would under the Regular Decision plan.
So is an EA study of Brown based on such 1999-2000 survey data enough to invalidate what Brown is saying about ED in 2023?
I think reasonable people can differ on their answer to such a question. But I am personally more inclined to believe Brown, at least as to unhooked applicants.
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Our CCs are pretty honest with kids about how they view their chances. Of course, some still want to take their shot and every once in a while someone will prove the CC wrong. There is a big difference between âa reachâ because acceptance rates are so low and âa reachâ because your stats are not quite there.
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Our HS has a framework where there are reaches, and then there are unlikelies. âUnlikelyâ is basically an assessment that given your numbers and the lack of any identifiable special circumstances, there is no good reason to believe you will be considered seriously for admission. They wonât (really canât) literally stop kids from applying to unlikelies, but the clear message is the right number of unlikely applications is zero.
Thatâs pretty blunt, but I agree with our HS this is a message sometimes kidsâor maybe even more so parentsâneed to hear. And even so, having spent some time with SCOIR, I am pretty sure there is a steady stream of kids applying to unlikelies anyway. But at least the counselors have done what they can to warn such kids/parents about such applications.
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