<p>If I were in your position, soze, I would absolutely be angry beyond words, but I agree with thumper and CPUscientist. I know you think this college has voided the ED I agreement by not notifying your son before the end of the year, but I think your son will be worse off, not better, if this college and others decide you don’t have the authority to conclude that unilaterally.</p>
<p>A practical and ethical approach: </p>
<p>1) I would apply to the EDII school RD before the EDII deadline.<br>
2) Should the ED decision come back without an acceptance, if the EDII school becomes the first choice, you/he should try to convert the RD application to EDII.
3) I would do this by having him call the regional admissions rep and ask him to personally change the application to EDII after all of the agreements have been signed. </p>
<p>If the decision will be in early January, I would be surprised if any school would have a problem with this. Either way, it would send a strong message to the most important decision maker that your son’s first choice is the potential ED II school.</p>
<p>If you are talking about Syracuse University…their website is clear. They had a software glitch and extended their ED deadline. They say all decisions for ED I will be made by “early January”.</p>
<p>They are NOT the only college that has had a computer glitch and extended their deadlines.</p>
<p>I’m not sure when this was posted on their website, but if it were me, I would prepare other applications anyway…and would have had my kid do so right along with the ED application. But that is MY opinion. I do l ow some families just wait until the ED decision comes out, and only if it’s a rejection send out others. I think it’s mighty hard to get those other applications done and submitted when one is dealing with a rejection from their number 1 choice school.</p>
<p>Why can’t your child apply regular decision? Is there some reason why he needs to apply ED II?</p>
<p>wow, soze. I’d be ticked off too. I don’t have any advice, only sympathies to you and your family. Best of luck.</p>
<p>I think there were a lot of delays this year due to the disasters with the new Common App. From what I’ve heard, the Common App website problems were almost as bad as the Obamacare website problems. Hmmm…. sounds like there are some job openings for GOOD programmers and computer scientists!</p>
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<p>Early Decision affords an admissions boost to colleges that consider level of interest as an admissions factor. Signaling your commitment is often reciprocated.</p>
<p>Extending the deadline for submitting an appplication is one thing, delaying the notification date is quite another. </p>
<p>There is a bilateral agreement here:
1.My son comitts that he will enroll if excepted.
2. You commit to let him know one way or the other by an early date so that he can explore other options, and ED II is one of them </p>
<p>I agree with lafalum84: by delaying his decision, they are effectively treating him as a deferral. </p>
<p>ED II us an important option as it can enhance his chances at some schools over an RD application.</p>
<p>Also, I think that this “rolling” batch process that they are using is quite unfair and contrary to how they represented that the process would work. My son submitted his application
well in advance of the deadline and it does not take any longer to access his application than the kids who were already notified.</p>
<p>Soze, do you see any downside to the approach I suggested in #22? </p>
<p>The alternative is to withdraw the application from the ED1 school because you are angry and apply to the EDII school. </p>
<p>You are certainly justified in being angry. However, having two ED applications outstanding simultaneously is a violation of the ED agreement for both schools.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that to submit an EDII app while the current EDI is pending is likely not possible because the school counselor must sign a new ED agreement certifying the student does not have another binding early app pending. </p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad has a good idea suggesting your S should request the first school to change the app from ED1 to RD and apply EDII elsewhere (if there is still time for that, and if the counselor will cooperate.) </p>
<p>Colleges do their applicants a disservice by not abiding by clear decision notification dates in binding early rounds. I would think the negative buzz generated by such behavior certainly outweighs any benefit they receive from being vague or erratic about when they send decisions.</p>
<p>Classicrockerdad:
A few things:
- It’s not clear that an RD app can be “converted” to an ED II app.
- The point of applying ED II in this case is for the “demonstrated interest edge” that it might give. Applying RD and then changing your mind I would think looks bad and then negates said edge.</p>
<p>It seems he has already submitted his app RD to the school where he would want to apply EDII and the EDII deadline is 1/1. Is that right?</p>
<p>I would think this second choice school will be eager to have him convert to EDII. If he contacts them to express his intent, sends in the ED agreement (supplementally) and can get his counselor to do likewise by the deadline, I can’t imagine they’ll treat him different from any other EDII applicant. They may not be reachable for a few days because of the holiday, but if he meets the deadline, I would certainly not expect them to insist he stay in the RD round.</p>
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<p>Many high schools have closed for Winter Break and won’t reopen until after January 1. The chances of contacting the counselor may be slim.</p>
<p>Soze, schools care about demonstrated interest because a) they want to educate students who want to go there, and b) so reduce the uncertainty in yield. </p>
<p>Having your son explain to a regional representative that the reason that he applied RD was because he had an ED-1 outstanding, and that it was not possible to apply ED-II. By making the commitment after the ED-1 decision to change to ED-II satisfies both (a) and (b) and also indicates that he is ethical and understands the agreement. </p>
<p>That’s very positive. </p>
<p>The only reason the school might not agree is because they can’t get the decision done by their own deadline for the same reason that the ED1 school was late, but that it is your son’s current first choice will still get noted.</p>
<p>The common app early decision agreement states:</p>
<p>“Early Decision (ED) is the application process in which students make a commitment to a first-choice institution where, if admitted, they definitely will enroll. While pursuing admission under an Early Decision plan, students may apply to other institutions, but may have only one Early Decision application pending at any time. Should a student who applies for financial aid not be offered an award that makes attendance possible, the student may decline the offer of admission and be released from the Early Decision commitment. The institution must notify the applicant of the decision within a reasonable and clearly stated period of time after the Early Decision deadline. Usually, a nonrefundable deposit must be made well in advance of May 1. The institution will respond to an application for financial aid at or near the time of an offer of admission. Institutions with Early Decision plans may restrict students from applying to other early plans. Institutions will clearly articulate their specific policies in their Early Decision agreement.”</p>
<p>If one assumes that the CA folks know the difference between ED and ED II and did not state “… may have only one Early Decision and Early Decision II application pending at any time.” then it appears that applying to a college ED II does not violate the ED agreement. In addition since the college did not “notify the applicant of the decision within a reasonable and clearly stated period of time” (the clearly stated period of time is January 1st) I believe the OP is no longer bound by the ED agreement for the first college. In other words by missing the January 1st deadline the OP may consider his application to be a RD application to that college.</p>
<p>NIceday: No he has not submitted an RD app yet to the ED II school. In fact, he’s still mulling over which school would be the ED II school.</p>
<p>To your other point: There are two sides to the ED agreement and by not notifiying him in time, the school has not lived up to their side and the agreement should no longer be binding.</p>
<p>If that were not the case, how long should they be allowed to delay the notification and have the ED binding still in force?
Should they be able to sit on his application until July and then call him up and say “congrats, you’ve been accepted ED!”?</p>
<p>Of course not, but a notification after 1/1 is just as useless (from an ED perspective) as a notification in July.</p>
<p>Soze, if he’s mulling over which school to apply for EDII, perhaps he should just apply RD to the other schools he’s considering? </p>
<p>I agree that his ED school doesn’t seem to be living up to their end of the bargain - computer glitches or not. It’s not your fault they’re having issues. </p>
<p>It’s such a shame since your perspective of the school has been tainted by all this. I’m sorry you’re having to put up with the not knowing. The admissions process is stressful enough.</p>
<p>But if it says “early January” they have not violated the agreement. </p>
<p>I know…your kiddo applied with a certain date expectation, and it is frustrating. But if there was a change in the deadlines and such due to a computer glitch…and they posted it ON their website as such, I don’t think the school is screwing up.</p>
<p>Just get a couple of RD applications done.</p>
<p>“If that were not the case, how long should they be allowed to delay the notification and have the ED binding still in force?”</p>
<p>According to the common app ED agreement no such delay is allowed.</p>
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<p>Or, arguably, it’s useful information. It might be an indication of unreliability or a lack of consideration for students and their families in general.</p>
<p>Classicrockerdad:
Logistically it would not work. If the ED II deadline is 1/1 and we notify the school after 1/1 that "“we want to"convert” the application to ED II, that would be after the 1/1 ED II deadline.</p>
<p>Also I’ve frankly never heard about “upgrading” an application to ED after the fact. Do you know anybody who’s actually done this?</p>