<p>Classicrocker dad:
Good memory.
We didn’t speak for about two months. We get along fine now, we just have a deal that I don’t want to hear about the trip.</p>
<p>I’m glad you worked it out. Good luck here too. I think he’ll get in to his ED1 school.</p>
<p>The way it works in the college process is not always a smooth haul, and it often happens that glitches occur. I know a number of folks who got ED acceptances with inadequate or no finanical aid packages and the schools are closed so there is no discussion until after the first of the year. So the RD apps are going to have to go off ice and be sent out since there are a number of them with 1/1 deadlines. They had so hoped to save some money, not an insignificant sum, on those application fees that they now have to spend. Not a very merry Christmas at all, when ED is on the back burner simmering but not a go yet. </p>
<p>I don’t think the college is in violation of anything as the website, if correctly cited, clearly gives early January as the time ED accepts will be done by. and yes, a lot of students in that situation are losing out on ED2 apps and other opportunities. That all goes into the risks of applying ED. Again, upon reading what the actual deadlines given by the school on their website. your student or the counselor should have talked to the school before break, to ask about the application outcome, but the answer could have been that no decision was made for him and he;d still be in the same situation.</p>
<p>Things do not always work smoothly in the college app process, and, yes, it is unfair when a student gets caught up in an inefficiency and sometimes even in outright errors. No different from many things in life. This is not a mistake, however. The school clearly has done this before and has it on their website that their ED1 could extend into January. If it were clearly stated that the responses to ED1 were all maiiled by 12/31, not “typically” or “we try” or “most”, it would be a whole other story, but no such guarantee is in place. Your son is just unfortunate to be in a group that did not get processed with most of the others (if indeed, they did get most of the ED responses out) But the school did not violate the terms of ED.</p>
<p>What is up to you and your son is whether it is worth it to send out a letter to request the app be moved to RD so your son can apply ED2 to his next choice school, which means that if accepted to that ED2 school, that’s the end of going to this particular school. I suggest getting all of the other RD apps out if they have 12/31 or early January deadlines.</p>
<p>Believe me, a lot of things happen in the app process. Apps get lost, records get lost, problems occur. I’ve seen a lot of it We never found out for sure whether it was my son or another kid with the same name and similar ssn that got accepted to a given school as we got all kinds of thing meant for that other kid throughout the app process—we’d let them know and get something again. Another son had his whole app lost–the admissions person in charge of his file remembered him and called us personally about it. Had that not been the case, it would have been a no response. With the school closed, you have to wait it out to find out if there is some problem or if his app just happens to be one that is not yet processed with a decison.</p>
<p>I wish that had not happened to your son. What a Grinchy thiing to happen over the Christmas holidays. </p>
<p>I can’t stand the way the ED2, EA and all of the deadlines and response are all over the map with rules and dates all over the place so that a careful spreadsheet has to be made with such attention to nuances and exact wording, but such is the case now with the college process. I’ve seen the most selective schools make huge blunders that took things away from kids and hurt them. </p>
<p>THe other thing that is a possibility is if your son sends out the ED2 app with a cover letter asking for a hold until the response from the ED1 school. But did you not indicate that the ED1 school also has an ED2? Since this is his first choice school, shouldn’t his app just be rolled into ED2 there, if he did not make the ED1 cut for whatever reason, and there is no harm done? Yes, the RD apps now have to be sent out, but that was always a possibilitiy if the ED response was negative. The school might well have moved your son’s and others’ apps to ED 2 for any number of reasons. I never can quite get this whole ED2 thing anyways, and I don’t think a lot of the colleges have thought that one out either, as I’ve seen a lot of issues with it.</p>
<p>Soze…there was an extenuating circumstance that caused the school to change their EDI notification date. They posted it clearly in the EARLY DECISION section of their website. Your reference was on the admissions options section.</p>
<p>My bet is that you would be singing a very different song if YOUR son had been one of the students who was not able to submit his EDI application due to the common app glitch. You would be THANKING this school for their change.</p>
<p>You son has NOT been denied the right to apply to any other college…except under the ED guidelines. He can apply to any school on his list RD.</p>
<p>Thumper: You are still not getting it. At the time my son applied and sent in his agreement, the website ONLY said that the notification would be prior to 1/1. They changed the rules AFTER he applied. </p>
<p>Secondly, there is no objection to extending the application deadline. The
objection to changing the notification from “prior to January 1st” to “rolling thru January”</p>
<p>Thirdly, yes he can still apply RD, but why should he have the ED II option taken away from him? The other applicants will get to avail themselves of ED II, why should my son not be able to?</p>
<p>Does it matter? It seems from post #35 that he does not have a clear second choice to apply ED-2 to if his first choice ED-1 school rejects him. ED of any kind is for the applicant’s clear first choice (or clear first remaining choice for applying ED-2 after an ED-1 rejection).</p>
<p>It does matter.
He was going to decide among a few schools that offer ED II which to apply to.
(All of which are known to value “interest”)
ED II would have perhaps been helpful to bolster his chances, now he has lost that through no fault of his own.</p>
<p>Soze, he can still apply ED2. His first choice school failed to notify him by his deadline, which you say was changed after he applied. Not much one can do, if the school for whatever reason cannot get to all of the apps, other than to change his app to RD and move on to his first choice school. But he has no clear choice for ED 2, and it apppears that he may be swapping his first choice school for a school he has yet to select without it being a school he so wants by picking a whole other school ED2. He did not get notification by the deadlines he had in mind, so basically he has been deferred either to ED2 or RD. Just let the school know if he decideds to replace his first choice with another. At this point in time, he has probably been rolled into ED2 and may get early notification for that, or not, depending how the school will handle this. Some common app glitch has been mentioned and that could well be the reason for all of this. Not much can be done if that’s the case.</p>
<p>As for notifications coming in batches or not with the bulk of them, yes, it does happen. Every year, there are posts from kids for whom this happens. One can even get accepted earlier than the promise date. Notice how schools are often vague about the exact date of notification, and also how each year some school messes it up. When one of my kids was applying Michigan send out accepts that were a mistake. Another year Cornell did the same. This year Fordham blew it. So, yes, these mistakes happen.</p>
<p>I don’t expect you or your son to be happy about this. I know this is a huge stress, and I just shake my head and do a silent prayer that this doesn’t happen to mine next year, as well as hoping this isn’t a wide spread thing. In fact, has there been any talk regarding others so affected? Or his app may have fallen between the cracks somewhere. It happens. Yes, it matters; it always matters. But this is the status quo. Here is what he can do:</p>
<p>1) Send out his other apps assuming this is a deferral, but keep the school as first choice in case he does get accepted early rather than in the RD round. He should send those apps out , in any case, just in case, he does not get accepted to this school, but this choice means, not applying ED2, but keeping this school afloat as first choice. As soon as the winter break is over, he can ask his school counselor to please check out what is happening here.</p>
<p>2) Send out all but one of his other apps, RD, and pick one as ED2, thereby relegating his current first choice to a back up school. Write a letter to that school and to the school counselor, letting them know that he has withdrawn the ED app and want it to be RD and replace his first choice with another school.</p>
<p>He is in better shape than having been deferred in which case his choices would have been definitely replacing his clear first choice with a yet to be selected school or left it all RD. In the current situation, he still has a chance of getting accepted early, maybe ED2 rather than ED1. I would look at this as having been moved to ED2 without prejudice and deciding whether that is preferable to picking a whole other school for ED2. </p>
<p>What he has lost is a chance to pick an ED2 school if he does end up being deferred by this one. For whatever reason, deliberate, a glitch in the common app, lost application, mistake, stupidity on part of some one in admissions, he was not admiited in the expected time span of the ED1 season and the choice now is whether he wants this school to be his ED2 choice or another. </p>
<p>So, yes, it matters. It would have mattered if he had been deferred or denied too. Or if he were asked if he wanted to be moved to ED2. Or if the school said his app has vaporized and he has to resend it. It’s not the best answer, I realize and we all realize. Things do happen like this. For now, it is safe to assume that no decision has been made on his app, and it’s his move to decide if he wants to swap out this school for the ED2 round. Just look at it that way–he was deferred to ED 2 and if he would prefer to be in ED2 status with another school, he can make that swap with a letter and so desginating another school.</p>
<p>I am not sure why there is such a complicated ED plan.
Most kids apply to ED/EA schools so that they can have the decision by Dec 15 and have a good holidays season if they are accepted. If they are rejected they will have time to finish RD applications by Dec 31.</p>
<p>When did your son apply? </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20131020145324/http://admissions.syr.edu/apply/]Admissions[/url”>http://web.archive.org/web/20131020145324/http://admissions.syr.edu/apply/]Admissions[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Using web archive, it seems that the early January deadline was set in place before the end of October when they extended the EDI deadline. If early January was a deal-breaker, another ED school could have been chosen then, before the Dec. 1 EDI deadline.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There appears to be a glitch in the system. OP’s son’s app was not read and decided upon by the timeline he had expected given the info he got at the time of the application. So he either goes with the extension as the school also has an ED2, or he replaces this school with another for his first ED2 choice. He has been deferred, as a matter of fact, for whatever reason for his purposes, and he now has to decide whether he wants to give the school another shot as an exclusive, or replace it with another choice for that ED2 slot, or go all RD.</p>
<p>Purple
We were going by this rather clear statement: " ED candidates are typically notified of their admission decision prior to January 1"</p>
<p>From this page:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://admissions.syr.edu/apply/enrollmentoptions/]Admissions[/url”>http://admissions.syr.edu/apply/enrollmentoptions/]Admissions[/url</a>]</p>
<p>In addition we were told in person at an early November info session that ED notifications would be “by Christmas”</p>
<p>Right, but other materials make the possibility of going into early January clear and possible (on the main page). It’s possible that the majority of applicants are notified typically before Jan. 1, but the possibility existed when you applied ED (regardless of whether or not you read it) that you may be notified past January, and your son and you accepted the risk that you may be in the atypical group that would be notified past January 1. The admissions officer may have been answer a question as to when applicants are ‘usually’ notified by or some such thing, which again, is the case. I agree that not having an ED-II option is not optimal, but information was clearly given as early as October 20.</p>
<p>The link provided takes one to the admissions options page of the Syracuse University site. On the right is a link for “early decision”. THAT is where the correct information about early decision is located. If one does a google search for “Syracuse University Early Decision”, one gets,to that same early decision page that clearly states that there has been a CHANGE due to the glitch in the application. </p>
<p>It is what it is. I realize you aren’t happy about it. It has been on the site since end of October in the same place. </p>
<p>No it’s not what your kid expected when he submitted his application, but things happen and changes do sometimes take place.</p>
<p>He should get his some of his other applications submitted for RD, and if this ED one comes through he can accept it, and withdraw the others.</p>
<p>If he is denied acceptance at SU…at least he will have some applications completed.</p>
<p>To avoid confusion, perhaps Syracuse should call this system “binding rolling admissions.” But I guess not as many people would sign up for that.</p>
<p>Purple:
Sorry but any reasonable person reading what was available, plus hearing what we were told would have every reason to believe that notification would be by 1/1.</p>
<p>Furthermore, this whole business of turning ED into a “rolling” process was not communicated at all and only became apparent once the notifications started coming in batches. </p>
<p>It’s pretty obvious that they are holding some ED I applicants until they can see what they got for ED II applicants. Effectively turning these applicants into ED II candidates. This is patently unfair as ED I candidates should be competing against other ED I candidates, not ED II candidates.</p>
<p>Is Syracuse still his clear first choice, or has this incident made him rethink that? If Syracuse is no longer his clear first choice, shouldn’t he tell them to change his application to RD? Then, if he has a clear first choice among other schools which offer ED-2, he can apply ED-2 there.</p>
<p>Thumper: oh so you are saying that we are expected to scour the web for every page that gives Syracuse ED info and in the case where there is conflicting information, go by the one you think is most current even if it conflicts with what the AD told us in person?</p>
<p>Got it.
Thanks.</p>
<p>Ucb:
It’s still his first choice, but we have to effectively treat this non response as a rejection, which would normally mean applying ED II at another school, but we can’t because they essentially “pocket vetoed” his application rather than acting on it.</p>
<p>Yes you can. Send them an email on Monday with a hard copy mailed certified and date stamped in which your kid expressly converts to RD status. You and he signed an agreement, not an indenture, but that’s the way to end the agreement properly. Then, figure out what he wants to do about ED-2 since that part of the strategy currently is a hot mess.</p>