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<p>What do you mean by the “relevant ones”?</p>
<p>I wonder - though don’t know for sure - if you are overselling the amount to which the “average” public school guidance counselor - who may be also dealing with truant students and the like – truly knows the rules around ED and/or is worried that her school will be blackballed as a result. I am guessing, however, such places don’t fit your criteria of the “relevant ones.”</p>
<p>FERPA has to do with students’ educational records, so is an acceptance an educational record?</p>
<p>Edit: See <a href=“http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1232g[/url]”>http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1232g</a> for the FERPA law text.</p>
<p>From that wording, it doesn’t seem like it, since the students haven’t attended yet. Thanks vonlost.</p>
<p>Wait-so a student can apply ED to a school but also EA to places like MIT, U Chicago, etc? And it could be as simple as: student gets in ED (and EA to other schools), sees ED package, says no way we can afford that, pulls out of ED, and then goes on his/her merry way to EA school (assuming package is better)?</p>
<p>Thanks for the links, BTW.</p>
<p>How does ED work with SCEA/REA? I assume you can’t do both because it’s <em>S</em>CEA (at least in the case of Princeton and Harvard-not sure about Stanford’s REA rules).</p>
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<p>Not so fast. </p>
<p>As I wrote several times, nobody has come close to debunk the seminal research by AFZ. Vonlost quoted the more recent research by Avery et Levin for further reference. In addition, I can add that non-released research on this issue easily confirmed the statistical advantage of early applications, especially among the students who were --erroneously–pegged as being poor candidates for being … poor. </p>
<p>In so many words, on the one hand, we have powerful and compelling research to support the AFZ conclusions. And, on the other hand, the typical drivel shared by adcoms who are short on transparency and idle speculation based on hearsay that repeats the usual inaccuracies. </p>
<p>I know which version I rather trust to be truer! </p>
<p>By the way, I did not imply --nor wrote-- than holding multiple admissions is common. The low admissions and high yield at most highly selective schools easily show how rare it is for students to even be in such position. </p>
<p>Also, the poaching by Harvard was indeed more prevalent when they went RD only. It happened in the later stages and in the very active WL phase. Some losers were EDers at Penn and Duke. And this triggered a substantial domino effect at a number of schools.</p>
<p>Another personal anecdote-
After extensive research by both of us, my son decided to apply ED to CMC with fairly high financial need. CMC was by far his first choice, and he wanted to be done with the college application process so he could enjoy his Senior year following a brutal Junior year. Their excellent financial aid package was almost exactly what was estimated on their net price calculator, but CMC is a need-blind, meets-full-need-with grants school, which was important information for us when deciding to apply ED. It is an amazing place, and he has had a wonderful year so far, so this decision worked very well for our family.</p>
<p>I don’t have any data to back this up, but common sense tells me that one down side to applying ED is that you are probably out of the running for competitive scholarships if the school offers them. No matter what your stats, why should a school waste scholarship money on you when you have already committed to going there? They want to try to lure others like you who may be a little more hard-to-get. Just my two cents.</p>
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There was a court case about this … the sharing of information about applications or financial aid awards was considered constraint of trade (bad for the applicant). In the settlement the schools agreed to NOT share info on applicants or about financial aid packages. Applicants who were accepted ED and accepted the financial aid packages are no longer applicants they are incoming students … so their names can be shared with other schools.</p>
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<p>It is probably safe to say that there is variation between different colleges as to whether and how much ED application improves one’s chances of admission, but they probably do not want to be too precise about releasing that information to the general public. If each college with ED did release such information, then there would not be all of these arguments, since one could just look up the data. Note that there was considerable variation between the (mainly super-selective) colleges studied in the paper referenced in post #36, and it is entirely possible that admissions practices at some of the college may have changed since then.</p>
<p>In other words, ED likely gives some advantage (and pretty much certainly if “level of applicant’s interest” is considered, since ED is the strongest demonstration of interest an applicant can make), but the magnitude of such advantage at any given school is unlikely to be something knowable to the applicant.</p>
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<p>The SCEA/REA schools that I know of do not want applicants to apply ED anywhere if they apply SCEA/REA to them. Other EA applications are also limited, although each SCEA/REA school has its own set of exceptions (e.g. Stanford allows REA applicants to apply EA to public schools, but Tulane does not allow SCEA applicants to apply EA anywhere else; both allow early application to other schools with rolling admissions).</p>
<p>When my kids were applying, I saw a list of the top 30 or so schools (both uni and LAC) with both RD and ED acceptance rates for the year prior. I no longer have it in my possession, but it was abundantly clear that ED rates were a lot higher than RD rates, across virtually all schools, including the top. The people who claim that that’s only true because of athletes, etc are kidding themselves, IMO. There is a clear benefit to going ED if you can afford it and are confident in the FA and / or don’t need FA.</p>
<p>And SCEA is arrogant and obnoxious, IMO. I can at least respect ED for being honest about what it is (love me first and I’ll reward you) and EA for being somewhat altruistic (we will decrease your senior year stress). But SCEA? Yuck. It’s just so arrogant.</p>
<p>And why are you all complaining about ED acceptance rates not being transparent? Isn’t it just question C21 on the common data set? No big secret, no one is hiding anything.</p>
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<p>Acceptance rates are unreliable indicators of selectivity (whether one is referring to ED vs. RD or comparisons between colleges) due to differences in applicant pools. The information that really is of interest for this purpose is how much the difference in selectivity is between ED and RD, and colleges tend not to be transparent about it (like they are often not very transparent about other aspects of holistic admissions processes).</p>
<p>Pizzagirl</p>
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<p>I do not get the arrogance in SCEA. It is essentially ED with the added benefit of comparing aid PLUS being able to apply to ALL schools in the RD round! I find the FFAEA that drives massive numbers of what if applications through mass marketing a lot more arrogant and … obnoxious. Just as a certain school that admits more EAers in December than it has beds. It IS the poster child for arrogance and obnoxiousness, and has been for a long time. Mustard jar and fake intellectuals included.</p>
<p>ED appears on the CDS, but not all schools believe in releasing the information. Think WUSTL and … the Morningside Heights perennial obfuscator and gamer. Also EA is not reported as only ED numbers are culled. Other schools report the admissions rates with a healthy dose of whimsicality. Your son’s alma mater using the gross applications to report new apps, but comparing them to the prior year net number. No big deal in the long run, but full disclosure is simply not in the lexicon of many schools.</p>
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<p>Not to mention that the denominator being the number of apps can be manipulated. Some schools, for instance, count all Questbridge apps in the early round, others defer them to the RD round. Some count only completed apps, including ALL supplements, while others will count postcards and partially filled applications. </p>
<p>As the famous Lee Stetson said …there is no way most offices would survive the mildest of audits. Creative math is the rule.</p>
<p>In regard to studies which portend to show a true higher individual chance of acceptance during ED as opposed to RD … it is not of a question of statistics versus hearsay. But I am fatigued of arguing the point.</p>
<p>However, if a parent wants to believe that their particular child regardless of other factors will somehow have a greater chance of acceptance at a highly selective institution simply based on the one fact that they are applying during the ED round is a fool’s errand and, IMHO, bad college guidance advice. I stand by my four rules. One can take them with a grain of salt or even ignore them all together.</p>
<p>I agree that ED tends to confer little admission advantage at highly selective schools; it’s at selective schools where the larger advantage would apply.</p>
<p>Also, a given applicant doesn’t KNOW if s/he is in a category that gains an advantage, but can HOPE so, given that many applicants are.</p>
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<p>Only if the school fills out the CDS. Not all of them do, you know.</p>
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<p>Agree. When you look at the New York Times table on admissions rates for the last two years showing ED/EA versus RD admission rates, there’s generally a much larger bump for the less selective schools.</p>
<p>I applied ED at Johns Hopkins, needed FA, and got about $46,000 in aid from the institution, making my total family contribution around $18,000.</p>
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<p>Unless you truly believe that the early pools are considerably stronger than the regular pools, how could you call the numbers exhibited by Harvard as a “little advantage?” </p>
<p>How many percentage points is an admission of 21 percent greater than the 3 or 4 percent that will come from the RD round? Semantics set aside, that is SEVEN times larger. </p>
<p>Again and again, the speculative consensus is that the ED/SCEA rounds are filled with development admits and athletes and that it is THEIR participation that lowers the average pool to the levels abundantly analyzed by AFZ and Avery et al for the past decade. </p>
<p>All in all, this is an issue that goes around and around. Some continue to claim that ED is only a rich men game and that the risks are great. Some continue to reject the notion that the best admission crutch remains to apply early, competitively, and with a STRONG and COMPLETE application polished in the SUMMER before the senior year. </p>
<p>And some will continue to prefer idle speculation, hearsay, and what sounds good to their ears above the seminal research on the subject or … the blatantly obvious numbers released by the Harvard’s of this world. </p>
<p>On a last note, the issue is really about advantages. For instance, at a school like Smith where about 2/3 of all early applicants are admitted (a huge percentage) the advantage is really smallish if you consider that RD applicants enjoy a 50 percent admit rate. 66 percent versus 50 percent is not percentually that great!</p>