<p>Gearing up for our second time through the process this fall. Daughter #2 (2330, Val, active kid but nothing earth-shattering EC-wise) prefers small schools not in the south or west. She will most likely choose an ED or SCEA/EA reach school once she decides on a top choice. I would prefer she already have something in hand from a rolling safety. Any suggestions for smaller schools with rolling admissions? Her major is undecided and we have financial need.</p>
<p>Two small colleges that would be safeties for your daughter that have rolling admissions would be Beloit College and Quinnipiac University. </p>
<p>Another option that would open up more small safety schools, would be ones that offer Early Action. Examples: Dickinson College, Ursinus College, Goucher College, St. Michael’s College, Stonehill College, Fairfield University, University of Scranton, Case Western.</p>
<p>Some of the schools (several of which are small LACs) invite certain students to apply for free via a “priority application”, and turn it around as quickly as 2 weeks (from completed app). My son did this with Ursinus and Allegheny (although he was more interested in big state U’s). I just wanted him to have some safeties under the belt before the big wait until March. In both cases he was offered decent $ as well. Other schools that ‘invited him’ to apply were Drexel, Tulane and U VT. Allegheny had the nicest admissions office of any schools either of my kids applied to.</p>
<p>With your D’s excellent stats, odds are she’ll be getting several of these kinds of opportunities. Many came through his email.</p>
<p>Two more schools that are small and would be safeties that offer Early Action are: Providence College and Marist College.</p>
<p>I believe that Illinois Wesleyan University still has rolling admissions. IWU would be an academic safety for your D, but it does attract bright kids who are top notch students. Classes are small and students sometimes find them intense. Faculty quality is top notch too. Your D would likely get merit aid from IWU and I think tha IWU is pretty decent with need-based aid for a school that doesn’t promise to meet full need. [IWU may practice preferential packaging in need-based aid, which with your D’s stats and an early rolling application would bode well.]</p>
<p>Some things to keep in mind, however, about the current plan to choose a place to apply ED to are the following:</p>
<p>1) You will NOT be able to compare need-based FA packages. The ED school will likely send an estimated FA package with or very shortly after deciding to admit your D, and while you can decide to turn the ED package down for an unacceptable aid package, there is paperwork involved and the ED school may be unwilling to release your D if the reason is “she has a better deal in hand.”</p>
<p>2) Some, but not all, rolling admissions schools will NOT send estimated FA packages until close to the April 1 deadline anyway. This is particularly true for FAFSA only schools. So you may well be forced into evaluating the need-based aid package from the ED school completely blind.</p>
<p>3) Applying ED to schools that do not promise to meet full need is very, very risky from a financial point of view. Even most of the schools that do meet full need will throw in maximum Stafford loans into the need-based aid package. Have you run a financial aid estimator to get an approximate idea of your FAFSA EFC? Can you afford your EFC? If you can’t afford your EFC and your D doesn’t automatically qualify for some really major merit money at the ED school, then you’ll wind up in a bind: She’ll be in at her ED school, the school may well have met your full need (so it’s difficult to get a release), and the school will still be a financial reach for your family. And if the ED school uses the Profile or their own form to determine financial need, the problem could be worse—you should be aware that the school’s determination of EFC may well be greater (possibly far greater) than the FAFSA EFC.</p>
<p>robinsue, we have one in college already with an EFC of approx 15K at a very generous school (Williams but they are reinsituting loans for the class admitted this year). There are very few schools where I would be okay with my daughter applying ED but she is considering a couple (Swarthmore, Amherst, ?). She is more of a small LAC type than an Ivy type but honestly the HYP financial aid has me pushing her to consider those as well. For example, the Princeton aid calculator puts our billed costs there at around $4500. I know those are big reaches but money is a consideration.</p>
<p>Is it okay to apply ED to one school and EA to another, as long as you understand you will withdraw the other apps if accepted to the ED school? My older daughter applied to Pitt which had rolling admissions. And SCEA would rule out these EA options? Or not if it’s called something else, like “priority application”?</p>
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<p>My understanding is the following. Others will gladly correct me if I’m wrong ;)</p>
<p>You can only apply to ONE school ED. I think that you can apply EA at other schools since the EA apps are not binding, but you would need to check the web page of the ED school to be absolutely sure of this. SCEA, although not binding, will not allow you to apply anywhere ED and I believe it restricts other EA options as well.</p>
<p>Strictly speaking those “priority applications” are more like rolling applications. They are evaluated as they come in and you get a rather quick decision; the school sends those invites to students who they’re pretty sure will meet their admissions criteria easily and they are trying to entice the students with an early award of merit $ in return. But the priority apps are clearly not binding and the student has until May 1 to decide whether to accept the offer of admission or not.</p>
<p>For ED schools, most of them don’t mind you applying to rolling schools early in the application cycle and they may (or may not) mind you applying EA at other places.
But—if you apply ED, you are supposed to do the following:</p>
<p>1) You cannot accept an EA or rolling offer of admission (even if the offer comes with major, major $$) before the ED school makes its decision.</p>
<p>2) If you get into the ED school, you must accept the ED offer of admission as soon as you receive and can evaluate the FA package from the ED school. Usually the ED school will give you a week or two at most. You are NOT allowed to turn the ED school down because you’ve already been offered things like enough merit scholarship money elsewhere to make a rolling or EA admission more attractive.</p>
<p>3) If you get into the ED school, you must turn down ALL current offers of admission and any scholarship $$ or FA packages those schools have made to you before the ED decision was made.</p>
<p>4) If you get into the ED school, you must formally withdraw your applications (EA, rolling, or RD) to ALL other schools that have not yet made an admission decision.</p>
<p>As for trying to get your D more interested in the Ivies instead of the top LACs, I’m not sure that that’s the best idea if she really wants a small LAC. [It’s like trying to force a square peg into a round hole in my opinion.] The tippy-top LACs such as Williams, Swarthmore, and Amherst are almost as good with FA as the ivies, I believe. If your current EFC is about $15K with only one in college, then any school that meets full need with only Stafford loans is likely be affordable: Remember that as long as both kids are in college that FAFSA EFC is divided equally between the two kids. Although each school will determine its EFC in its own peculiar way, those tippy-top LACs with healthy endowments are likely spilt the EFC pretty equally too.</p>
<p>And for safeties, if your D is really a LAC-type kid, looking at the LACs a bit farther down the USNWR list that offer both merit and meet full need (or come close to it) may give her a nice EA admit with enough money as an early season “safety”</p>
<p>soozievt, Would Beloit with an incoming student body with median stats of 1250/1600 or 27/36 ACT be a place that the OP’s daughter would find sufficiently intellectually stimulating? I ask this because I had planned to take my 2012 D to visit Beloit but after visiting St Olaf, Carleton, Macalester and Grinnell, she decided she did not want to visit a school with such low median stats - even if they did offer good merit aid and interesting programs. She thought Grinnell was the best match for her interests of the above schools. How can you tell how low is too low for a high stats kid? Are schools that accept 40-50% of their applicants “safeties” if your kid’s stats are in the top 25-35% of their applicants?</p>
<p>I think robinsuesanders has it right, for sure you can apply EA to schools while applying ED to another. After all, nothing is binding except the ED. But I have a question about something else she says, regarding the FA package for the ED schools. Do they always give you the FA package at the time they give you the decision? If yes, they I agree with everyting she said, you can only turn the ED school down if you find the FA package inadequate. If the FA package doesn’t come until later, you would have to wait before you inform the other schools about anything. Which is OK, because by definition you have until May 1 to inform those other schools. In any case, maybe someone can give us a defiinitive answer on when accepted ED students get their FA package.</p>
<p>fallenchemist asks:</p>
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<p>It may vary a bit from school to school. But I believe that ED schools run preliminary numbers for all ED applicants who apply for need-based aid. The FA numbers are based on CSS Profile and/or their own forms, which may be based on some version of the FAFSA, but can be filled out before the FAFSA becomes available. Many send the tentative FA award with the letter offering admission. Others send it a bit later (maybe a week or two). But I think * all * of them send it out well before April 1 since they all require applicants admitted ED to send in the nonrefundable deposit very, very early—usually about two weeks after notification.</p>
<p>And I do think that the ED school requires you to make a * final * decision about whether the FA is generous enough based on the preliminary numbers.</p>
<p>And I think it’s done this way because the schools want the ED kids fully committed, with paid deposits as early as possible for enrollment management purposes when they start to more carefully evaluate the RD applicants.</p>
<p>Sure, if you have the FA info, then I can totally see why they want a quick answer. I was just never very clear on that aspect of the process, but what you say makes sense. Presumably if School “X” was your dream school, they accepted you, and the FA package (if needed) was adequate, there would seem to be no reason to hesitate.</p>
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<p>Apollo, let me first say that had the OP merely asked for small schools that would be safeties for her D, there would be many I might suggest. However, she wanted the safeties to also be rolling admissions. I could not find that many that fit that criteria that were also small schools (without going too low level of a college). I went further to suggest EA safety schools to at least open up more possibilities. So, keep in mind that the pickings were more limited by this criteria. </p>
<p>However, you can’t expect the level of selectivity (or perhaps challenge of the majority of the student body) at your safety school to be like that at your matches or reaches. Further, this student, having such good “stats” and needing financial help, may wish to pursue merit aid and so the safety even more needs to be a sure bet where the student is above the median stats of admitted students and where the acceptance rate is not a low one. I might have suggested Grinnell (more selective than Beloit and should be a likely safety for the OP’s D) but Grinnell doesn’t have rolling admissions or EA. The OP’s D could find safeties that are a bit more selective than Beloit in other words (putting rolling admissions and EA aside). My own D was a top student (val, etc.) and her safety schools were still pretty selective (more so than Beloit) and she surely got into them, though attended an Ivy. </p>
<p>I don’t know enough about your D to state with any certainty, but for a top student (which the OP’s D is as far as “stats” go at least), yes, if one’s stats are in the top 25% or above for admitted students and the school admits more than 40-50%, it should be a safety (that is a generalization). You are wise to not just examine the stats of admitted students, but also look at the acceptance rate. When the acceptance rates get low (such as under 20-25%), it isn’t a safety for anyone.</p>
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<p>The only problem is you have to determine * in isolation * whether the FA package is really adequate or not.</p>
<p>Every winter there are kids who post about the FA package from the ED school not being as generous as hoped. And it’s sometimes a problem of “parents can’t afford EFC” and FA either meets or comes close to meeting full need. And (of course) the ED school is one where there is no merit money to apply for.</p>
<p>And every winter there are kids who post about the FA package from the ED school, which is * clearly not * enough to make the school affordable due to a large gap, but the student is asking for advice on how to persuade their parents to go ahead and let them accept the package anyway 'cause the kid has stars in their eyes about their dream school that just admitted them ED and can’t quite believe that some other (lesser) school may give them a (substantially) better FA package if they’d just turn this one down and apply to additional colleges.</p>
<p>And every winter there are parents (or kids) who post about the FA package from the ED school and bemoan the fact that one of the rolling places has * already * offered the kid $$ that amount to close to a full ride, but the ED school won’t negotiate the FA package and is not particularly sympathetic to the request for release.</p>
<p>Apollo, as as point of reference, my D, a top student so to speak, graduated HS in 2004, six years ago. She did not apply ED anywhere. She did one SCEA school (deferred) and otherwise all her schools were RD and she found out all her results in April. She had two safety schools. They were Conn College and Lehigh. Now, I realize that the acceptance rates at both schools has decreased in the past six years and so keep that in mind, particularly with regard to Lehigh. But they were sure bets for my kid at the time. We didn’t even know that Lehigh had merit aid (most of my D’s schools did not have merit aid but my D applied for need based aid), but my D got a significant scholarship as well from Lehigh and a likely letter. For what it is worth.</p>
<p>In my opinion, if your decision where to attend heavily weighs on the FA package, I would NOT apply ED.</p>
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You have to be careful with this. I was looking at Brown’s ED agreement earlier and you are not allowed to apply to any other EA or ED schools. Read the agreements carefully. You can apply to multiple EA schools if they are not SCEA.</p>
<p>Apollo, I think your question is why it’s kind of hard to find smaller safety schools, though I don’t think of Beloit as being that low stats wise. Bigger schools with honors colleges or a wider range of student backgrounds are more appealing to me as safeties, but I’m not the one going to college here lol. </p>
<p>When my older daughter applied ED we had her financial aid package in hand within a few days of the online admission decision. I’m pretty sure that’s commonly how it’s done. </p>
<p>Perhaps there’s really no need to have an early safety? I remember reading that was a good thing with my older daughter but it’s not like she wouldn’t have applied to a bunch of other schools if she had been declined or deferred at the ED school. In that case, the decision wouldn’t have been made until every school was on the table.</p>
<p>I just want to put in a good word for Beloit for the poster who asked. I spent a lot of time choosing my safeties, and I definitely wanted a place that was more intellectually stimulating, or at least offered good opportunities for that sort of student. Beloit was by far the best one of that type I found. I ended up visiting it twice, and while certainly many students were not on the same intellectual or academic level as I wanted, I found pockets of people who were, and lots of opportunities and support for those people. My stats were pretty strong but not exceptional (3.8 at a very rigorous school, 2240), and Beloit offered me their biggest merit-based scholarship. They’re really trying to get great students, they were incredibly nice and helpful to me, and I could actually have seen myself going there.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad - Why I agree there might be a moral argument to following an ED arrangement that strict once you have signed it, it is not legally enforceable. However, IMO that is just nuts to say that one cannot apply EA to another school while waiting for an ED decision from Brown. That puts a student in the disadvantageous position of potentially getting turned down by Brown and having no decisions in hand. Sure, one can say “well, just don’t apply ED to Brown” but that is also disadvantageous to the student if you believe that ED enhances one’s chances of admission and Brown is the school you really want if you were to get in.</p>
<p>Besides the obvious observation of how would Brown possibly know, the more direct question is how is Brown possibly harmed by the student applying EA to another school? The simple answer is they are not. It is an onerous “requirement” that is completely one-sided and without merit. Personally, I would have no problem ignoring that. I can hear all the wailing and gnashing of teeth now, but there is an old legal principle that contracts have to be fair and there would have to be some potential of harm if a party violated a provision. I mean it isn’t like this was a negotiated contract, Brown holds all the power at this stage of the game. I don’t see how this passes muster on any of those counts.</p>
<p>Now I agree that SCEA is another matter. But I don’t understand where you say
followed by
I feel llike you left out a sentence.</p>
<p>I think the second sentence by Erin’sDad was not referring to Brown. The first sentence was Brown’s policy. The second one was speaking generally about EA schools (not Brown, which is ED) and you can apply to more than one EA school, except if it is a SCEA one, such as Yale).</p>