<p>I'm not sure what college I really want to go to yet but I'm looking at schools like Columbia, Cornell, and NYU.
How beneficial is it to ED a college? Is the acceptance rate a lot higher? Will colleges see that I'm more interested if I ED? Is RD a lot more competitive?
I also understand that if I ED, colleges won't get to see my 1st term senior year grades. (please correct me if I'm wrong)
In senior year, I plan to take AP economics, AP calc AB, and either AP human geography, AP env sci, or AP chem. Right now, I have no weighted science class on my transcript. Should I not ED and RD instead so I have more APs and grades to bump up my transcript GPA? (I'm hoping that senior year APs can bump me up 1 pt or so, ie 94 to 95/96) Or are senior year grades not as important anymore?
Do you guys think it's better for me to ED or RD?</p>
<p>It really depends on the school. For Duke, the ED rate is 33%, while the RD acceptance rate is 10%. Do your research. Some schools do value ED (Duke), while others barely increase their acceptance rates. </p>
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<p>are the acceptance rates on each school’s website?</p>
<p>^ If they’re not, email the school and ask.</p>
<p>Normally, yes. Go to admissions. If you do a little work you can find them</p>
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<p>Lol, don’t email school to ask for their acceptance rates, just google them.</p>
<p>No, they won’t be able to see first semester senior year grades if you apply ED, and it looks like it pretty routinely ups acceptance chances (or very competitive students self-select to apply ED? Probably not, but possible) at all schools that offer it. Note that restrictive and regular ‘Early Action’ programs that aren’t binding don’t seem to increase chances, and some schools even weed out candidates more aggressively than the regular decision pool.</p>
<p>You will list your senior year courses on your application, however, so they will know that you’re taking an ambitious senior year schedule.</p>
<p>ED does show a ton of interest–it means that the school’s your number 1 choice. I applied to NU, and they filled 40% of the class from early decision. Regular decision acceptance rate was around 15%, if I recall correctly. Take that as you will.</p>
<p>Note that if you need financial aid, ED is appropriate only if you have a by-far number one choice, a “dream school,” since you must give a yes-or-no answer to their FA offer. You simply have to decide if you can afford it or not, with no chance to compare offers.</p>
<p>Will you have to tell them what grades you got for the first quarter of senior year?</p>
<p>Colleges typically aren’t interested in quarter grades. If you expect your first semester senior grades to be higher than your GPA, you might want to skip ED so that colleges can see them at RD time (unless your GPA is already above average for your ED school–see its Common Data Set).</p>
<p>Only do ED if you really want to go to a school. Make sure you will not regret giving up other schools. If you willing to have a somewhat better chance in exchange for only one choice, it is the best choice. Best of luck!
Also, as for senior grades, they usually will not be sent for EDI. If you decide to EDII (some schools have Jan. 15 EDII deadlines for finding out in February), you might have to send the grades</p>
<p>Well I have ~93 average (school doesn’t go by the 4.0 gpa system) and according to Naviance, the GPAs of the schools I want to go to are ~94/95 so I was hoping I could bring it up to a 95 with more grades from senior year.</p>