This student was rejected from her ED first-choice – should she reapply during the Regular Decision round, or is that a bad idea? https://www.collegeconfidential.com/articles/should-rejected-early-applicant-apply-in-the-regular-decision-round/
CC is always a wealth of information. The article states that the ED “rejection” is final, and that RD apps won’t be considered. (except in very rare appeal circumstances).
There really is an upside to this. Yes, after that initial shock of getting denied your first choice ED college, the world truly is your oyster. If the student applied EA to other schools, then those are all viable options now. Do a search on all colleges still accepting apps, and narrow down some more awesome choices. There are excellent colleges that do rolling admissions, so look at those. Maybe rework essays. There are a lot moving parts, including having scores, transcripts and rec letters sent, so time is of the essence now.
I would add that if the ED college is a dream school (financial and you’ve always wanted to attend, you eat, sleep, drink that college), then consider community college or other in state school. Blow out your GPA, and transfer. If you begin in the summer, It may be possible to transfer In the spring. Or fall sophomore year.
“All roads lead to Rome.”
Good luck all.
Also, rejection by the school in the early round suggests that the applicant is nowhere close to the “borderline zone” that could get a deferral.
…and at $75 a shot (UM’s application fee), it’s money down the drain.
I used to agree with this but no longer. Increasingly, I hear of Early round rejections that I wouldn’t have ever predicted. A growing number of students who seem easily strong enough to be accepted EA or ED (or at least strong enough to be deferred and reconsidered) are being denied outright in December instead. Of course, it’s ultimately helpful to these students to be dismissed and not deferred if there’s little chance of good news in the spring. But, on the other hand, these verdicts are very confusing because they do imply, “You’re way over your head here,” when, in fact, that’s not necessarily true.
Another option, but not one I’d recommend if the student has other acceptances, is to take a gap year and reapply.
You would have to look at the rates of acceptance, deferral and rejection by school. For example I would take a rejection or deferral from Stanford much differently than a rejection or deferral from Harvard. A deferral from Stanford means you are a strong candidate given the limited deferrals granted. Red flags should go up if you are rejected by Harvard in the early round as historically 74%± are deferred and less than 10% rejected. I wish more schools would follow Stanford’s lead here and let students move on rather than provide them false hope unless they truly were on the fence.
However, it does not matter that people on the outside of the college’s admissions office think that the applicant is strong enough. The actual judgement of the people on the inside of the college’s admissions office is that the applicant is not strong enough to have any chance of admission in the regular decision round, as indicated by the early round rejection. And that is what matters when applying to the college.
Seems unlikely to result in any success with the colleges that previously rejected the applicant, unless the applicant’s credentials vastly improved somehow during the gap year, or the applicant changed to a less popular major at a college where the previously applied-to major was oversubscribed and therefore more competitive.
About “I would add that if the ED college is a dream school (financial and you’ve always wanted to attend, you eat, sleep, drink that college), then consider community college or other in state school. Blow out your GPA, and transfer. If you begin in the summer, It may be possible to transfer In the spring. Or fall sophomore year.”
It seems to me that CC is a good option if the CC has an agreement with the dream school such that graduating with a certain GPA from that CC guarantees entry to the dream school. But A’s at a CC won’t make up for lack of such in high school. If the reason for the initial rejection at the dream school was poor scores, that is a different story because most schools are more score conscious than grade conscious for freshman. Scores for transfers are not included in the information used to establish placement in various college ranking lists. When grades are what lead to the rejection, the issue is often concern about how a student would fare in the college and CC grades don’t necessarily inform since the courses can be pitched at a low level. Schools are always looking for ways to accept students with low scores and not have the scores count. Certain schools have pitched it to a fine art form.