The case I was referring to was an REA violation, not ED. And I don’t believe GCs need to sign any agreements for REA.
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Yes- we have the same situation at our high school. They apply ED somewhere (and get in) but don’t withdraw from UCLA or UCB.
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I’ve seen it way more at public schools since independent (private) schools have tighter reins (my experience). And yes, colleges have relationships with high schools and if high schools have students bail on commitments, it comes back and is something the college advisors/GC have to deal with directly. And why independent schools and high octane public schools will not be happy with students who don’t commit after being accepted ED.
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They are tracking everything.
The colleges track application and enrollment data by school, geographically, zip code demographics.
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Not sure if I’m adding to the discussion regarding the original question, but I feel for those who applied ED to Case Western, thinking they could afford it and then, with acceptance seeing the price increase from 74k to 82k (prior year it was a 3K increase). Yes, perhaps this is a reason from backing out of the ED agreement, but it has bigger implications - you used your ED (and the related admissions bump that comes along with it) on Case when perhaps you could have used it somewhere else. Please note, this isn’t a negative post about Case - we love the school and the amazing merit opportunities, but it’s the school we have data on. It’s just too hard to predict the price increase, and I’m sure Case is not alone here, particularly given COVID costs and inflation.
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Most of them offer merit even with ED, only eight or so Ivies.
Don’t feel too sorry for CWRU and others. Many, if not most schools, got large PPP awards for Covid relief.
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I’ve tried to make this argument with regard to students who apply to large numbers of safety schools that they then brag about having no intention of going to. It’s one thing if a student thoughtfully chooses the recommended several safeties that they would be happy at or could picture themselves going to. Quite another to adopt the more recent practice of “shot-gunning” a large number of applications to safeties that they have no emotional tie to other than to rack up acceptances or see if they get a big merit offer. These practices also, I would argue, potentially take seats away from other applicants for whom these are their dream schools.
Nothing against merit hunting, as long as students pick colleges that they would be willing to go to.
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I haven’t heard of a strategy of shotgunning safeties. As safeties generally have high acceptance rates and relatively low yields, it doesn’t seem like there would be much risk that this strategy would take seats away from others.
Regardless, if a student has to merit hunt that suggests money is the primary factor in college selection. Many students find themselves at schools that weren’t high on their list and/or they didn’t want to initially attend, simply because it was the most affordable choice.
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I don’t think that’s necessarily true in every case. I know kids who chose UGA as a “safety”, with no intention of attending, and admittance is certainly not a sure thing there. Maybe better wording would be “likely’s or matches that they have no intention of going to”.
I agree there’s more risk of taking away a spot the more selective the school is, but being in a position where one needs to merit hunt is less than ideal, so they have to cast a wide net.
Regarding categorizing schools, the vast majority of unhooked students can’t call a school with a 40% acceptance rate a safety, such as UGA. Sure, there are exceptions based on stats or HS relationships/historical performance but that doesn’t include most students.
I am sure there are high stat Georgia students who really don’t want to attend UGA, but an application makes sense in many ways.
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My girls stated they had no intention of staying in GA for college and used UGA as a safety. You never know how things are going to pan out and it’s nice having a decent school locked in before Thanksgiving. And I’m sure a lot of parents have their kids apply because of Zell and Hope.
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If this is a recent practice, or suddenly more popular practice, that’s likely to have some pandemic influence. My son doesn’t feel any emotional tie to any of the schools he applied to because we didn’t manage to visit very many and the ones we did visit sometimes didn’t even allow us inside buildings - and that was this year. For anyone doing this process a year ago, this would have been even more extreme. We’re really hoping that if he gets in to more than one school, there will be accepted student open houses in the spring that give a better look.
We’re also noticing that there have been some changes to the selection process in the name of “equity.” A handful of places we considered had application fee waivers you could request, but most decided to just waive it for everyone to avoid creating extra paperwork. They’ve also gone mostly test-optional and one even test-blind.
Combine that with the fact that extra-curriculars and service opportunities were limited during the pandemic, and different high schools have been lenient with grades to varying degrees, and it’s feeling impossible to get any sense of whether you’re likely to be accepted somewhere or not.
My son has great SAT scores, good but not great grades, and kind of weak otherwise. Naviance thinks he’s a pretty strong applicant, but they’re comparing him against kids who applied over the last five years and SAT scores would have been a bigger boost then. I’m looking around for a couple more good safeties that he might want to squeeze in applications to this weekend.
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Agree on the categorization, thus the suggestion to re-label as a match or a likely.
I have no issue with picking several matches, likelys’ or safeties for that matter, that are known to applicant, in their state or have a reasonable tie-in to the applicant. I was referencing the practice of applying to schools where there is no emotional tie in or intention to attend (perhaps because of cost, or location or lack of perceived prestige, or other reason). Why take the seat from someone who really wants it but instead gets a deferral or denial in place of the other student’s acceptance, with no intention to attend.
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I have a question - how do colleges (uchicago) make sure to keep applicants from breaking their contract in transfer ED? It’s not as if they have a college counselor or any other personnel to contact, and would it really be feasible for them to call every admissions office making sure my name is blacklisted?
Independent schools tend to take their honor code pretty seriously. I wonder if that would be grounds for dismissal?
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I didn’t know that almost a quarter of ED applicants are international students. Not sure what proportion of accepted they are.
https://twitter.com/james_s_murphy/status/1479929542005473284?s=21
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Same with my daughter. I’d say it was a target school for her. She doesn’t want to stay in-state. But UGA offers a very early acceptance and also with Zell is very good value for money. So it was a no-brainer to apply. It let her take out a few safety schools in the RD round. In the end, she declined her UGA acceptance as soon as she heard from her ED school.
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First World Problem (not really a problem).
These theoretical “rules” concerning ED exist so the “elite” schools can keep their acceptance rate low and yield high… they are in the “College Education” market that includes big state schools, directional state schools, small private and for profit institutions. This is all just a math game about filling seats, every other school does it… seems some do not want to pump their own gas… until that is the only option. My guess is these ED schools will adapt.
This is no more unethical than driving 56, 65, or 70mph in a 55 mph zone. It is evaluating and accessing risk/reward.
ED rules don’t seem enforceable… thus they are not rules. The schools charge an admission fee, so they are compensated for their time… they are paid to make decisions of who to admit. I think ultimately schools don’t want to run the risk of kicking out so called “cheaters” because it makes them look bad.
I’m not against tracking EDs if there is a data base that the school says they are going to report to. I don’t think they want to do that as this isn’t a big problem for them because they are going to fill their seat either way (risk/reward).
This seems like a Junior League discussion on etiquette and rift-raft, but I did enjoy reading it… very niche.
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I respectfully disagree.
They say a person’s character is defined by what they do when no one is looking.
One may agree or disagree regarding the existence of ED, but when applicants sign a document asserting they will follow the rules, they really should.
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