<p>1012mom- yes, we had the identical experience! A nice EA school in the bag took a lot of the pressure off, the college counselor told us that was a good idea. We also had the “manage expectations” experience, in the end it all turned out much better than we expected. We still got a lot of snail mail as well as email, as long as you screen through it there was some valuable information to cull through.</p>
<p>I also understand that for the next kid, it will ALL be done through Naviance, so there is no extra work involved for teachers to write more recs. The only selective school I’ve heard of that does not take the Common App is Georgetown, but there could be a lot of others for all I know. Who wants to start making a list? (of schools that don’t take the Common App) Most of the schools though, had extensive supplements so it was still a lot of work.</p>
<p>The college process is more student and gc driven than bs admission is. There are still many things a parent can do. </p>
<p>Most schools kick off the college process in Jan. of Junior year. If your child is uncertain about the type of college s/he wants, you can ask to see the Naviance data for your school in the spring of 10th grade. You can plan a road trip around visiting certain types of colleges (by size, public/private, rural/suburban/urban, etc.). Use the Naviance data to pre-select feasible schools. You can also plan some visits during Xmas break (earlier part). Keep in mind that during March break most colleges are closed for spring break. If you don’t start earlier, you will have to visit colleges during summer when you won’t see student life in action. Many colleges start in late August, so visits are also good to plan around then too.</p>
<p>Stay on top of SAT IIs. If your child finishes precalculus, or has completed the first 2 months of calculus, then it is a good time to take the math II test. If your child will apply to very competitive schools, s/he should take 3 SAT IIs. Scores at 700 or higher are best for very competitive schools. Not that many schools require 3 SAT IIs. </p>
<p>In addition to chauffeur, it is helpful for you to put together a resume. This is a simple fact sheet no more that 2 pages that summarizes info on the Common Application. Many colleges will state that that they do not want a resume for an interview, but interviewers took it. It must have helped them write their interview notes and went into his file. It should include things like academic honors and awards, athletic / arts info/ awards, leadership roles, ec’s, summer activities including jobs, community service, SAT, SAT IIs and AP scores, etc.</p>
<p>Be certain that the college list going into 12th grade includes a nice mix of reach, match and likely schools. If possible, encourage your child to apply to at least one Early Action college. If there is a clear #1, consider an ED ap along with an EA. My son got into a great EA university, which allowed him to narrow his remaining colleges down to only a few more aps. I observed too many parent/students focused on reach colleges and not giving too much thought to match and likely schools.</p>
<p>When you go on college tours, it is fine for you and your child to go together. Although I wanted to hear everything, this is all about the applicants. I always stepped to the middle of the line so that interested applicants could be next to the tour guide to ask questions.</p>
<p>I didn’t see the completed common ap, including the essay until college selection was over and done. Son and gc handled most of the process, and somehow everything got done without me!</p>
<p>At my S’ school, there is limit of 10 applications + state flagship school. In addition, if student applies EA or ED and is rejected, they can add that additional number to regular decision applications. </p>
<p>S is just now starting to compile a feasible list of reaches, matches and safeties, and it is difficult to pare down the list. But on the upside, I think it would be very difficult to do a decent job on more applications, with all the supplemental essays required. GC also explained at parents meeting that the colleges are all very aware of the school’s policy on limits, and therefore know that the students have a real interest when they apply, because they have to be restrained in their amount of applications. This made much sense and could end up being a real plus.</p>
<p>Great post Burb Parent…very informative!</p>
<p>Thanks for these posts. Can someone who has needed FA explain how EA/ED works with FA? When do FA awards come if one is accepted early? Is there any benefit to applying EA if a student needs significant aid? My guess is that if a school describes itself as need blind, EA/ED and regular decision aid would be the same, but if a school in not need blind, it might be a disadvantage to apply early?</p>
<p>If you look at ED (EA is non-binding so FA is not really much of a concern), then ask the admission officer for your region to help you get a preliminary FA estimate.</p>
<p>The FA decision – subject to changes once your 1040 is filed – comes with the ED acceptance in mid-December (for ED1) or mid-February (for ED2, for those colleges with ED2).</p>
<p>The ED contract allows you to break the obligation to accept the offer of admission if the FA award does not meet your needs. But this gets ugly for a couple of reasons. You’ll want to avoid that situation, which is why you want to have that preliminary FA decision in hand BEFORE applying ED.</p>
<p>(And I recommend asking the regional admission officer to direct you through that process – because it’s something that parents can do and it’s an opportunity for them to see that your child has that kind of interest in the college even if, in the end, s/he decides to wait for the Regular Decision (RD) round.)</p>
<p>Here’s the aforementioned ugliness: First, you’ll have an award decision in hand that you believe is inadequate…but the college believes is fully adequate, because they calculated it to be adequate. It’s your only data point as to how college financial aid offices are going to look at your finances. There’s no comparison because you just applied ED and you haven’t been accepted anywhere else yet such that you’ve got a FA determination in hand, so, for all you know, it’s the best you’ll ever get. And your choice is not to say, “Hold on until May because I want to see what other colleges will come up with.” Your only option is to cut bait and say “This ain’t happenin’” to your child’s top choice college. Or take out loans beyond reason. Second, from there things MAY get even worse because the college MAY decide that you’re playing games after they gave you an award of as much aid as you need. So they MAY notify their peer institutions that your child broke the ED contract and those peer institutions MAY blacklist your child in the RD round…without ever telling you, of course. So while there is that fine print that says you will be released from your obligation to enroll if the financial aid award is inadequate, you had best obtain that preliminary notice BEFORE applying so that you have some objective, comparison to point to if you’re at the point where the award is so heinous that you are willing to walk from the #1 college choice…which would, hopefully, make them not send out your child’s name on the blacklist letter that’s sent to other colleges likely to be very high up on your child’s list.</p>
<p>The biggest thing about ED and FA is organization. You’re going to use the prior year’s tax returns and “stub-year” information for the current year. And schools the use the College Board’s CSS/Profile ask all sorts of crazy questions that you need to be able to answer like, how much did you spend on food? And on vacations? So there’s this all of this data that you’ll need to pull together that’s different from the data you’ve organized to make your tax preparation easier each spring. And you need to have it pulled together in advance of November 1, or November 15 or January 1 (if you want a preliminary letter or FA decision with the admission letter).</p>
<p>It was enough to scare me away from ED. But, in terms of Early Action (EA), there’s no concern as it is no more or less binding than RD.</p>
<p>“Second, from there things MAY get even worse because the college MAY decide that you’re playing games after they gave you an award of as much aid as you need. So they MAY notify their peer institutions that your child broke the ED contract and those peer institutions MAY blacklist your child in the RD round…without ever telling you, of course.”</p>
<p>But realize that this is rumor and myth, that not a single case has been documented of retaliation for declining an insufficient ED FA offer. If another school wants the student more, or is able to offer more FA (most schools choose they formula the like), they have no reason to care what went before. How is submitting an app playing games?</p>
<p>D’yer: That’s very helpful. Thanks</p>
<p>Common Application: My son applied to 12 colleges. All of them were Common Application colleges. A classmate of his applied to 7 colleges after withdrawing her application from the one school she and my son had in common (but after the teacher recommendation and school report was sent in) and of those 7 applications she completed, 0 of them accepted the Common Application.</p>
<p>The Common Application is designed for admissions committees that undertake holistic reviews. So lots of state schools don’t use it. And conservatories and art and design schools would find it a poor vehicle for gleaning an applicant’s merit.</p>
<p>ExieMITAlum makes an excellent point about the drain on resources if students can apply to unlimited colleges. My raised cyber-eyebrow at a cap of 8 was based on my personal experience (actually my personal, vicarious experience through my son) where the whole lot of them were taken care of through the Common App. That’s not necessarily the case.</p>
<p>Plus, another big difference is that his international school doesn’t do “college advising” because they just don’t know all about the various colleges. That not only created a need to increase the applications (to make up for ignorance) but it also reduced a drain on resources that a U.S. boarding school would invest in helping review how a student would (or would not) match up with all the schools on the student’s list. So, I was tempted to suggest that all Common App colleges could count as “one” for purposes of the limit, but that wouldn’t adequately cover the problem of scarce counseling resources.</p>
<p>@ vossron: You’re probably right that it has never been documented. I fully expect that a college would not create a separate rejection letter that says, “Because you withdrew your ED application after being accepted by Nomoney U., we rejected you.”</p>
<p>And, yes, if a college wants an applicant badly enough, they probably would ignore the blacklist…but you’re assuming that it’s an applicant’s market and the college feels that honoring a blacklist memo would diminish its ability to pull together an excellent, competitive freshman class. That’s just not true. I suspect that it’s not even a blacklist but a list of all the people who have been accepted Early Decision that certain colleges share. A college would match up that list with its applicants and yank those names off the list because, presumably, they’re locked in at another college. So it’s not a matter of retaliation but a matter of bookkeeping. And if that’s the case, then, no, they’re not going to offer admission to that student no matter how wonderful that student’s application may appear because they’re under the impression that the student is committed to attend another college.</p>
<p>And here’s an actual college admission officer on CC who warns against doing this:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11308141-post33.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/11308141-post33.html</a></p>
<p>So, while we can debate whether it’s myth or just idle threats…is it really a chance you want to take?</p>
<p>“A college would match up that list with its applicants and yank those names off the list because, presumably, they’re locked in at another college.”</p>
<p>This is after an ED FA applicant accepts the offer. School B isn’t going to shoot themselves in the foot, missing a top applicant (who would enhance their academic reputation) just because school A doesn’t have as much FA money as school B. Give schools a bit more intelligence credit!</p>
<p>Then there are the many successful, joyous ED FA cases we read about here in December. :)</p>
<p>Okay, I’m catching up with this thread, so let me add my “Amen!” to a number of points already made:</p>
<p>– Do not check off things that throw spam in your e-mail or mailbox. I cannot possibly imagine that the dream college will be the one to find your child and not the other way 'round. It’s flattering to have colleges trying to get you (or your child) to apply…at first. But the reality is that they just need to increase applications. Harvard and Yale are not going to drop you an e-mail that says “Hey, we noticed you did well on the PSAT and if you tell us you’re interested we’ll accept you right now and waive tuition and fees.” It would be nice, but that message isn’t coming. THE EXCEPTION TO THIS is for students who go for programs like Questbridge. If you’ve got a great hook, it may be a good call to let the world know you’re willing to be recruited. But then at least set up a separate e-mail account for the onslaught.</p>
<p>Everything creative1 has posted so far: Amen!</p>
<p>Someone suggested reading material. Loren Popes “Colleges That Change Lives” is good (see the web site if you don’t want to read the book). I preferred his book “Looking Beyond The Ivies” – but understand it’s the sort of propaganda you need to be willing to embrace even before you read it, otherwise it’s not going to be your cup of tea.</p>
<p>Common Data Set - Do you want to know where USN&WR and all those other guides get their data? From the “Common Data Set” information that colleges compile each year. You can go right to the source and get the latest info on every admission parameter imaginable. Each college has an Office of Institutional Resources (OIR) that collects data and the “Common Data Set” is a uniform report of admission and enrollment information, usually available in .pdf form on-line. Google is your friend. Search: [Name of College] “Common Data Set”</p>
<p>For visits, your job as parent should be very limited. Here’s something you can do to make yourself useful: record the date of the visit, the names of interviewers, and maybe take notes of things that are unique and appealing about that college (which can help with the “Why [Our College]?” essay. Some colleges ask for dates of visits and names of interviewers and such. Your notes can be helpful. Your questions and comments at the information session: not helpful at all. Honestly, I think some of the parents were trying to get accepted by asking brilliant questions of the admission officer. Normally, these questions had zero interest to the students.</p>
<p>REMEMBER: When visiting colleges with your child, your interaction with the college will be limited…mainly with the bursar and, possibly, the financial aid office. If you want to know if there’s a payment plan or such, that information is on-line. And the admission officer is going to tell you to talk to the financial people, so it’s not like there will be an answer for any valid question you might ask.</p>
<p>When it comes to college: it will be your child who has to eat the vegan breakfast, it will be your child who has to live in the dorm room that smells like stale sneakers cooking on a radiator; it will be your child who has to sleep through the class with an average size of 15.8 students, so remember that: it’s their decision because they’re the ones who have to live with it.</p>
<p>As a parent, I feel that I have one non-financial stake: and I’ve explored the character of the alumni. I’ve asked – of friends and colleagues, not the tour guide – about the integrity of the people who graduated from the colleges my son is interested in. I’ve polled myself as to whether the alums I know were generally people whose company I looked forward to being in or whether they were generally people who were slippery and not the kind of people you’d want to do business with, especially as a partner. And the reason I think I have a valid interest in this, is because after I pay for my son’s college education and after all I’ve done to raise him to be a decent person, I refuse to have him go off to some schlocky college that turns out the kinds of jackasses who look for the first opportunity to put their parents in the cheapest retirement home they can find and let them rot there, without so much as a visit from the grandchildren. I think that’s a valid concern for parents. Probably the only one that’s not directly related to financing the college education.</p>
<p>On the subject of interviews: they have pretty low weight, if any at all. Across CC, alumni interviewers who participate in the forums will tell you that their interview reports and the admission outcomes seem to bear no discernible relationship to one another. Many colleges only offer informational interviews, and even then they might not be able to get around to fitting in your child – which is why they can’t give much weight to them when it’s somewhat random as to who gets them.</p>
<p>In terms of interaction with admissions, I had 0 contacts with the admissions offices. Everything was scheduled and arranged directly by my son. My people are all in the financial aid office.</p>
<p>Visit colleges whenever you get the chance, even one’s not on your child’s list. The most productive visits were the ones where son discovered why he DIDN’T want to go to that college. That’s a GOOD thing! Many times those visits helped him get a better idea of what he most valued in a college. To that point, he had an alumni interview with one college right before a trip to the U.S. for some college visits. The interviewer wanted to know why he was visiting the competitive, peer rival institution and skipping the alum’s alma mater and my son honestly said, “Because I’m positive that I want to apply to your school and I need to visit the other one because I’m less sure of it.” And, sure enough, that other one was struck from his list and he was accepted as an early write (they let him know their decision before the main floodgate of decisions got sent out) at the alma mater school (not because his response was flattering but probably because the interview carried no weight). I think the alumni interviews mostly serve as a way to keep alumni engaged and involved with the school…and secondarily they provide a way for applicants to gather information and indirectly connect with the school.</p>
<p>College fairs and college visits…in addition to the on-campus experiences…can be amazing. Especially if there is an alum there. I took a group of kids to the big college circus event that came to our part of Europe. Probably 100 colleges. The kids didn’t know what to do. All of them went around to some random booths, said “Hi” and grabbed the bookmark or embossed Bic pen or whatever flyer was offered up for the taking. About 30 minutes in to the 4 hour event, they all told me that they were all done. So I took them aside and told them this – which you may find to be a useful approach to these sorts of things: “This is now a scavenger hunt. Each of you has to identify the five places you’re most interested in learning more about. Then you have to go to those booths. At each of these booths is some person who is either an admission officer who traveled across an ocean to be here or a local alumnus who has decided that his or her alma mater is so amazing that it is worth it to give up a weekend afternoon to tell people about it. And your job is to talk to that person and find out the one thing about that college that they love so much that they can’t shut up about. Every college has some special thing that makes it the best college in the world (at that thing). Find as much about that thing as you can and tell me about it.” Even if the alum hasn’t set foot on campus in ten years, s/he won’t be able to shut up about the college’s special thing. And when your child writes the college-specific essays, being able to tie it to that special thing or quality can make all the difference and tell the admissions officer, “Hey, this kid ‘gets’ us!” So, again, if you’re a parent at one of these things, you can take some notes that your child is too cool to take…and they’ll come in handy later on.</p>
<p>That’s it…for now.</p>
<p>Oh, I lied. There’s something else.</p>
<p>About rejections: Just today the NYT published a series of opinions about college rejections. [The</a> Rejection Game - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/31/the-college-acceptance-rate-racket/the-rejection-game]The”>The Rejection Game - NYTimes.com)</p>
<p>In my book, rejections and disappointments are good. They provide clarity and help you get to where you’re going to end up. Yes, it’s nicer to get the good news that moves you in the right direction. You’ll need at least one acceptance to get there, right? But rejections and disappointments help too!</p>
<p>@ vossron: Your point isn’t persuasive in the least. The fact of the matter is that this MAY happen. I cited an admission officer who said that the school reserves the right to do this. And the fact that some people have happy results doesn’t change the fact that it’s a game you don’t want to play if you can avoid it – when my advice is to go ahead and get a preliminary read from the FA office before applying ED. What’s wrong with that advice? Are you seriously suggesting that applicants shouldn’t bother with that, go in blind and then ignore the possibility of being black-listed all because you’ve seen happy and joyous stories posted here on CC? If you’ve got some reason to take the risk and not take my advice to get an early read, you need to make that case. If you’re just cherry-picking a point and arguing about whether the threat is legit or just idle chatter from admission offices…that’s not helpful.</p>
<p>Sigh. I remember the good ole days, when I applied to two colleges.</p>
<p>I am with you Rellielou, this is a very different experience. I am finding this information very helpful and will be looking at a few of the books mentioned over the the next year. </p>
<p>A few folks mentioned their child was admitted EA to a safety. Is it better for a child to apply EA to a safety or a reach? I know it would be beneficial to know you have an admission under your belt, thus EA to a safety, but for a reach school are your odds better if you apply EA? Hope this makes sense, if not I am sure someone will help me better formulate my question.</p>
<p>@ rellielou and emdee: I know…right? I had 0 interviews and went on 0 tours. I happened to visit one college I applied to because my brother went there. But I didn’t go near the admission office. I went to a party. Everything else was based on gossip, guidance counselor advice and whatever college catalogues happened to by lying around the senior lounge when I was in a mood to thumb through them.</p>
<p>@ emdee : I think EA to reach schools can be tricky in terms of looking at acceptance rates and deciding that the door is open a little wider in November.</p>
<p>The EA programs – like wait lists – are there for the benefit of the college. A non-binding early action is a way to begin connecting with the most desirable applicants who are interested in that college. It’s also their window for extending offers to athletes, which artificially raises the admission rate among EA applicants. Many of them are all but sure of the outcome…so look behind the numbers. The benefit and drawback to early action (and ED) is the timing. Your track record is a semester (or half-semester) less developed and that big achievement might not get considered. The essays may not be as well polished for EA/ED applications…however, I think my son found the EA process to be helpful in getting his act together for the RD applications.</p>
<p>In my son’s case, only one of his colleges had EA, so he went with that. He didn’t make the comparison you’re inquiring about – which is a very interesting question. Some EA programs are exclusive (meaning you can only apply to that program and no other EA or ED programs). Others are not exclusive…so you may not have to make that kind of choice.</p>
<p>Here’s a blog that has a chart you can scroll down to see the colleges that have unrestricted early action programs and the ones that have restricted programs:</p>
<p>[Early-Decision</a> Applications Surge at Vanderbilt, George Washington and Dartmouth - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/ed/]Early-Decision”>Early-Decision Applications Surge at Vanderbilt, George Washington and Dartmouth - The New York Times)</p>
<p>It looks like that choice only comes into play if one of your EA options is Boston College, Yale or Stanford (and, next year, Princeton and Harvard). That doesn’t answer your question, but it may limit its interest to you or others to a purely academic one.</p>
<p>“… my advice is to go ahead and get a preliminary read from the FA office before applying ED. What’s wrong with that advice?”</p>
<p>If you can get the early read, even better!</p>
<p>“Are you seriously suggesting that applicants shouldn’t bother with that, go in blind and then ignore the possibility of being black-listed all because you’ve seen happy and joyous stories posted here on CC?”</p>
<p>If you can’t get an early read, yes, because the fear is imagined. We might as well assume that Harvard black-lists all Yale applicants; the evidence is the same.</p>
<p>Some schools are trying hard to dispel the myth that ED is only for the well-to-do:
[Dickinson</a> College - Early Decision](<a href=“http://www.dickinson.edu/admissions/apply/Early-Decision/]Dickinson”>Early Decision | Dickinson College)</p>
<p>These may be of interest:</p>
<p>[The</a> Case for Early Decision](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/the-case-for-early-decision/]The”>The Case for Early Decision - The New York Times)</p>
<p>[You’re</a> In. Can You Back Out?](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/strategy.html]You’re”>http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/strategy.html)</p>
<p>My issue with ED is the emotional toll it takes if DC gets denied or deferred from the dream school. I have seen how difficult it is for kids to pick up and get excitied about writing additional apps when their hopes have just been dashed. They do not do their best work, and it just feels like rubbing salt in the wound. Given the capriciousness of college admissions, even places where DC is a strong candidate are not givens. I have told my Ds they could only apply ED if all of their other apps were finished and ready to submit before the ED app goes in.</p>