The ED pedestal and application strategies

Parents Forum
1

<p>Interesting article in the Yale Daily:</p>

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[quote]
...One inherent problem with predicting yield is that each year, the profile of the applicant pool changes significantly from the previous year, said Dean Jacoby, director of college counseling at the private Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Conn.</p>

<p>Though more Choate students are applying early to Yale this year, Jacoby said the decisions were based on a variety of individual factors, not just the inability to apply early to Harvard or Princeton. And Jacoby said he thinks Yale’s yield might actually go up this year, because of the positive connection students form with a school once they are accepted early — one that is difficult to shake, even if they are accepted elsewhere regular decision.</p>

<p>“For four or five months, students are picturing themselves at Yale or wearing Yale sweatshirts,” Jacoby said. “Any other school has to knock that early school off the pedestal.”</p>

<p>The difference in the predictions made by high school guidance counselors — that yield will either stay the same or increase — and those made by consultants — that yield will go down — might result from different attitudes towards applying early. Most of the nine high school guidance counselors interviewed said they encouraged students to apply early only if the school was their clear first choice.</p>

<p>Reider said he went one step further — actively discouraging some students from applying early.</p>

<p>“We try to hold people back, and we’re tickled like anything when kids hold themselves back,” Reider said. “It’s just a myth that you have an advantage when you apply early.” ...</p>

<p>“In some ways it would have been perhaps preferable if students who are looking at the top schools would be able to say, ‘I can’t make any decisions early,’” Jacoby said. “Then they could make more long-term decisions. College rarely offers that to students. It more often has a do-it-now pressure.”

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yale</a> Daily News - Yale uncertain about early yield</p>

2

<p>Like the guidance counselor at CRH, our high school gc also took a firm stand to knock ED off its pedestal. He actively discouraged students not apply early basically using the same words quoted in the OP article - that the ED advantage is a myth.</p>

3

<p>That's lovely rhetoric, and I have no trouble agreeing that it's silly to think there's any more than a very modest advantage in applying EA to a place like Yale or Stanford. But when you get into the ED schools, where the student is offering a commitment to attend -- there, you have statistical evidence, logic, and straight testimony to tell you that there is a meaningful advantage. Even at the level of a college like Penn, which says that it will consider legacy status only for ED applicants, and certainly at colleges that are only a little less selective. </p>

<p>Of course, "advantage" doesn't mean that every sow's ear gets treated like a silk purse. Advantage means something like, if there were a pool of 100 kids with similar stats, and 40 of them would be accepted in the RD round, maybe 60 of them would be accepted in the ED round. That's pretty meaningful, although not to the kids who get rejected anyway.</p>

4

<p>Last year Yale took about 19% of its EA candidates and less than 6% of its RD candidates. It is one thing for a guidance counselor at Choate Rosemary Hall to advise his students to wait. They are much less likely to be overlooked in the huge mass of RD applicants: Firstly, they are at Choate, and secondly they are undoubtedly advised and packaged to a degree undreamed of by the vast majority of brilliant public high school applicants. </p>

<p>The advantage may be modest. Perhaps it pales in comparison to the advantage enjoyed by his students no mater when they apply. But it is the only advantage to which most kids have access.</p>

5

<p>I do know a number of kids who were deferred during the ED round at Cornell. But to there credit, Cornell seems to give these kids a second chance in the RD round.<br>
So if their qualifications are comparable to the other RD applicants, a number of ED kids do get accepted through regular decision.
In certain instances, I do think it is helpful for a school to know that they are truly your # 1 choice.
The flip side is, my kid decided NOT to apply to U Penn. She wasn't going to apply ED, and she thought she would have virtually no chance of admission by applying RD.
ED at Penn seemed to be a big advantage for admission.</p>

6

<p>myth?????</p>

<p>More than one adcom has admitted in an info session that ED acceptances are a few % higher than RD, after excluding recruited athletes, legacy, development admits, etc. No, it ain't a myth, at least at those schools.</p>

7

<p>I think people are conflating EA and ED, and that is part of the confusion.</p>

8

<p>At Vanderbilt, these (ED) students receive a slight admissions advantage. Basically, a student who is a borderline applicant in our Regular Decision pool will be admitted during the ED process. Students applying ED are saying that they LOVE VU, and we admissions officers respond to this by being a bit more generous in our admissions decisions.</p>

9

<p>My daughter's counselor said that she was giving up her shot at Penn when she applied SCEA to Harvard. He was right; she did not get into Penn. </p>

<p>So many kids from our high school got into Cornell ED that higher ranked kids (who got into incredible schools) did not get into Cornell in the regular round.</p>