1450 (and even lower) is pretty high stats, too. Just saying. 
I mostly agree also. I think the process is pretty ridiculous. Frankly, having out EFC equate to 1/3 of our income is just not reasonable at all. We are full pay, but cannot likely be full pay for anything but our public flagships (around the 30K price point). That means we’re out of the game for ED on private schools because we cannot afford our EFC for these schools. And this is a 99 percentile kid - 4.0, expecting a 33+ ACT score in a couple weeks. So he can throw his name in the lottery on some moderately or higher competitive schools that give academic or talent merit (kid will be auditioning for music programs). But I am prepared to be disappointed. My kid is a junior so I’m learning a bunch.
It’s good to know what you’re going into to be realistic about the process. It’s good to know to show interest to all options. No one who is in range or higher for stats for a school should feel badly about not being offered a spot. I know that’s easier said than done. Your ability to be full pay may be the thing that gets your into or rejects you from a school. And being offered a spot at full pay when you can’t afford it is basically like being rejected for finances.
I am glad there are options for those with lower income. But I think the EFC formula is a mess for the middle class and cuts off way too soon and I suspect for lower income it still doesn’t work for many. I wish our society valued education more as a whole. I do think in many states public schools often are failing the highest achievers which is really unfortunate.
The student is not supposed to be holistic, the process is. It just means that they can look beyond pure numbers to see the whole applicant – everything that person has to offer.
Also, what schools consider “ideal” keeps changing. When I was an applicant, the student was supposed to be well rounded. That was great for me, because I was the kind of kid who liked to try everything and was enthusiastically involved in many different activities. I was not a true “master” of anything. I was not pointy in the slightest. Then the gold standard changed and it seemed colleges were looking for kids who could show passion and dedication to a single skill. They wanted well rounded classes, but not necessarily well rounded students. This is possibly changing again as I hear more admissions officers talking about wanting kids who are community and service oriented. They want to make sure that kids will add to the campus culture in a beneficial way. In any case, its impossible to keep up with the ever changing admissions whims of top colleges. I would never have made a good pointy kid. My own daughters are who they are and they will all find places to get a great education.
Probably because once a particular “ideal” becomes well known, students and parents will aim for it, so that then it becomes “too common”.
@ucbalumnus Hence so many kids suddenly taking up fencing…and then beekeeping…? 
BTW, for what it’s worth, I’m of the opinion that LACs would still like well-rounded kids. Many are tiny yet they still want to have all sorts of EC activities around campus to attract prospective students, which means they want kids who can wear many different hats.
@ucbalumnus True! Maybe admissions departments should stop telling the world they are seeking a certain type of student. Maybe they should start saying that many different types of kids can succeed and are qualified and there is no one ideal model student to begin with.
Thank you for posting this gallentjill! This is very good.
College Confidential taught me that a safety is a school with 50% plus admission rate + applicant is at the top 75th percentile of their student body+ you can afford. I would never have known this were it not for College Confidential so I am grateful for this.
My daughter does indeed love hats and has many! Maybe this should be her college essay.
@gallentjill:
“On the other hand, the public schools do have a mission and a responsibility to educate kids at a reasonable cost. I think many are failing at this. 25-30k per year is simply unfair for an instate public. It is NOT affordable and so not fulfilling its purpose.”
- Note that a big chunk of that $25-30K is room and board and even the tuition-free unis in Europe don't subsidize that. They expect students to pay for their living expenses or live at home, as it should be. I don't believe that the live-away 4 year college experience is an unalienable right that everyone should be entitled to.
- Public tuition prices have gone up, but that's because states haven't kept up their funding of publics. If you want public tuition prices reduced, vote for legislators who will increase taxes or cut spending on prisons.
- In terms of net tuition at publics, it still isn't that high, on average. Less than $4K a year: https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-net-price-over-time-full-time-students-public-four-year-institution
Demonstrated interest is probably what got my kid into Lehigh. Also, geographic diversity - we live in California. He made 1480 on the SAT, but his GPA was not great, due to a disastrous second semester of sophomore year. He had a medical excuse, but we found out that for a lot of schools, that didn’t matter. Lehigh was honestly always his first choice, but I wouldn’t let him apply ED. Fortunately it worked out. I have 2 more kids to get through this crazy process, and am already dreading it…
"This is a great resource I found comparing admission statistics for ED and RD at hundreds of colleges. The results in some cases are really startling. http://www.personalcollegeadmissions.com/early-decision-2017 "
Thanks for posting that. Great data. The head exploding stat on ED is the percentage of the enrolled class being filled via ED. 40-60% is common these days.
That’s very much at odds with the typical description of ED. Which is it is only for that small number of unusual students who know to a 100% certainty that Blank U is the perfect place for them. Total BS!!
The data tells you that what is described as the little side door into the school is in fact the main/front door. Dartmouth 45% of seats filled via ED. Duke 47%, Penn 54%, Vandy 55%, Mbury 66%, CMC 68%!! Basically, there’s first class admissions (ED) and steerage (RD). But the schools don’t describe it that way.
I give Duke credit for being transparent about this. They flat out tell you at every turn that, if at all possible, you should apply ED. Don’t have the test scores totally pulled together? You should still apply ED. Want one more semester of grades? You should still apply ED. Not sure if the family can afford it? You should still apply ED. Are my chances better if I apply ED? Big time.
The Wapo article below has a similar data base on the ED/RD divide.
@PurpleTitan I agree with you that the four year residential experience is not an unalienable right. How many families don’t live within commuting distance of their state schools or of state schools that will admit them? In those instances, I think that the total cost of school, including room and board should be more affordable.
I vote for those legislators all the time. Education is one of the few things that I am happy to pay for with my tax dollars.
Apparently many families do not bother to save money for their kid’s education. They assume that someone else will pay, either the taxpayer at public colleges or wealthy donors at private colleges. It seldom works out.
“People are likely going to ask if your new baby is a girl or a boy if you play with them by withholding that basic information.”
A lot of schools do if you take the time to attend an info session or speak to an admissions officer, or similar contacts with the org.
@gallentjill maybe I missed it but why can’t your D apply ED? They are a full need school, so she should be able to take advantage of the admissions boost applying ED.
@ClassicRockerDad I never said which school I was referencing. Perhaps you meant someone else? This is not a full needs school, but even if it were, our EFC is not really affordable. We have enough saved to pay a reasonable amount and should have little problem finding that either through a state school or with merit offers.
Sorry, I thought you were referring to Lehigh. But yes, if the EFC is not affordable, your approach is better.
“I agree, @melvin123. Many ED applicants who are recruited athletes pretty much have a 100% admit rate which will through off the overall ED admit rate greatly especially at small schools. Legacies also face much better odds ED. The admit rate for an unhooked applicant is much lower than the stated ED acceptance rate.”
I doubt there’s actual data on this, but you can pretty much figure this out roughly.
Williams fills 42% of seats via ED. It has a huge number of recruited athletes for such a small school. Toss in some legacies, and you can surmise that ED is helpful at Williams to an unhooked. But it may not be the biggest ED boost around. Mbury, in contrast, fills 66% of seats via ED. Even though Mbury also has a lot of athletes and legacies, there’s probably a significant boost for unhooked ED applicants. Similar to what you’d expect between Brown (40% of seats) and Penn (54%).
And the ED/athlete thing is really just a creature of the elite LACs and the Ivies. That dynamic is not at play at the large ED privates that play D1 scholarship sports – Duke, NW, Vandy, Wake, Rice.
Lehigh puts a huge amount of weight on “shown interest.” Without knowing the whole picture about the applicants, you cannot judge.
I’ve two sons who’ve played this game. One played it like it was all about stats and struggled at this process, though still ended up at a very good school for him, but it wasn’t his first choice on day one of the process and he still looks back at what could have been (I’m working on him with that).
Son two played the game, realized what the AO was looking for at his school and presented that theme to them. He succeeded at his first choice and will end up with an ok merit package. Both kids had very similar stats. So, it may be too late for you now, but for others reading this, you need to present a total package to your school. Forget about acceptance rates. Even while they are in single digits at some places, people think they have single digit chance. That is not true. It is not random. If you present the right “package” to a school, you will have a high chance of acceptance. Look at the tippy top decision threads at top schools. They are littered with people who don’t understand why they were rejected with high stats. There are just as many people with lower stats that were accepted by multiple schools at that level.
We can cry foul because schools act as businesses… However, the theory I’m talking about is all about life. You don’t walk into a sales call with your undergrad GPA on your chest. You walk in with a package that you hope the customer wants. That is what this process is all about. I really doubt that (I’m sure there are special cases) most AOs even consider “Will this candidate be a big donor after graduation.” They are looking for a collective student body that will progress their institution.