This is our first time through this process, and I have an observation/experience to share and discuss.
Recap: S applied to 10 schools, primarily small LAC’s, seeking merit aid to defray tuition, no FA possible.
S applied EA wherever possible, and one school had rolling admissions.
So, by Christmas, he had been accepted to 4 out of 10 schools, with 3 very nice scholarship offers in hand, awaiting possible scholarship offer on the 4th admit. One school sent him a huge package, FedEx, just 8 days after applying EA.
The other 6 schools will issue decisions staggered from tomorrow through April 1. There are additional potential scholarship announcements through April 1–at least.
The phenomena I have noticed now is that the early responders gain a competitive advantage. My S starts to picture himself going to one of these, and he gets very nice follow up contacts as well. In the meantime, the other schools are a black hole–just more waiting. Part of this is likely impatience, but it strikes me that more schools should offer EA to be on even footing with their peer competitor institutions. They stand a real shot of losing applicants (and yield), because prospects get tired of waiting and simply agree to pull the trigger on schools rather than waiting around another 4 months for another option to issue an admit/scholarship decision. This is compounded by offers to visit again for Admitted student days and/or for scholarship programs at the early schools.
Anyone else have this experience? It tends to dovetail with the “It’s nice to be wanted” thread posted earlier, but is structurally built in based upon their admissions timing.
My kid applied to 9 schools and started getting acceptances in early December, iirc. Then approx 1 or 2 a month after that. He was glad to have acceptances in his pocket early, but that was about the extent of it. The last school he heard from came at the very end of March. It was his top choice and it is where he enrolled. His #2 and #3 also came in March week or so apart. If he hadn’t gotten into #1 he would have gone to #2 and so on down the list.
My younger son was accepted EA to U of Chicago and then had to wait till April for most of his other acceptances. UC sent him all sorts of goodies (books, scarves, calendars and best of all a holiday card that actually mentioned what they had liked in his essay). Even though he was well aware of what they were up to, he said it was very hard not to be swayed by all the love. In the end though, he narrowed it down to two schools (UC and Tufts) and chose Tufts. I think he’d have been fine in either school, but I don’t think he made the wrong decision.
That is another issue. My S is not getting Senioritis, he is getting Collegitis. He told me that if he needs to fill out another essay, he is revolting!
I know it is not necessarily logical, but some degree of fatigue sets in, and it gets tempting to just pull the trigger and be done with it all… and that may inure to the advantage of the schools offering EA decisions, with scholarship offers.
Every college develops their own admissions strategy and policy to fit its own institutional priorities. One of my local (non flagship) state U’s advertises on the radio a “walk in day” where a kid shows up with a transcript and test scores, and can get admitted “while you wait”. I’m not sure that CalTech or Johns Hopkins are worried about their yield because they make kids wait a couple of months to get a decision.
Some kids react like your son does. Others find a way to wait out the season by putting the decision out of mind until all the facts are in front of them. That’s life. Not every decision your son is going to make in his life will line up neatly- he will get job offers which ask him for a two week turnaround, but he’s still interviewing for something he really, really wants. But if he turns down the offer he has… and doesn’t get the other job… he’s stuck.
Not a bad lesson to learn early on- you rarely have the luxury of getting an answer when you want it!
We will certainly wait. I just think it is interesting that the earlier schools are getting a leg up on recruiting by choosing to offer EA…and it might work in their favor.
Though this isn’t a job offer. An EA offer is essentially a free option.
So when you’re looking to buy a house, do you stop looking and putting in the hard work of checking out houses after the first few visits to some houses and the realtors put the hard sell on you?
I can relate to the point being made by OP. Of course you wait for them all to come in, but these EA schools give you the luxury of time to learn more about them and get emotionally invested. Scholarship packages come early and the school has more time to show their love. We have 4 EA acceptances and have already visited one with a couple trips planned in next two weeks, two of them being our second time to see them. We will certainly consider the future acceptances, but having these in the bank feels wonderful. We are getting ahead of the mass hysteria of spring break week flying from one campus to another within a few days. This way it is spread out. Hope is by the time all acceptances are in, we have just one or two admitted days that S wants to attend. Not a bunch of them.
I have had the same thought as the OP. My third child applied to seven colleges this fall. Two were rolling admissions, so she heard from them around Thanksgiving. Three were early action. Of these, she’s heard from two. The third decision will come later this month. And then she applied regular decision to two others, which she won’t hear from until the end of March. She is very interested in those last two, but the waiting does, indeed, cause all of us to sort of forget about them.
One of the regular decision schools is a huge reach. It has early action and ED, but its EA deadline was so early in the fall she couldn’t get her application ready before the deadline. That particular university is not losing any students with its gap between EA and RD dates!
But the final college is a lovely public honors LAC, which only offers ED1, ED2, and RD. i think it does hurt itself by not giving students an EA option. I’d love to see her attend this school, but there are three months of nothingness between the date she submitted the application and the date she will hear from admissions.
In the meantime, the rest of the colleges are bombing her with love.
I think it’s only a leg up if a student’s list of colleges is even in preference from top to bottom. If you have 10 true “peer institutions” then absolutely, an early acceptance could win a kid over. I’m not sure that’s the case for many though. We tend to see quite a range of schools with clear favorites on the lists of kids we know (though can’t pretend that represents all.)
D had 4 early acceptances by Christmas which absolutely made her feel better and had her looking at them a little harder. However, once Spring came with decisions from her favorites (schools that didn’t offer EA,) those early acceptances were no longer of interest to her. They didn’t really get a “leg up” in regards to D. In truth, it sort of just cost them more money because some flew her out for visits and such. Of the kids I know, only a handful actually went to their EA schools and only because they were already their top choices.
If your sons choices are pretty even (costs, ranking, offerings, location, ect.) then it could be those early action schools win him over!
My kiddo was accepted EA to her top choice school, and two others before Christmas the year she was a senior in HS. She made her final decision and sent the deposit in on April 30. No kidding.
My youngest is a college senior, so this is a hindsight observation. A lot of hs students have evolving interests and priorities during senior year. If there were more EA, there would be generally more pressure for even earlier deadlines. Things are crazy enough as-is.
Feels good to have all the EAs over the holiday but now that we are in January, we realize nothing can happen or should til we see all the financial offers on the table at once. I’m glad my son is not only looking at the programs and compatability but also the price tags…so I guess we wait…just like most people til end of April at the lastest!
Yes @ColdinMinny we have experienced the same situation. D applied to 9 schools, all but one an LAC. She had 4 acceptances by the end of November, including one from her very strong 2nd choice with a nice merit award. No further news from the others for the past 7 weeks, and any of the remaining decisions are at least a month to 10 weeks away. Not only has there not been news, there have been fliers and emails asking her to apply, even though her apps were submitted in October!
It’s a long time to wait.
I wonder if the LACs could manage yields better if they all went to rolling admissions and offered incentives for the early return of a deposit upon acceptance (assuming they could get merit awards out early, as well). They could do away with ED altogether. If a lot of deposits are coming in, then cut back on acceptances for that year; if not, then cast a wider net.
Although some students wait to the last minute to decide where to go, they might lose the incentive (say, a small tuition discount) in return for keeping their options open, but they still have that acceptance in the bag. Those students can wait until April 30 to decide. But students who know exactly where they want to go can commit early, and have the whole process over and done with.
