<p>Hi everyone! So my parents want me to apply ED to somewhere because they think it's a really good idea because everything is about chances to them. I, however, can't make up my mind about it... I just don't feel like committing to one school. I mean, I'm only applying to 3 or 4 schools, mind you, so it just doesn't seem worth it to me to apply to one of them ED. I'm applying to Reed, Bryn Mawr, Rutgers, and maybe Brown or College of the Atlantic, but I just don't know which one I like the best, so I don't really think it's a good idea. What do you think?</p>
<p>Since you are asking the question, do not apply ED.</p>
<p>ED is only appropriate if you have a clear first choice, and you can make a matriculation decision without needing to compare the financial aid offer with that from other schools. Your post indicates that you do not have a clear first choice.</p>
<p>You can do as many EA as you want, but it seems you are not ready for ED.</p>
<p>You wrote, “I just don’t feel like committing to one school”. That statement means that you absolutely should not apply ED.</p>
<p>Show your parents the Common App ED statement that you would sign that obligates you to attend if accepted.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, your feeling about a clear-cut first choice school and commitment change between now and November 1, by all you can reassess.</p>
<p>With such a short list of colleges you may want to reconsider ED or not. For the more selective colleges on your short list, and especially the small LACs, applying ED gives you a significant advantage over RD. I realize that on this forum my statement regarding the advantages of applying ED is debated intensely. In practice, at least for students in several academic (and private) high schools with which I’m familiar college counselors recommend that students apply ED and in practice a significant number of students do so. My sense is that some of these ED applicants are in the same situation as you are this early in the application process.</p>
<p>So my recommendation is that you first ignore your safety colleges and concentrate on your reach colleges. Visit them if you haven’t done so already. Seek out alumni from your high school who attend these schools. In other words, research these colleges deeply. If at the end of that process you still can pick a favorite then you can’t apply ED. But it wouldn’t surprise me that you will be able to identify one college on your short list that stands out.</p>
<p>In general, people have told me ‘If you’d be okay going to that school, if accepted, and would have no reservations about not being able to apply to other schools, apply ED’.</p>
<p>I think the ‘apply ED’ only if it’s your 100% first choice is an ideal, just as ‘everyone should have a safety they like’. </p>
<p>However, it seems like you wouldn’t be okay with that so yeah, just apply EA some places.</p>
<p>okay thanks everyone! I’ll probably apply RD everywhere, and my parents seem to be ok with it (at least for now :o)</p>
<p>D2 discovered her top choice during April break junior year. She knew that applying ED gave her a huge advantage in admissions. </p>
<p>What we did was to make sure that she visited and carefully considered her next few choices, and then had her do a Fall overnight at her first choice. At that point, she was sure, and we were sure that she was sure. </p>
<p>ED is a significant advantage if you’re willing to do the legwork, but if you aren’t it can be counter productive.</p>
<p>^^^ This is what my S is doing, too. Fall overnight, and if he has any doubts after the visit he will not apply ED. But if you aren’t sure, by all means do NOT apply ED.</p>
<p>i wouldnt apply ed, but if you can find a school with early action that you like, its great to know you got in sonewhere. you also may want to consider adding another safety school</p>
<p>Just a quick FYI. The admissions “advantage” from applying ED which looks substantial is often not as large as the stats make it look. Some schools, like the Ivies, leverage the ED round for subsets of the applicant pool such as recruited athletes, legacy admits, development admits, etc. These groups have much higher admit rates than the general admissions pool and substantial raise the overall ED admission rate. So while applying ED looks like a huge advantage from the raw stats this can be far from the case for a regular applicant. That said there are schools, for example Penn, which give a big advantage to ED applicants.</p>