^^^^ THIS. Unless you are uber wealthy you need to have an idea what the school is going to cost.
D2 watched D1 struggle writing so many applications. When D2’s time came she applied EA to her realistic second choice school and was admitted. She then had only one more application to (successfully) write.
@thumper1
“ For example, if your kid likes crew, fine…but don’t force them to do an EC just for college application purposes.”
Lol YES!Crew is not for the faint of heart and certainly shouldn’t be used to pad for ECs.
I’d add you should also know your kid’s mindset. If they come from a working or middle class background how will they deal with a culture change of an elite university where many students come from wealth?
We had a serious discussion with our son and reality check about not comparing yourself to your wealthy peers. He’s got his head in a good place but it’s something to consider if your student isn’t grounded.
I’ve seen some of my daughter׳s friends pushed like crazy by their parents (this is different than pushing themselves) with the aim of getting into an “elite” school (made to take all honors/APs despite the hours of nightly homework that entails, pressured into ECs they didn’t want to do, grounded every time a grade fell below A, etc). Don’t sacrifice your child’s teen years for a goal you have for them.
How small many of the schools are. Caltech is only looking for about 235 freshman to enroll.
“Caltech is only looking for about 235 freshman to enroll.”
For unhooked kids (not a recruited athlete, no legacy/development, not URM), that’s not far off the numbers that colleges like Princeton and Harvard are looking for either. Yes, their total class size of incoming freshman is in the 1300 - 1700 range but a majority of those slots go to athletes, legacies/development and URM applicants, leaving an incredibly tiny number of openings for unhooked kids.
My son is a bit of a pessimist and when we did those calcs showing one of the top elites had something silly small like 200 openings for unhooked kids like him, he then went further with the calc and pointed out that the schools want a gender balance and since he’s one gender or the other, it’s really only half that number (100) of openings available to him…
- Run NPCs early junior year.
- If your kid’s stats are in the ballpark range for elite schools, then they can get a full or half ride at many great schools.
- Your kid will bounce back if/when they get rejected.
- If you want your kid to apply to an elite school more than they do, back off. So you didn’t back off and got in an argument? There’s always tomorrow morning to apologize and try to do better.
Two things:
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Don’t underestimate your child &
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Don’t underestimate experienced admissions officers at the most elite national universities.
Ok, but that also cuts out the other gender’s applicants as well, so unless the applicant rate is considerably different from 50:50, it evens out.
I agree @hebegebe , it was just funny how he observed the glass as half full…
Admission season was a stressful time for oldest son. We weren’t into the process long when I realized how stressful it was for him so instead of discussing admissions in depth with him (and adding to his stress), I started reading and posting here as an outlet. Better to have an outlet to discuss college admissions to my heart’s content without boring the rest of my family or causing the kid going through admissions at the time to have an aneurism.
Luckily my second son is pretty laid back and has a few more years before he’s ready to apply. I suspect if he were presented with the same calculation of his chances - 200 openings for unhooked kids - he’d break into a huge smile and declare “Awesome!!! So I have a chance!” Different kids.
At most of these schools, it’s also race as well, so it’s unhooked white males vs white males, unhooked Asian females vs. Asian females, but I’m not sure you want to bring that up in a panel.
Think about rankings of specific majors in addition to colleges. There are many non-top 20 universities with top-20 schools/majors out there. Broaden your horizons.
Good for an estimate…but run them again in Early September of your kid’s senior year in high school. These NPCs get updated annually…and YES financial aid awarding formulas and policies DO change.
Keep in mind that the early decision numbers aren’t anywhere near as good as you think. Yes, Rice may have accepted 370 or whatever, but of those, 180 are recruited athletes, 70 are Questbridge, and another 50 or so are legacy. The number of unhooked acceptances in the early round may not be substantially better than in the regular round.
@roycroftmom I agree with that. Sometimes I wonder if ED is even the way to go for an unhooked candidate. Some schools this year (Duke is the only one I know off the top of my head) had HUGE increases in ED candidates and I’m guessing they only take the unhooked cream of the crop since they know they will many more applicants in the RD round that will be just as good or better. With ED, you’re also setting your child up to find his favorite and I don’t care if they still do other apps in the meantime, that child is hoping for that ED school. That’s the whole point of choosing an ED. It’s supposed to be the student’s first choice.
Yes, but the ED acceptance rates are a pure bargain at some highly ranked LACs such as Williams College.
ED is also worthwhile for those whose first choice school is Northwestern University.
And it is helpful to remember that most colleges & universities love ED because it helps improve yield.
Additionally, it helps schools to build a well rounded class since after the ED round or rounds, the school knows what it needs & doesn’t need regarding class composition.
@Publisher ok. I agree with that. Certain schools LOVE ED like Northwestern. So much so that we were told our double legacy son would be admitted ED but flat out not RD because they expect legacies to use ED. (We have a friend on the board and he was just honest with us. S19 didn’t think it was a good match for him so no NU.)
One thing to look at as well is your high school’s history. It’s very telling for the colleges where kids apply the most. Naviance seems to be right on for the most popular schools.
Actually several schools expect legacies to apply ED or lose that admissions boost.
Williams College admitted about 35% of its ED applicants last year or the year before that.
I think there’s a difference between ED at the very top schools and those in the next tier down (which this thread includes, being top 30 rather than top 10). @homerdog , the comment about knowing there will be many good or better candidates in the RD round only mitigates against ED benefits if the school is pretty sure that those applicants would take an offer anyway. This is probably true of the tippy tops, but for say the bottom 10-15 in the top 30, those “cream of the RD crop” types would probably also be applying to the tippy-tops, and this next tier would be second choice for any offers … so for this tier of school, I think ED helps more.
I agree ED helps ( certainly more so than EA). But the differential admission rate presented is deceiving.