<p>I have been puzzled why Ms. Jones's daughter didn't apply early ANYWHERE. It's one thing to say that applying early isn't advantageous for admissions in the case of a particular college (although MIT may be the ONLY particular college of which that is so). It's another thing to say that applying early, say by "rolling admission" to some decent safety school, is a bad idea. I think applying early SOMEWHERE is an eminently good idea, and it appears that most of the daughter's classmates picked up that idea at high school. Certainly having an offer of admission in hand from some decent college is better than going through December with anxiety from not knowing how many RD applications will be enough to get in somewhere.</p>
<p>Token:</p>
<p>S1 did not apply EA. He did not feel ready, nor did he have a clear first choice (in fact, he agonized until April 30 after receiving multiple admissions). I think Ms. Jones' D sounds like my S1. S2, however, had a clear favorite, so it made sense for him to apply EA.</p>
<p>I agree with Marite.....there is a huge frenzy in certain communities to apply early SOME where. ED is only good if there is a clear first choice. EA makes sense but not every school has it. Rolling is cool too but not every school has it....my D's schools did not and she didn't add one just to have a school. She only applied where she wanted to apply. Ya know, my kids survived the wait. D1 knew her list was balanced. We KNEW she was going to college. She had two safeties and even if one fell through, we did not think both would. Actually, I'm not even counting that our state university offered her a free ride, though it was not originally on her list, nor did she want to go for some very good reason, though it is a fine school and in fact, more out of state kids attend than in state kids. I guess she knew she could go there but even if she did not, we would not have changed things. She had an EA school, Yale, was deferred. Even if she had gotten into Yale, she'd have applied to most schools on her list. She filed apps as she completed 'em and did not wait until Dec. 15 to do so. She purposely did not do ED anywhere as she was not prepared to do so. I'm glad, too, because she may not have ended up where she is now and she loves where she is now. My second child....most of her school's did not have ED but actually one of the few that did, was one of her first choices and she considered doing ED but then decided to fully explore the other schools and just see what happened. Turns out she ended up at one of her first choices, the one she had considered doing ED at but did RD only and came full circle but by that point, she KNEW she for sure wanted to go there. </p>
<p>The whole early thing is not a necessity. Sure it is nice to know soon (if you actually get IN) but ya know, many do the wait and it works out fine if their list of schools is appropriate. I don't find what Ms. Jones' D did as odd at all, but only odd in the context that those in her school community all seem to apply early but that is not true of EVERY senior. It is REAL BIG in the more competitive school communities and private schools. It is not huge in our HS. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I think that it's important to apply early somewhere, but if it's not a clear cut first choice, then ED should be avoided. Applying early has tons of advantages: save money on other apps/SAT request payments and all that if you get in, you can slack off in school once you get in early, you have something to fall back on if your regular apps don't come through, and it improves your chances of admission. I love the idea of rolling/EA</p>
<p>Maybe this point has been made before but it might not be surprising that Ms. Jones's daughter did not apply early. Did she need to? You don't think that the daughter of the Dean of Admissions of MIT might have a slight tip factor when applying to college?</p>
<p>Micromom makes a good point. S1 did not have hooks or tips, but we felt that, with the assistance of his GC, he had a good selection of schools and he was bound to get in at least one of them--as he did.</p>
<p>Well, yes, if the consideration is getting into some good college, and other factors are such that the applicant will get in for sure, then the applicant need only apply during the regular round to some subset of colleges along the lines of {good colleges where applicant has strong chance in RD round}. But what I found interesting in Ms. Jones's blog entry was that her daughter, who I presume can get into some worthy college that fits her interests, didn't gain the peace-of-mind advantage of applying early, when all the classmates in the daughter's high school got the message that they could relieve some stress by having news about applications in December rather than in March. It's still not DISadvantageous to apply early (other than applying
ED, which I never advise) if the applicant knows of some EA college that would be fitting. </p>
<p>By the way, I have no idea whether or not an application to, say, Caltech from the child of someone known to be an admission dean at a "peer" institution would be advantageous or not. And I wonder, supposing Ms. Jones's daughter applies to MIT, whether Ms. Jones still gets the final cut in ruling on that admissions case, or whether some assistant dean has to make the final cut to avoid a conflict of interest. I do appreciate Ms. Jones sharing in a public blog her two perspectives on college admission--parental and professional--this year.</p>
<p>Token:</p>
<p>I would assume that Ms. Jones would recuse herself. Colleges, by the way, are used to having to consider applications from children of faculty and staff. It's hard not to notice who their parents are.</p>
<p>Moot Mom writes: regarding the certificate of acceptance mailed by some schools
[quote]
I realize you were being sarcastic, but come on, nobody's going to post them on their freaking locker.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well ... at least at one elite boarding school the kids post the letters on their doors. Straight up for accepted, sideways for deferred, and upside down for rejected. Dunno about certificates ... guess we'll see about that after the Christmas holidays!</p>
<p>Marite is right....children of faculty and staff are hard not to notice. I just learned of someone here who just got into Harvard and the person's father is a chair of one of the schools at Harvard. It happens (everywhere).</p>
<p>Ms. Jones should be ashamed of herself. However, it is not clear how much damage that she did. </p>
<p>The MIT EA thread is really neat. The kids figured it out! With the inherent feeling for probabilities that one would expect of the MIT applicant pool, they were posting "DEFERRED - letter not received yet", or, "DEFERRED - in all liklihood" posts within about 36 hours of when the first acceptances were posted. Truly awesome.</p>
<p>beprepn</p>
<p>Beprepn, I don't think it was quite so easy for the MIT applicants. Some received the tube days after others did. Kids were trying to identify if others in their areas had received anything yet. Once they learned that the regular letters were sent late, then the quiet calm and resolution set in. I do agree that the posters all sound realistic and mature. I also hope that e-mail can be used in such cicumstances, as well as the coveted tubes and confetti.</p>
<p>beprepn, Ms. Jones has nothing to be ashamed of. She did no damage. Some anxious students did not learn their decision until a few days after they'd hoped to get it: that's quite unfortunate, but it's not very mature of them if they consider themselves permanently damaged as a result. Students who can't handle their decisions coming a day or two late, especially after learning the circumstances of the delay, may not have the sort of resiliency they'd need to survive at MIT.</p>
<p>bookworm, be glad you haven't spent any time reading the comments on the MIT Admissions blogs. There is a fairly even split there between "realistic and mature" and "vitriolic and hateful".</p>
<p>"Moot Mom writes: regarding the certificate of acceptance mailed by some schools</p>
<p>Quote:
I realize you were being sarcastic, but come on, nobody's going to post them on their freaking locker.</p>
<p>Well ... at least at one elite boarding school the kids post the letters on their doors. Straight up for accepted, sideways for deferred, and upside down for rejected. Dunno about certificates ... guess we'll see about that after the Christmas holidays!"</p>
<p>This is a little different league and situation, but in business school, we had rejection letter parties, where the price of "admission" was to bring a reject letter from companies you had interviewed with or applied to. They were posted and prizes were given for different categories: funniest, most obsequious, short but sweet, worst grammar, etc. (They were called "bullets" - everyone asked, "did your mailbox get riddled with bullets yet?" - this of course was before the internet and email).</p>
<p>avwh, some for me in Law School -- The most creative rejection letters were posted on the "Tube Board". It was amazing how many lawyers couldn't write a simple "thanks but no thanks" letter.</p>
<p>regarding early action - even if you don't have a clear first choice, there's a certain strategic element to most EA programs. closing our eyes and wishing really hard that it'd go away doesn't really help. so given that, it's generally a good idea to apply early (assuming that you don't need a boost from first semester grades or whatever)</p>
<p>regarding APs/etc - there are two main models of education in economics, the human capital model and the signaling model. essentially, what's applicable is that for the people that the colleges are targeting, taking lots of APs is not a problem, since they enjoy it/ find it challenging. if it's an agonizing experience, then it doesn't really make sense to do it. and if taking challenging classes is an agonizing experience, then MIT/Harvard/Caltech/wherever is going to be an agonizing experience too and so the student is probably better off. it's probably not worth it for a good but marginal student to go to one of these places and hate it. :-)</p>
<p>
[quote]
By the way, I have no idea whether or not an application to, say, Caltech from the child of someone known to be an admission dean at a "peer" institution would be advantageous or not.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Honestly, it would not matter to us in the least for purposes of the decision, though I think that would have been obvious. : )</p>
<p>When Harold Shapiro was the president of Princeton University, his daughter was REJECTED by Princeton. She ended up at Michigan and, as reported by her father, had a wonderful education.</p>
<p>The people of Taiwan used to brag up how incorruptible their national college entrance examinations are, pointing out that the President's son didn't even test into any college.</p>
<p>Is he the person after which Michigan named the UGLI (pronounced "ugly" by most of us students - a.k.a. the Shapiro Undergraduate Library though)? I'm sorry. I was not raised on Michigan ideals even though I go here now so no, I do not know my university's history. :) </p>
<p>By the way, I spent WAY too much time in there this weekend.</p>