Educating Your Rising Seniors

At this point in the year, many rising seniors may begin thinking about application strategies; specifically, whether to apply early or not.

When should a counselor encourage a student to apply early? First, the applicant must have a solid, if not outstanding, academic record at the end of the junior year. A great set of grades senior year will not impact the numeric profile of the student. Moreover, the student’s standardized testing profile should be complete by early fall of the senior year.

Finally, the student must be incredibly organized and committed to completing the college application before the November 1st deadline. This can be a serious challenge, particularly if you are working with a student who is participating in a fall sport, working, or preparing research for the Intel Competition.

If a student is interested in applying early to college, and if she or he expresses an interest in applying early, then possible strategies must be thoroughly explored with the applicant. The first option involves the student applying early to a school that represents a “likely” admission offer. In this instance the student’s numeric profile is well above the profile of a student normally admitted to the university.

This is a great option for students looking to go into Christmas break with an admission offer (or two) in their pocket. More importantly, the student is going to use his or her regular decision application to apply to more competitive, highly selective colleges.

The second option involves a student applying to a binding early decision program. By pursuing this course of action the student is, more likely than not, increasing his or her odds of admission dramatically.

Briefly, early decision is an admission option offered by a small number of colleges in which high school seniors apply to one (and only one) early decision school by early November. In return, the college gives the applicant a decision by mid-December.

The catch is that if a student is admitted, he or she must attend—the senior in question must withdraw all applications to other colleges. It is like an arranged marriage, college admissions style! Nevertheless, research shows that the admissions rates for early decision applicants are often significantly higher than those for students in the regular pool.

The University of Pennsylvania for example admits more than 30 percent of its early decision applicants, but about 10 percent of its regular applicants. Duke, Emory, Rice, and Northwestern have also been shown to have significantly higher admission rates for early applicants. This is some compelling data!

However the data will not help if the applicant does not have the numbers, nor will it help if he or she is just not interested in applying to one of those early decision institutions.

Overall, a student who is a great match for an early decision institution, who would be competitive even in the regular pool, and (most importantly) who is absolutely certain that she or he has found a “collegiate soul mate,” might enjoy an admissions advantage when applying early decision.

But students should never apply to an early decision school because they think it might represent a back door entry into a highly selective college. Attempts to game the system almost always backfire in college admissions.

Finally, a third “early” option that students could consider is one I call the “home-run” option. Students in this category play their “early card” to apply to one of the restrictive early action programs, meaning they are sending off applications to Princeton, Stanford, Yale, or Harvard.

Based upon my personal research, there is no particular statistical advantage to applying early to one of these highly selective and prestigious institutions. But there can be a cost attached to employing this option: the opportunity cost attached to applying to Harvard or Stanford may be that the student loses out on an early admission offer from one of the prestigious early decision schools.

Last year, for example, I worked with an extremely talented and dedicated student who opted to apply early to Stanford. I did not protest his decision because, well, I thought he just might get that elusive admission offer.

Sadly, his application was denied. Then, to everyone’s shock, Emory, Brown, Rice, and Northwestern also denied the student in the regular pool. One admissions officer, in a moment of honesty, simply stated, “We would have admitted him if he had applied early.”

The point I am trying to illustrate here is this: the opportunity cost of applying early to Stanford turned out to be an admission offer at a highly selective and prestigious early decision institution. I think it is fair to say that I learned my lesson last year, and I really stress to my students that there are often very real and steep costs associated with using the early admission card with a highly selective, prestigious, and restrictive early action program.

Allow me to conclude by presenting fellow counselors with a “nightmare scenario.”

Specifically, suppose all of your ‘academic stars’ decide to apply to the same university. Clearly this could be a problem that impacts results. While admissions offices never attach quotas to a particular secondary school, there is no doubt that applicants are read and evaluated in the context of their peers in the pool.

Therefore, it can take as little as one or two “stars” to severely weaken the chances of other, slightly weaker, students from your school. While I do not place limits on the number of students applying to an early program, I do try to let students in my community know if a particular early option is looking rather “deep and crowded.”

If the student still decides to apply, then I feel they are entering the pool aware that it might be infested with more than one shark!

What is the bottom line? Juniors returning from their spring college visits and preparing to break for the summer need help understanding the early options available—and the potential costs attached to each decision.

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COLLEGE COUNSELING WITH MARTIN WALSH