Applying Early Decision

Holden100

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DS has completed applications with both USNA and USMA. He is also complete with both AROTC and NROTC. He's been focused primarily on USNA and USMA, but, for a variety of reasons, is now beginning to feel his best chance of becoming an officer is going ROTC. His top civilian school pick is very competitive, but he's been told by the CO's in both ROTC units he has a good chance of being admitted if he applies ED. If he decides to apply ED should he let his BGO and FFR reps know - what is proper protocol for that? Would they want to know? They've both been super helpful throughout the SA application process, and he definitely doesn't want to offend them since so much work went into both those applications. Should he let them know now or wait to see if he's actually admitted?
 
DS has completed applications with both USNA and USMA. He is also complete with both AROTC and NROTC. He's been focused primarily on USNA and USMA, but, for a variety of reasons, is now beginning to feel his best chance of becoming an officer is going ROTC. His top civilian school pick is very competitive, but he's been told by the CO's in both ROTC units he has a good chance of being admitted if he applies ED. If he decides to apply ED should he let his BGO and FFR reps know - what is proper protocol for that? Would they want to know? They've both been super helpful throughout the SA application process, and he definitely doesn't want to offend them since so much work went into both those applications. Should he let them know now or wait to see if he's actually admitted?

Please proceed with caution with regard to Early Decision, and read every bit of the fine print with a highlighter in hand. Yes, it may increase admission chances, but may force withdrawal of all other college applications, including USNA and USMA, if acceptance is gained to the civilian school. If your DS is willing to bail out of the SA process and let those dreams go this year, that may signify he has learned something about himself through this process, and may now think ROTC is a better fit.

Early Action may offer more flexibility than Early Decision.

There have been several interesting threads on ED, especially last year. Use the Search function to find them.

I realize this option seems temptingly close to hand, compared to the seemingly endless steeplechase littered with obstacles that is the path to an offer of SA appointment anytime between now and April-May. If your DS really wants USNA/USMA, he should stay the course, and have a good selection of reach and safety schools selected. Taking the long view, if he is not offered an SA appointment, he will be happily set with ROTC, with an opportunity to gain an additional nom source if he decides to re-apply. He will have left it all on the court and will know he gave it his best shot.

Ultimately, it is your son’s call. If he is ready to let go of the SA path this year if accepted ED to the civilian school, and he is confident of his ROTC scholarship situation and college funds for that path, then he executes accordingly. I would definitely wait to hear if accepted, then I would assume there is some kind of “all stop” button on his application portal. Courtesy calls to his SA Contacts would be appropriate.

The key thing here is he absolutely does not think there is any chance of him slapping his forehead and saying “What have I done?”
 
for a variety of reasons, is now beginning to feel his best chance of becoming an officer is going ROTC

If DS is in the running for the service academies and also a "very competitive" civilian school, your DS would appear to have an excellent chance of becoming an officer, either via Service Academy or by ROTC scholarship or by "walk-on" to college ROTC. So, I would say he shouldn't worry about his chances of becoming an officer. The decision is: What school does he really want to attend. Service academies are not for everyone.

As far as ED, once a school accepts your DS ED, he becomes both legally and morally bound to attend that school and must then withdraw all other pending applications. (Based on old threads, most of the time the schools won't sue you for withdrawing an early decision, but they could, and some have, and I personally believe it is unethical to withdraw.)

I don't think you have any obligation to advise the BGO's or anyone else that your DS is applying for ED, only when and if he accepts an ED offer. Then, you have to immediately "pull the plug" on all pending applications.
 
Good advice above. I would only add one more question, can you afford the ED school without the scholarship? The ED path could put your DS in that situation. He will almost certainly hear from the school prior to hearing about a scholarship.
 
Your DS is in a similar situation as mine was last year. Your chances of being accepted at a top tier school go up dramatically if you go ED - in many cases, if you don’t go ED your chances are near zero.

IMHO if it’s a service academy that’s easily the top choice you should not apply ED (EA-definitely). If you accept an ED offer you have to withdraw your SA apps. It suck - I know. My DS was rejected by schools during RD that I’m quite sure he would have been accepted during ED.
 
My DS's first civilian choice was a school that offered ED and he had a good chance to get into it via ED IMO. He decided to go all-in on USMA and forego that #1 choice until regular decision, and apply to his second choice civilian school EA. He's applying AROTC to both of those and a few more.
 
Advantages of Early Action are that it is non-binding, you find out the decision sooner than the pool of regular decision applicants, and in some cases like for Purdue University, you are included for consideration for a pool of merit-based scholarships that regular decision applicants are not.

The difficulty of Early Decision is that you're asked to commit prior to knowing what if any scholarship support will be offered. Not an issue if you're a Rockefeller, but for the rest of us - a little daunting. Whenever I think of the binding nature of Early Decision and the regrets it can bring, the bassline and lyrics "The Devil went down to Georgia" start thumping in my imaginative mind.
:band:

Caveat Emptor - buyer beware that with E.D. generally you are committing without knowing all facts in that agreement.

The only circumstance I would recommend E.D. would be if you both decide you would prefer ROTC over going to West Point or other SA, and through the early boards you receive a ROTC scholarship prior to the Early Decision application deadline - those deadlines vary but for many schools for EA and ED it is 11/1. If you have a scholarship in hand say from Army's first board, to that school, then E.D. would be the advantage of committing for admission advantage without the disadvantage of the unknown for scholarships. *Don't forget to confirm which schools offer room and board too and how many - some schools also offer this, some limited, some partial or allow merit scholarships to be used for that, etc. No room and board charges for a service academy of course. If he really wants the SA then I would discourage E.D.

Good luck!
 
Following up on my own post, does anyone know if the board results for any of the branches come out prior to November 1st? could be helpful for those weighing options early decision to know this. My worry is that Army could be just days later once the processing at Cadet Command is completed. Not sure.
"The only circumstance I would recommend E.D. would be if you both decide you would prefer ROTC over going to West Point or other SA, and through the early boards you receive a ROTC scholarship prior to the Early Decision application deadline"
 
Thanks everyone for the replies; much appreciated! This school was his first choice until NASS and then putting all that work into his SA apps. He’s planning to spend s day with the Army ROTC unit next week. Lots of recruited athletes to the SA’s in our area (and at his own school) and he isn’t one, so...he’s rethinking. He is VERY concerned that he won’t have the scholarship prior to Nov. 1, and definitely so are we. This school is only ED, no EA and is binding. They do offer aid for room & board if on ROTC scholarship. Appreciate the input on letting his BGO and FFR officers know. Thanks, y’all!
 
Following up on my own post, does anyone know if the board results for any of the branches come out prior to November 1st? could be helpful for those weighing options early decision to know this. My worry is that Army could be just days later once the processing at Cadet Command is completed. Not sure.
"The only circumstance I would recommend E.D. would be if you both decide you would prefer ROTC over going to West Point or other SA, and through the early boards you receive a ROTC scholarship prior to the Early Decision application deadline"
Based on past years, there should be 1 or 2 NROTC board results by Nov 1. While the Navy doesn't release board dates, they generally start mid September and meet about once a month until March, then starting meeting more frequently. Notifications come out a couple weeks after the board meets.
 
Your DS is in a similar situation as mine was last year. Your chances of being accepted at a top tier school go up dramatically if you go ED - in many cases, if you don’t go ED your chances are near zero.

Careful with the assumption of chances going up "dramatically." For a handful of prestigious schools, yes; for many, including the most prestigious, not much at all. Sure, the ED admit rate for many Ivies and Ivy+ schools is 2-3x the regular decision rate, but all that means is that the ED rate is now 16-20% instead of 5-7%. And that increase may well be illusory, because many of those early admits are "hooked": recruited athletes and legacy admits.

The athletes in particular distort the true picture because anyone with a "likely letter" is already all but guaranteed admission.

To see the real impact of ED on your chances, you'd have to scrub the recruited athletes from the ED pool. This will result in a significantly lower ED admit rate for the unhooked ED applicants - which will put you back in the <10% range, same as if you applied regular decision.

Where ED admission rate may make a meaningful difference to your son's chances is with 1) highly selective liberal arts colleges like Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Middlebury, Carleton etc and 2) the second tier of top private universities such as Washington U. in St. Louis, Tufts, U. Rochester, NYU, Boston U. etc.

For these super-expensive (except perhaps for Boston U.) schools that do not typically have 100's of recruited athletes receiving likely letters, the ED admit rate is in the 30%-40% range.

Good luck - and do your research.
 
...add Northwestern to that list. They "brag" about the fact that more than 40% of their admits are ED. This is the category of school I was referring to.
 
Duke comes out and says there is an advantage when applying ED. They also say on the website “There are students for whom applying ED can make all the difference.”
 
Applying ED and EA can help a lot (though not to the extreme some of us might think of, here's a link with the ED and EA rates for some selective schools https://www.toptieradmissions.com/r...y-league-early-admission-stats-class-of-2023/). For instance, MIT's acceptance rate was pretty much the same for EA and regular decision.
As respects having to withdraw the apps to SAs, you need to either check the ED college's website or call them. Some allow for apps to SAs, some even allow for apps to state colleges. Think about it though, would a school raise issues if their ED was declined due to a choice of military service?
 
I think, with respect to the context of my original post, is that applying ED definitely doesn't hurt your chances getting into that school, unless, I suppose, you threw together an app at the last minute to meet the early deadline. The dilemma is that, if accepted, you have to withdraw your apps at the SA's (at least that is the case at the school my DS is considering applying ED). He's been told, by both contacts at the ROTC units at that school that he has a VERY good chance of being admitted ED, but not so much RD. So, it isn't really a question for my DS as to "how much more of an increased chance do I have getting admitted ED." It's an increased chance, period, for whatever reason. If he isn't admitted ED he can push forward with the other apps already done and submitted, nothing lost at that point, except an early rejection to an amazing school. Again, the issue is if he's admitted, is he okay with that if he were to be offered an appointment to an SA - something he may never know. (And, can he/we afford the school - applying financially blind to ED schools is really scary, imo.). And, finally, should he let his BGO and FFR officers know he will most likely be applying ED somewhere?
 
Applying ED and EA can help a lot (though not to the extreme some of us might think of, here's a link with the ED and EA rates for some selective schools https://www.toptieradmissions.com/r...y-league-early-admission-stats-class-of-2023/). For instance, MIT's acceptance rate was pretty much the same for EA and regular decision.
As respects having to withdraw the apps to SAs, you need to either check the ED college's website or call them. Some allow for apps to SAs, some even allow for apps to state colleges. Think about it though, would a school raise issues if their ED was declined due to a choice of military service?

I would raise issues if I were a school. The primary intent of ED is to attend the school if selected NOT to increase your chances to attend it as a back-up in case you don’t get accepted to the school you really want to attend - service academy or not.

It’s using the system selfishly IMHO. Ok. I get people will say well ED is being selfishly used by the school. It is purely for the school’s benefit. Yada yada. But does that mean WE have to use it in that manner too???

There are plenty of kids who would LOVE to attend (name of elite school where ED offers an advantage) but can’t because someone who did get accepted used the ED solely to increase the chance of acceptance but really intends to go an SA - and then pulls out the “I want to serve, let me out of my ED commitment to go to an SA” card.

My oldest got into her dream school via ED, so I know the value of it. My younger daughter, now a plebe at West Point, absolutely had the stats to apply to Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins, Vanderbilt, etc... via ED but didn’t because she wanted to go to a SA.

It’s just wrong to use ED and assume it’s morally ok to back out of it because you want to attend an SA. To me, that’s the same person who eats at a restaurant in uniform hoping someone will pick up the tab. It’s using the I want to serve, patriotic motivation, etc ...inappropriately.

As officers, especially when we assume leadership positions, we have to assume risk when appropriate. We do what we can to mitigate risk and then decide if we still want to assume the residual risk.

It’s good kids start that thought process when it involves something that isn’t life or death like, you know, getting into a particular school. Not the end of the world if you have to attend plan D, E, and F.

You assume risk when you apply to an SA. You mitigate the risk by getting high ACT/SAT scores, GPA, etc... Now that you’ve done all that, are you still willing to assume the risk of applying to an SA and NOT apply ED to Vanderbilt, for example? Do you go with the 23% ED acceptance rate to Duke or the 9-10% acceptance rate to West Point? Can’t have your cake an eat it too.
 
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