For the high school Class of ’26, the first college admissions milestone is at hand as early decisions—some binding, some not—land. In AB's season finale, a trio of deans and a college counselor unpack those decisions, offering guidance on the etiquette of an early acceptance as well as reassurance for those with an early outcome that extends a search into regular decision.
For the high school Class of ’26, the first college admissions milestone is at hand as early decisions—some binding, some not—land. In AB's season finale, a trio of deans and a college counselor unpack those decisions, offering guidance on the etiquette of an early acceptance as well as reassurance for those with an early outcome that extends a search into regular decision.
Lee Coffin:
From Hanover, New Hampshire, I'm Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid. And this is the season finale of Admissions Beat.
Seniors, we have brought you from discovery to the very brink of the application deadline in January. And for so many of you, you could not stop yourself from applying somewhere early. So we wanted to have a conversation about “early” and “after early.” So for some, the news that lands in the next few days ends your college search. You applied somewhere, you got in, it was your first choice. Put a big bow on it. And college admissions, as you know, is in your history book.
For some of you, the news that comes in the next few days extends your search into regular decision. And we want to offer some thoughts on what that means.
And for a lot of you, you can apply anywhere. And regular decision is your moment. And so as you come to those deadlines in that round, we want to have some advice for how to finalize your list and move into the winter with some intentional confidence. So when we come back, three friends of the pod will join us in After Early as we put a big bow on season eight of Admission Beat. We'll be right back.
(music)
I'm really excited to welcome three returning podders to Admission Beat. Matt Hyde makes his second visit for season eight. Hi, Matt.
Matt Hyde:
Hello, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
Matt is the dean of admission and financial aid at Trinity College. Go Trinity. My alma mater. Elena Hicks is assistant vice provost and dean of admission at Southern Methodist University. Hi, Elena.
Elena Hicks:
Hi, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
And Kate Boyle Ramsdell is the director of college counseling at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, Massachusetts. Kate, welcome back to Admissions Beat.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Thanks, Lee. It's so good to be here again.
Lee Coffin:
What percentage of your seniors applied somewhere early, either early action, non-binding, or early decision? Is it a majority?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
It's the vast majority. I mean, we-
Lee Coffin:
Vast majority.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
We bump up against 95% to 98% now.
Lee Coffin:
Wow.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Every year or at least the last decade.
Lee Coffin:
Matt, your mouth just fell open. Why?
Matt Hyde:
Well, because the enrollment manager in me, Lee, loves early decision. The human in me is not a big fan. I feel we're pushing students way too early to make some choices in that binding space. In early action, I think it's a great idea but again, as an enrollment manager, that would be my worst nightmare to manage.
Lee Coffin:
And Elena, as you hear this, what's your thought as we start on the evolving nature of early action, early decision? The schools like Kate's have almost the whole class applying somewhere. That wasn't true 10, 20 years ago.
Elena Hicks:
In the last several years, the early rounds have gained extra traction. I've been in admissions for, I'm not going to say how many years, but for a very long time. And early action was always strong, but it's an option. I feel sometimes students feel like going early action, and in particular early decision these days, is the best way to get into a school or to have more success in getting into their dream school, by going the early decision, which is, as I agree with Matt, a little bit more pressure on the student in that regard, which is unfortunate.
Matt Hyde:
In my mind, the decision to apply early in a binding way should be a visceral reaction you have to a campus and a community. You can't manufacture that and you can't roll into this college being like, "I'm going to find that." You might not, and that's okay. And I'm thinking about my son, honestly, Lee. He didn't apply early anywhere. And as a father, so proud. As an enrollment manager, I'm like, "Oof. We could be more strategic here, Sam." But I took my own medicine and I zipped it.
Lee Coffin:
And it worked out really well for him.
Matt Hyde:
Worked out beautifully. It worked out beautifully.
Lee Coffin:
Yes. Yeah.
Matt Hyde:
He couldn't be happier where he is. It's awesome.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. All right. Well, as we start, let's just go through the different options. As we're talking about early, I'm intentionally not using the acronyms EA and ED. I cast this episode on purpose because the three of us who are deans all have a slightly different version of this early phenomenon. I work at a place that offers early decision, and that's it. We have a November 1st deadline. We release decisions mid-December, and that's it. My advice to students is, if this is your first choice and you're ready to say, "I will enroll if admitted," we welcome that application, but that's it. We have nothing beyond that. Matt, you work for an institution with two rounds, so talk about that.
Matt Hyde:
We know that we can surface as a top choice. And I'm hoping that when students are going about their college search, they have many top choices. ED1 is the best expression of, “Trinity is my very first choice.” Period, hard stop. I want to be there. And we're compelled by that. That's cluing us in that this is someone who's got great energy for what we have to offer. Let's maximize our opportunity to enroll students here. ED2, oftentimes you have a senior who has the interest and the desire but wants to show a whole semester's worth of work before applying early decision, and putting a better foot forward.
If they've been on that upswing through high school and they want to put a exclamation point, let's see that fall transcript. And we're happy to field an ED2 applicant for that reason. But I also am well aware that we might be a strong second choice for someone who swung and missed ED1 elsewhere, and here we are with ED2. And we're happy to get those applicants into our space.
Lee Coffin:
So for seniors who are saying, "ED2. I hadn't heard of that,” let's explain it a little bit more. Kate, jump in here. Comment on what Matt has said about early decision round two and how you might counsel someone to be thinking about that, or not.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
If I can, I just want to back up a tiny bit and just say, when you start your process, I don't think the first set of things you should be thinking about is, where should I apply early?
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think, as you start your process, you're creating a funnel towards that conversation, which is probably best had at the end of the summer and very early in your senior fall. So you've done all your research, you've done lots of reflection, and you've identified the schools that you think are the best fit and at the top of your list. And then I think you can start to really lean into this notion of, is there a place among those schools that I love and represents a good fit?
And I'll add to that, where early is actually a lever that will help me get in. So I think overshooting an early we'll probably talk about later, but that's not a great idea. That's not a good use of your early. But when we talk about ED2, we think about it as a layer of a student's process where they may have a school that they're really aspiring to shoot for, and we talk about all of those things and ED1 seems like the right stop.
And the reality is most kids don't have just one top choice. They might have a couple. And if one of those other schools in that group happens to have an ED2 round, what we'll say to them is, "Let's consider ED2 in the context of the rest of your list." If you're like Matt and you have a son who is really pleased with the broad range of schools on his list and happy to land at almost any of them, I think the regular decision process can be really rewarding.
But if you're somebody who's thinking about a smaller group of schools, and those schools maybe financially or for other reasons being the right fit for you, ED2 is really powerful. It's a great lever. You might say, "I missed my ED1 choice," or, "I wasn't ready to commit to ED1 and so I'm going to file my regular decision apps in January and, alongside that, I'm going to file this early decision two application, get a decision in mid-February, and know then, if I get in, that my process is done. And I think, for a lot of kids, there's also something really healthy psychologically about not spending their entire senior year in the college process. And so sometimes I think about that, too, that it's easy. It's a nice sort of pressure release valve. They have almost their whole second semester to just be a senior.
Lee Coffin:
So early one and two. And then the third scenario is the one Elena leads, which is, you have both early decision and early action. So that's interesting, that you give students both a binding and a non-binding option. So talk about that at SMU and at places like SMU.
Elena Hicks:
We're not one of those schools that brings in half of our class through early decision one and early decision two. Each year here it would probably be, enrollment-wise, probably about 350 to 400 students that will come in through our early decision rounds. So for us, we call it icing on the cake. And you all explained it beautifully. For those students who know for sure they want to be here, our largest round is early action. For both rounds, students apply by November 1st. When it comes to early decision one, students will know by mid-November or so. But for early action, our students will be notified by mid-December.
And this is what I love about early action, is that it's non-binding. We are only looking at, at this point, your freshman year, sophomore year, and junior year of curriculum and activities and things that you've done that should feel solid for you, like my first three years of high school, representative of who I am and how I want to portray myself to an admission committee. But then students do not need to commit to us until May 1 if SMU is their choice. And I think that's great, that a student knows that they're admitted and that they have some time to do some thinking before needing to make a decision.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. So we have lots of different options. Kate, as you counsel families through this, binding, non-binding, ED, ED2, a couple of places have ED3 which is a little later. How confusing is that?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think when people have the opportunity to listen to something like this or talk with a counselor, or they go to a presentation where somebody lays it out as beautifully as Elena just did, I think it becomes much easier to understand. I want to give kudos to SMU for just a second. I think an EA decision before late December is the dream because it allows a family and a kid very legitimately to think about putting a pin in the process and saying, "If I'm going to apply to more schools, they will only be schools that I would compare to this current offer of admission."
Lee Coffin:
So Kate, some early action places are releasing decisions later than December, is what you're saying?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I would say, at this stage in the landscape, most. It is rarer for schools to be releasing in mid-December. I'm sure some rolling schools are obviously rolling decisions out through the fall, but more and more colleges are notifying kids in mid to late January.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. That's helpful. Let's talk about regular just for a second. So that sits there as the traditional round. For parents who are remembering college admission 25-plus years ago, early was a part of the process. I don't think it was anywhere near the level of volume it is today. If you're an older parent and you go back to the prehistoric era where I was in high school, early wasn't really a thing for most of us. It was regular. And so regular is you apply to a set of schools sometime in January or maybe early February. You get decisions in late winter, early spring. Usually by April 1st. And you have until May to make an enrollment decision. But that open-ended part of college admission, I think, makes people nervous. In the early rounds you've made a commitment, you've expressed a preference. That's not true in regular decisions. Let's talk about that, the open market, if you will, of regular.
Matt Hyde:
I think the responsible play here for families is you apply regular decision and see what's out there. Don't force the early. All that stated, I love early decision as an enrollment manager because it's predictable.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
But Matt, I love it for the same reason on my side. It is, to a certain extent, much more predictable. If a family knows that a college, maybe not one of yours, but is admitting 60% to 80% of their kids through early decision and/or early decision two, it's very hard not to think about that. I would say there's a lot of healthiness in the growth that happens in senior year. And sometimes kids come to a different decision in May than they might have in September, October. That's true. But sometimes that's just a little bit of a harder equation to balance.
Elena Hicks:
Yeah. I totally agree, Kate. And what I wanted to throw in about regular decision is that historically here, I mentioned that early action was our largest round. Sometimes, well, many of times we would see a stronger academic pull in early action. And I have to say, the last two years in particular, we have been extremely happy with our regular decision round. And you can wait to do that. You don't have to feel the pressure of any early action or early decision round.
Lee Coffin:
I want to just add that if you were to take the number of acceptances we made at Dartmouth last year, the majority were a regular decision. By sheer numbers, we took more people than early. I come back to, for the people who are in the early rounds right now, you've made a decision, one that was binding, to say, "This is where I see myself." And when it's early action you're saying, "I like this place and would love to be admitted, and I'm going to consider it." So let's split that in two ways. So you're in the binding pool. You've applied somewhere, you've signed the early decision agreement and said, "If admitted, I will enroll." You've made an honor code commitment to the college. Is that signed in indelible ink? Or are there ways a student can get to the end of a binding round and say to the college, "This was my intent but this won't work and I can't honor it?'
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I believe that if you sign the pledge, that's where you're going. And we work hard to get our kids to withdraw all of their other applications once they've been admitted and, if they've applied for financial aid, once they have their financial aid package in hand. The harder handful have been kids where, for whatever reason, even with a net price calculator homework before they apply, the financial aid package came in much differently from what was anticipated. And I can only think of one or two instances in the last five years where that was the case. But we worked with the colleges to release the student from a binding ED because it just wasn't going to be tenable.
Lee Coffin:
Right. Elena, walk a family through that unhappy moment where you realize this first choice doesn't sync up with affordability.
Elena Hicks:
Right. One of the first things I always say to a family is, if you're working with a university that assigns, and most of us do, assign an admission officer to your school, then to reach out to that person as soon as possible about what's going on. There was a time in college admission, many years ago, where the binding was stronger. That there were some punitive actions if a student did not take the early decision offer in different ways.
And that's not the case anymore. We want students to be very deliberate when they decide, and intentional, decide to apply early decision. But if by chance that scholarship or financial aid package comes back and it simply does not work and it's going to put a family in a bind, then we are more than happy to say, "Mutually, this is not working." And we allow students to move on if they'd like to.
The other thing that comes into play sometimes are just things that happen in students' lives that are pretty large and pretty impactful, that they thought they were ready. Maybe they're from New York, coming to Texas. They thought they were ready to head to that early decision school that was so far away, but family circumstances are different, beyond financial that makes it not a good fit. At the end of the day we want students to be happy, and we want them to be retained at our university.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And Elena, as you're saying that I'm remembering those poignant conversations where a family pops up and says, to your point, "We have an illness in the family. A divorce. There's something going on that's really personal and making us revisit the commitment we made." And listeners, we are people. We have rules. You sign agreements. But we're not immune to a family dynamic. And when that family dynamic moves in the unexpected way, we work with you. And we'll say, "We're going to release you from this decision." So just know that, that despite all the headlines you might read about how impossible it is to "get out," you're not in prison.
You can have a conversation with a campus and say, "My circumstance changed," and bring your college counselor, your guidance counselor into it. And we are reasonable people. Last year, I remember when the LA wildfire was happening. We had a couple of families pop up and say, "Ooh." And it's like, "Yes, of course. That was an act of God. You had a very significant change in your circumstances." I think the message here for seniors who have signed a binding agreement: you should own that. You put your signature on a document and, while not legally binding, it is morally binding.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I agree. And I also think that there are potentially broader ramifications, particularly if you are going to become a high school that becomes known as a place where kids routinely break early decision agreements. But an early decision is a binding decision. And it doesn't mean you need to be at that institution for four years but it does mean that you need to show up for your first year.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So let's go through the possible decisions. So early action, early decision, there's still three answers you get back. The goal is a decision that says, "Dear Kate. Congratulations!" And the confetti flies when you open the link, and you've been offered admissions. So Matt, the binding round has an admit. And how much time does a student have between opening that and enrolling?
Matt Hyde:
Let's see. We give them about three weeks.
Lee Coffin:
Three weeks.
Matt Hyde:
This year we're going to launch our offers on December 15, and I think it's that first week of January we have an expectation that you will have enrolled.
Lee Coffin:
It's an early action and the confetti flies. The enrollment deadline is May 1st. Elena, what should a student be pondering between the confetti flying and an enrollment decision?
Elena Hicks:
Getting to know the institution in ways that they haven't done in their fall semester. We look different in the spring on college campuses, as students are taking classes, and more advanced, and different activities that'll be on campus. Also, from another point of view, if students live far away, there are some things that are still online that students can be engaged in. So experiencing the institution in different ways so that you have more information to make an informed decision. That's also speaking with alumni. And hey, this is a time also... Sometimes, on campus, students can visit a class. I know that sometimes there's a virtual component to class visits every now and then. Meeting with a professor, if a student wants to do that, as well.
Lee Coffin:
Just because it's non-binding, does that mean someone can't immediately enroll?
Elena Hicks:
Oh my gosh. We love that. We love when someone wants to immediately enroll in early action. In fact, there is an email for us that goes out and it says, "This is the first person who's deposited from early action from this place." And so, yes, students can definitely tell us prior to May 1 that they are coming to our institution and be able to make a deposit.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. So when you know, you know.
Elena Hicks:
Exactly.
Lee Coffin:
Kate, when you have that moment where a student says, "This was non-binding but I'm so excited." Enroll, and regular decision becomes irrelevant.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Lee, that's right. And even though I said at the very outset that we have 95% to 98% of our kids doing early, two-thirds of that are kids who have just done early actions. When I think about that, for a lot of them, there's something in that cluster of VAs that's their top choice. And they definitely will make a decision in December, or at least make the decision not to apply anywhere else.
Lee Coffin:
And let's talk about the etiquette of an early acceptance, whether it's early action or early decision. You have happy news in the early part of December. How do you behave? Because you'll have peers who do not have happy news or did not apply yet. What's the dynamic in a senior class, Kate, when some people are getting in and some people are still hopeful? How should our friends in high school and their parents comport themselves in this happy early moment?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I have opinions about this, so... But I have opinions about how the adults should behave and then I maybe have slightly different rules for how kids should behave.
Lee Coffin:
Okay. Start with the adults.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I'll start with the adults. A proliferation of colleges re-posting celebration videos may be my least favorite recent trend because-
Lee Coffin:
What is that? What's a celebration video?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
A student sits in front of their computer. They've grown up filming themselves doing everything under the sun. They set up their camera. High stress. They're wearing the sweatshirt from the school that they're opening. And I think to myself, oh my gosh. They've already bought the sweatshirt. I hope this wasn't a far, far reach. This is going to be super stressful. They open. Maybe they have a crowd behind them of students at a school. I don't advise that. Maybe they have their family behind them. Everybody's wearing the sweatshirt. Don't really advise that either. And they wait for the confetti. Now, we don't often get to see the non-confetti videos, right?
Lee Coffin:
Right.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
But sometimes we do. Sometimes kids just go into that hole of, I'm just going to show everything that happened. They're crying.
Lee Coffin:
Oh, God.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
They're having their public moment. And I don't know. Maybe that's the salve that kids need these days. That doesn't do it for me. In some ways, what we try to talk about is exactly what you just said. You will have plenty of kids in your class who are not getting good news, so think about how you want to comport yourself in public. Think about what it means to post the celebration video. You can be proud. Be proud. This is a huge accomplishment. I happen to be at a school where we don't have a sweatshirt day and we don't publicly announce kids' admission. They certainly do through the athletics process. That's a whole other can of worms. But I know that kids are proud. Sometimes they're the first person in their family to go to college. That's an enormous moment and should be celebrated.
I actually think that sometimes parents are worse. And they're the ones hopping immediately on Facebook, immediately on Instagram. Maybe a handful of them are on TikTok. I don't know. But they are the ones who are proliferating this moment in a way that actually feels like too much. I think that's the moment when you say to your kid, "I'm so proud of you. This is awesome. This is great." But don't get on your own Instagram and start peppering your friends with the admission moment. Again, be proud. There's nothing wrong with being proud, but I think there's something about humility. There's something about providing greater context for a kid, that this might be one of many things that happen in their lives that are great.
Lee Coffin:
When this phenomenon started, maybe five years ago, the first time I saw one I thought, well, this is charming. And it was an international student and they were all gathered around the computer. And the kid got in, and classmates picked him up and was throwing him in the air. And it was just a moment of joy that was fun to watch. But then it kept happening. And as a dean, I find myself wincing a little bit at the ones we don't see. The ones where you open it and the letter says, "I'm sorry." And wah-wah, the party loses all of its energy. And I don't like it but I also think, as a non-TikToker, I don't get it. Matt, what's your thought here?
Matt Hyde:
Well, you've heard me share on panels before, Lee. Parents, this isn't about you. Lead with love, care, and interest, but don't make this about you and your success as a parent. It's not. So I have a hard time when adults over-assert themselves into this space. Be proud, lead with love and care, and then nod and smile and let it happen. Don't make it about you. And I think too many parents are making it about them and sharing that college admissions letter or that sticker on the back of their car as a badge of, I'm a wicked good parent. Check out what I made happen. Like, "No, you didn't."
Lee Coffin:
Kate, you said there's advice for parents and advice for students. How should a student behave?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I do think that students should celebrate in a way that feels authentic to who they are and realize that every choice they make has an impact on another person. So whatever that choice is, you're not doing it in a vacuum. They know that. You look at the back of a car, if a parent has a car. It's got a bunch of stickers on it. And people are making values judgements about that list of schools. Like, "Oh, that kid must've been really smart. Ooh, I wonder why they chose that school." When all of us know that the reasons that kids get admitted to colleges are for a whole constellation of reasons. So I think that's just a part of it. There's some of this, the stories behind it, not everybody can ever know.
And I think sometimes, when kids put themselves out there, they also open themselves up to judgment. If you've got 1,000 strangers looking at your video and they're making all kinds of presumptions about who you are sitting behind that desk and why you may have been admitted, I don't know. I don't love that.
Lee Coffin:
Well, and the theme that I think also happens inside a high school, in a class is you might have multiple members of that class who applied early to the same college, and maybe one or two got a yes and a couple got defers and a few got nos. And maybe you didn't realize that six of your classmates were also applying to that same place. And so there's the delicacy of that, just peer-to-peer, knowing that my happiness is adjacent to somebody else's disappointment.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And can you imagine if your algorithm in the fall and winter and spring is just filled with celebration video after celebration video and you are a kid who has not had that?
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And perhaps is struggling with some other things around your mental health or other pieces of the puzzle. That could actually be really detrimental.
Elena Hicks:
I was just going to throw in really quickly, I would not recommend this for any dean of admission, but I am a full-time student. I'm two and a half years in. And I will tell you that it has brought back a lot of perspective that I needed, being a student. When I talk to my student ambassadors and students around here about their load and what they're going through and what they're traversing, I feel some of those same things now and actually have a stronger bond. But I would not recommend that any dean of admission, especially in their mid to late 50s, goes back to college. But it has given me a perspective that's made me more sensitive and less tone-deaf to how I talk about things.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. I think what we're all wrapping our arms around is this idea that each senior goes through the college search with parent or guardian trotting along. And you see the search through your lane without always realizing you have a peer group moving through the same emotional path with different outcomes and different issues. And we've mentioned affordability. That's probably the most private of all the topics, where you don't really know somebody else's financial situation and a financial aid award that maybe came in lower than hoped and changed the trajectory.
So anyway, I think the advice here is just to be aware that people in the school are going to have lots of emotions bubbling at a time of year that's generally pretty happy. So the admits, that's the good news. A student can also get deferred. In regular decision it is called the wait list but in early it's a deferral, and that often gets confused. People will say to me, "I got wait listed." I'm like, "No, you got deferred." Elena, what does that mean?
Elena Hicks:
There could be a lot of different reasons that we would defer a student. One, it could be when the pool of applicants came in for the round. Let's say it's early action. That maybe that student wasn't quite as competitive as the pool of other students in regard to maybe needing to see their fall transcript and see how a certain course is going. Or they're looking at a certain major here and we want to see how that extra science or math has impacted their GPA, and what they've learned.
So defer is, we need a little bit more information and we will defer you to, for us, the regular decision round so we have enough time to get that information from you. And we will take all of that information and do another review and give you a decision. I know that sometimes people want to say, "I just want a decision," like a yes or a no kind of thing. But for us, there are so many students who come to us after being deferred. The information that we received from them was extremely helpful, and they're a part of our family. So we believe strongly in defer. And not just deferring people for the sake of deferring them. That they truly have a chance.
Matt Hyde:
Yeah. Well, essentially the defer, it's hard to feel great about it but it is a, "Hey, we're leaning yes." We're seeing something or many things about you that help us feel like you are a fantastic match and fit for our institution. And it's either, like Elena said, we want more information. But oftentimes for us it's, we also have a global pool of candidates that we know are coming in regular decision. And we think you're strong. We think you're going to be very competitive in that space, and we want to consider you in that much broader context. So hang in. We're leaning yes but we want to see more from our pool and maybe from you, too.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. You just said it, Matt, a defer is a positive result. It's not a definitive result but it's not a decline. Kate, in the real world of a school, are we tiptoeing through definitions that really don't matter?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think, increasingly, people are admit-denying more often, and that's helpful. But I also think that when colleges... Elena, you said, "These are legitimate defers. We really do admit kids off of this." It could be X percentage of a given class. Or this is the range of class percentages that it's yielded in the past. That information is helpful because I do think there are some places where the conversion rate is like less than 5%. And when that's the case I think, for a lot of our kids, waiting is so hard, period. Full stop there.
They have a hard time waiting and many of them have a hard time doing nothing. And there are a lot of colleges that literally, their message is, "Do nothing." And so some of the management we have to do on our side is saving kids from themselves. All they want to do is write more letters, give more updates, think about, what else could I be doing? What awards could I get? How else can I show that I'm worthy? Again, just as much as is possible, a little bit of transparency about the likelihood of something converting is helpful. I think for the vast majority of our kids, this is where ED2 can be super helpful, where that deferral is really nice. The chances of it yielding an admit later are very low, so don't give up this ED2 that you've been thinking about for X number of months. We still think that's a good plan-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, and Kate, what I hear you saying is, "Twin the romance with some pragmatism."
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Totally.
Lee Coffin:
So a defer is positive. It is an invitation to continue. I work for a place with a big pool and a small class, and a deferral in our process often means space. Not you are lacking. It's just we're sorting a lot of different threads, and you're still a part of that but we need to see the whole pool.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Yeah. It does feel way less painful to some kids than a breakup.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah, a breakup. Well, that was my third one. So then the other decision that comes in early is a deny. So you've put yourself on the line. You said, "This is my first choice or one of my first choices." And the college comes back and says, "We're sorry. We cannot offer you admission." And that stings. And I want to linger on that for a second because, unlike regular where you've applied to several places and you have lots of decisions coming in and early, often you've put out one application. Maybe you have a few early actions, but hopefully no. But if it's an early decision, you've applied to one place. And when that one place says, "We're sorry," it feels like the ceiling fell.
It didn't. Sometimes I think a person uses early for the aspirational option to say, "Well, this is a reach so I'm going to put my eggs in that basket and go there first." And the guidance was, probably not going to happen. And someone said, "Let's see what happens," and it happened. But the reset that it offers is both constructive but also emotional, so...
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
I think, in the context of my school and schools like it, I believe that-
Lee Coffin:
And let me just say, as you say that, a school full of high-achievers with big college ambitions.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And a lot of college counseling advice.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
So I think in places where kids have a lot of information, in my opinion, a deny should not very often come as a surprise. That they should have the information they needed to make a choice. And they made a choice that was a little overly ambitious, thinking that somehow this was going to work. And the denial comes and it doesn't necessarily mean the denial feels any less bad. But I would much rather have a conversation with a family in December with a deny where we say, "Yeah. I hope that we gave you all the information we needed to allow you to understand that while this is not fun to navigate, this was not a surprise."
I think when kids are walking into this process with a lack of information, I don't fault them. A lot of them might be top-top kids at their high schools, where they are one of 2,000 seniors or 800 seniors and have less guidance and think to themselves, I've been in the top 10% of my high school class for my entire time. Why wouldn't I get in? It becomes more confusing.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And yet I do think there's something to the finality of a no that does. It's like we say... I use all these analogies, but you had to touch the hot stove. You touched it. You got burned. And now let's move on. But I do think that when the decision is clear, kids often, again, move on faster than the adults in their lives, which is really interesting. But they do. They mourn for a couple days. They wallow and then, most of the time, they come back in and they're like, "All right."
Lee Coffin:
So let's check in with the two deans. So why would you say no in early? What signal are you sending to the student?
Matt Hyde:
Thanks for your interest. Regretfully unable, I think is the term we might be using in a letter. But the reality is this is not a fit or a match. We are leading as champions and advocates from the gate at Trinity. We're rooting for you. And especially in early decision, when you have honored us with this top choice ED1 commitment, or ED commitment, we're rooting for you and we want to make it happen. But a deny really is, you have to move on in your search. We're not a fit and a match, period.
Elena Hicks:
And for us... I totally agree with Matt. It's also, we like to say around here, "It's no for now but it could be that you find another pathway." Like transferring in or something like that could be on the table for students. And so Matt is right. It would mean, at this point, it's just not a fit for us and the... I always tell folks when I do junior programs about institutional priorities. And you, families, don't have control over our institutional priorities.
And so there could be things that have come up along the way that just aren't a match for the institution at that time. And I also wanted to quickly support Kate about the denial and moving on. I have had, in the last couple of years, more personal notes from students, and sometimes folks just showing up here in the lobby, centered in on a denied decision. And one of the messages that I've been sending out as I talk to families is that it is very disappointing, but there are so many options for students. And they should not linger in those denials so that they don't move on to all the good things and all the good places that admitted them and are a better match in the long run.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. And I think, too, the deny in the early space versus a defer is a way of saying, "This won't happen later." Like, "We could defer you and keep it fuzzy and then say no in March." But there's some value in saying no in December, in opening the conversation with the guidance counselor. And okay. I now have a proof point. Like, "I put myself in a pool, maybe a very selective pool. It didn't work." What we learned from that, our admit rate at Dartmouth has been 6% for the last couple of years. And I've said to families... I don't dwell on the opposite of the admit rate, but it is a data point to say, "Okay. 94% of the time the answer was not an offer of admission." You know that when you apply and so, for those of you that are in very selective pools, that's just true.
And the reset that these early decisions bring, and why I wanted to have this conversation now, because the decision lands... and the verb “land” is one I adopted from Kate. So as these early decisions land over the next days, I think what I also want to counsel is don't overreact to an initial disappointment. You're a top student who had a disappointing outcome. It doesn't mean you need to apply the 20 places, because I see that happening a lot, where there's a panic moment where you say, "I got denied." And so suddenly the Common App, the Coalition app allows you to just keep clicking submit as many times as you can, and that's not intentional. So Kate, counsel someone through that impulse to flood the zone with a lot of candidacies that may be ill-considered or are not necessary. You don't need to go from an early decline to 25 regular decision files.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
It's interesting. I'm actually finding that it's a harder and harder impulse to stem.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
And I'm really trying to get my hands around it because I think it's interesting. We often talk about, what's your appetite for risk in early? And I think you watch these really interesting processes play out where moderate appetite for risk in the early fall, really thoughtful process. Somehow, with too many conversations with friends and others, appetite for risk grows. It's fascinating to me when the appetite for risk grows from a parent and that person suddenly is like, "Ah, they're resilient. A no's going to be fine in December." And of course it is. For most kids a no is fine.
But I think that if you are able to put together a thoughtful process and strategy from late summer to early fall, stay the course. Don't let the intensity of emotion that happens in mid-December become your driver. And I think it's easy to let it happen in a world where colleges are also lowering barriers to application, for good reason. But the one-click, no-supplement free app at a selective school is an enticing siren song for so many of our kids.
And so all I keep thinking about through this whole conversation, is our kids are caught in this really difficult tension between what adults need and institutions need, and the messages they're getting from each other and social media. And just adolescence in general where, the ups and the downs, they're big. I feel for kids. But I also really maintain that there's so many good choices out there. I don't say that from a place that is naive. And I also believe that casting a net to 30 schools, or even 20 on the Common App, often means just more no’s in April.
Lee Coffin:
So we're advising caution. Don't overreact to an early outcome that was not what was expected, especially, seniors, when the early was a reach.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Yeah.
Lee Coffin:
That recipe is always going to be complicated. So when the reach comes back no or defer, you came out of the most selective part of the admissions spectrum with a decision that was not surprising. And so being disciplined as you move into regular is going to help you move through regular. And so let's talk about that for a second. There's a bunch of people who didn't apply anywhere early and going to file 10-ish applications to be considered during the next round. After people apply, whether you're a defer moving into regular or you're a regular decision kid and you hit submit, I find seniors get confused by what I'll call the interlude between applying and getting a decision back. It goes quiet.
There's nothing to do all of a sudden. And Kate, what should they do after they hit submit and before the email comes back saying, "Your decision is ready?" What's the to do? Or is the to do nothing?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
In a lot of ways I would love their to do to be to just get really engaged with their friends and their high school community and whatever they're doing and say... In a way, if you've done some work around anxiety, you know that rehearsing all the possible outcomes, not helpful. Right?
Lee Coffin:
Mm-hmm.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Feeling that you always need to be doing something. Not necessarily helpful. I think there are probably a handful of cases where there is an action item. A student has been deferred from a place and does have a letter of continued interest to submit if a college requests that you do that. Or they give you an opportunity to upload any changes to your profile. You do that. But what I wouldn't suggest to kids is that they really spend their entire winter and early spring trying to think of all the ways that they can continue to reach out to their admission officer to give them updates. But what I would say that you can do if you're feeling anxious is, maybe you have been admitted to a handful of schools and you do all you can to learn about those places so that you make a great decision in April.
Because I think that most kids and families that I have watched spend more time thinking about the car they're going to buy than the college they're going to choose.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Honestly. I'm shocked, sometimes, at how little time kids spend really learning about what a place is going to offer them. It's-
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. There are two things that most students in the regular round have to do: Mid-year grades are important. And there is a mid-year grade report that goes out for early decision acceptances as well as regular decisions. So those mid-years are going to be important. So as you move through those exams, whenever they happen, just know that those grades get shared with the colleges. And I think those mid-year reports can be really valuable for a student who's showing, okay, here's my curriculum. I'm really doing it. Here are my grades.
That's a really important thing not to lose track of, because it's next. And then the other thing a lot of us do is alumni interviews. So after someone has applied, there'll be an invitation to have an interview. Not always required. Often optional. Sometimes not available. But an interview in a lot of spaces happens now, between submitting the application and getting a decision back. So those are two important things. It's also okay to just be a senior. Let this not be top of mind for a few weeks.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Shame on me. I actually missed the most important thing, Lee.
Lee Coffin:
What is that, Kate?
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Check your portals. With every application that you file, you're going to get an email from the college saying, "You've got to set up your portal." When you do that, you'll see a checklist of items that have been received. You'll see if there are missing items. Often you'll see if the college requires you to do other things. Maybe self-report your transcript. Possibly send official or put your self-reported test scores in that portal. They might ask you to answer a couple of other optional essay questions that they reveal in the portal, or upload a video. And so we all have cautionary tales about students who did not open the portal, forgot an important item, and then either didn't receive a decision or got an automatic deny.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah. Well, we've covered a lot of ground as we think about after early. Matt, Elena, Kate, thank you for once again sharing your wisdom with the members of the high school class of 2026.
Matt Hyde:
Thank you. That was fun.
Lee Coffin:
Yeah.
Elena Hicks:
Loved it. Thank you.
Kate Boyle Ramsdell:
Always. Thanks.
Lee Coffin:
Always. And to listeners, this brings season eight to a wrap. We've covered a lot of ground since September. To the members of the class of '26, we hope it has helped you get yourself to the deadlines and into the admission process in a thoughtful, intentional way. Admissions Beat will take a holiday break. We will return late January, early February for season nine, where we will go back to the beginning and meet the high school class of 2027 as they go through the discovery part of their search. And advice to seniors along the way as well as decisions start to land in regular decision in the spring.
So to listeners, thank you for being a subscriber wherever you get your pods. Thank you for the nice notes I get from listeners who tell us in really kind ways how helpful this, especially for students from schools where there is not very robust counseling. And as a dean, that warms my heart, to know we are contributing to your success through this medium.
Admissions Beat is a production of Dartmouth College but it is not about admission to Dartmouth College. It is an act of admissions citizenship from those of us who participate in the pod week by week.
Admissions Beat is produced and edited by Charlotte Albright. Editorial direction by my recurring co-host, Jack Steinberg. Technical support by Sara Morin. And the hardest job of all, scheduling our guests and calendar coordination by Peg Chase.
It is my treat every year to do Admission Beats. People ask me all the time, what brings you joy? And I find myself saying, "Podding." So thanks for listening. And if you like us, hit like on iTunes so that the next class finds us in their feed in the spring. For now, I'm Lee Coffin from Dartmouth College. Happy holidays, happy New Year, and we'll see you for season nine in a few weeks. Bye-bye.