#145 Early College Application Strategies with Jeff Levy & Jennie Kent Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

Lisa Marker Robbins 00:52

college applications can feel like a high stakes maze, especially when early deadlines and complex strategies come into Play with terms like early decision, early action and restrictive early action swirling around. It’s easy to worry about missing crucial deadlines or making choices that might limit your teen’s future options. I’m thrilled to have Jeff Levy and Jenny Kent join us to shed light on this complicated process. Jeff and Jenny are independent Educational Consultants and the founders of Big J consulting, they’re renowned for their expertise in college admissions data, and have helped countless families make informed decisions in our conversation, we’ll dive deep into early application strategies, how different deadlines can impact admission chances. Who can benefit from early applications, as well as who should avoid them, and what the data really says about acceptance rates. If you are anxious about helping your teen get into the right college without missing a beat, we’ll clarify how to strategically approach early applications so you can confidently support your teen on their college bound journey. I’m Lisa Marco Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation.

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:15

Jenny and Jeff. Big J, welcome to the show. It is an honor to have you. Well, thanks

Jennie Kent 02:24

for inviting us.

Jeff Levy 02:25

Thank you, Lisa. We’re really happy to be here. Well,

Lisa Marker Robbins 02:29

I have long admired your data, so our listeners, who are primarily parents and those that are working with teens, they probably haven’t been tracking with your data. But I do all the time you guys are data geeks nerds, and that just speaks my love language. So let’s kind of help our families through a perspective of informative data analysis. Really learn about early application deadlines. And I just want to say to everybody, if you have a senior, yes, this is immediate. This is coming out in October, but if you have a younger student, you should be listening just as closely, because it is going to change what you’re probably doing now and how you go into the application season. So don’t turn us out if you don’t have a senior. So I think we need to start with what are the different types of early applications and what do they mean? Jeff, do you want to start us out on that one

Jeff Levy 03:31

sure the selection of application rounds has kind of been growing like alphabet soup. So now we have two early decision rounds as compared to regular decision as compared to early action. Typically, the early decision round is a binding contract that the student signs that the one of the parents sign that the high school counselor signs pledging that if admitted, the student will enroll. Jenny, maybe you can explain why Ed two came into being early decision two.

Jennie Kent 04:26

I mean, I think one of the things that I first would want to clarify with families, so that they understand and it’s just stated, is that, because the student is saying they will enroll if accepted, they may only submit one early decision application, and then, essentially, I, I mean, my feeling is that schools decided to come up with a second round of early decision because many students aim quite high in that early decision round, and many of them do not. It into the colleges that they wanted to, but they’re really strong applicants. And so the colleges, certain colleges, not all colleges, but certain colleges, offer a second round of early decision, which typically the application deadline is the same as it is for a regular decision.

Lisa Marker Robbins 05:20

So a lot of january 1 on those Ed two, a lot of November 1 ish on The Ed one. You know, one thing that you just said, Jenny, that made me think, okay, families with younger students, not seniors, you reinforce that idea that there’s only one early decision application that you can put in. And by the way, not every college offers early decision and I know you’re going to give us some data in a little bit to really inform like, where it might make sense to do an early decision application, like, who it’s a good fit for, who it’s not. How you can figure that out, lean into the information that you guys have to us, but this puts like that lights that fire for if you have a sophomore or a junior to really build a good college list and have a strategy around these deadlines, and it’s why, because there’s only one you can do, and it’s going to affect all your other applications, you’ve got to be proactive on this

Jennie Kent 06:20

absolutely, absolutely, 8182

Lisa Marker Robbins 06:24

and

Jeff Levy 06:27

early there’s early action, which is a nine, a non binding round, typically does not give the kind of admissibility bump, and I know we’ll get into that in finer detail in a few minutes, but there are a few schools that give a bump to early action, but most do not. And it’s really, I think the way Jenny and I like to approach it is some of the schools that are a little less selective, that have early action, we like to put some of those schools on our students lists so that they get those acceptances early in the process. And it can be a real emotional lift for them to find out early, and they would find out, usually mid to late December, whether they have been admitted to their early action school or schools, and whether they’ve been admit admitted to their ED one school.

Lisa Marker Robbins 07:30

It does certainly take that the pressure off, right? I’ve seen that for so many years, where as soon as that first Acceptance comes in, it’s like, oh, okay, I’m gonna, I mean, we know as adults, they’re gonna have plenty of options that they’ve done a strategic and good college list, but that feeling of like, oh, great, everybody’s not gonna reject me. I have a place to go. It’s real, right?

Jennie Kent 07:56

Absolutely. I don’t want to further confuse listeners, but let’s also Jeff maybe mention really quickly, Rea and se a because they’re out there. Yeah,

Jeff Levy 08:13

go ahead and explain them.

Jennie Kent 08:14

Oh, okay, so I was tossing it back to back to you. So, yeah, there is also a very limited amount of schools will offer something called restrictive early action, and some will offer something called single choice early action. And the best advice that I can give families about these plans is to read the fine print very carefully, single choice, early action. The student is indicating that they’re very interested in the university. If they are accepted, they don’t have to commit. But it’s a single choice early action. So that’s sort of restricting where. You know, they can’t apply anywhere. Ed, sir, you know, some schools will say you can apply to public institutions early, or you can apply to a university if they have a full ride scholarship that you must apply early. It really, really depends. So for that handful of schools that offers these plans, make sure to I mean, you know, Lisa’s going to laugh, build yourself a spreadsheet, because that’s what we do here at Big J. Build yourself a spreadsheet where you have the policy like, copy and paste it from the college website, because some colleges allow certain things, and other colleges are like, hey, if we’re single choice, we are the only place you’re applying early action or early decision. And others will say, No, there’s a little flexibility around scholarships or publics,

Jeff Levy 09:49

right? And just to amplify that a little bit, first of all, single choice, early action and restrictive early action are two names for. For the same thing. Colleges that have those are places like Harvard Princeton Yale. What else am I for? My forgetting Jenny? Harvard Princeton Yale, I don’t know others up there, and an example of what Jenny is trying Stanford, of course, the importance of really distinguishing one from the other and looking at the at the fine print. Yale will allow an early action application to University of Southern California, for example, because you have to if you want a merit scholarship from the University of Southern California, you have to apply in their early action round so, but Harvard does not make an exception for University of Southern California. So just know going in, as Jenny says, Read that fine print and know what the rules are.

Lisa Marker Robbins 11:09

What I want to add. I was speaking at a school last night, and we were talking about college majors and careers and reading, and I was reinforcing the reading the fine print on these college majors, and that was something we were talking about before we started. But you know, you can’t just go into the common app and read, oh, they offer, you know, restrictive early action or ed one, but not Ed two. You have to go to the website. I think so often families want to think, oh, the common app has all the things and it there is no shortcut. It’s true of test optional policies. I know you guys have great data on that as well, but you’ve got to go to the school website. You got to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, right?

Jennie Kent 11:52

Absolutely, there are always, I think we all can think of an example of a college or two that removed an essay or added an essay in the middle of the application cycle. So yeah, you’ve unfortunately, everything’s a moving target a little bit, and you’ve just got to have good data and stay on top of it.

Lisa Marker Robbins 12:10

So why would we have all these confusing admissions plans that the student checks off when they’re in there? And it sounded Jeff the way Jeff described ed one and Ed two, it’s like you’re giving you’re signing it in blood and giving your first born, right? It’s so binding and serious. So why would anybody even consider that like? Why? What are the advantages?

Jeff Levy 12:38

Well, the the biggest advantage is that it’s considered that if applying in the ED round, the applicant will receive an admission bump, that their chance of admission will be higher. And that’s what we’ve sort of we’ve collected that data in our spreadsheet comparing the early decision acceptance rate to the regular decision acceptance rate, and this, this is what makes one of the things that makes our lookers studio spreadsheet A little different from other data that’s out there. Typically, you can see you can find the ED acceptance rate and you can find the overall acceptance rate. But to the best of my knowledge, no one else had broken Ed apart from rd to really compare, you know that option. So that’s the, you know, I’ll let Jenny continue, but that’s the first big advantage of applying in one of the early decision rounds.

Jennie Kent 13:50

Yeah, I think the way that I explain it to families is colleges need to meet their budget, right? Colleges are businesses. They need to be able to pay their professors, to pay their staff, and so by applying early decision, you really need to be in a position where, if the college says yes, you don’t have to think twice about accepting that offer. So typically, families who are not waiting to compare financial aid offers would take advantage of this plan, and that’s why the students kind of, you know, it’s one of the reasons why the students will will get a bump, right? Because the college is trying to lock in a budget and also build a really wonderful class at the same time.

Lisa Marker Robbins 14:37

Well, it’s we had a previous episode on institutional priorities, and I’ll put a link to it in the show notes, and that’s what this is. I mean, everyone has the institutional priority of meeting their budget, but they might have other institutional priorities as well, and I won’t get into all of that, because we’ll just link to it in the show notes. But if you meet their institutional priority. Whether it’s meeting their budget or something else, then that’s going to bode well for you if you’re applying in these early rounds. And we should say to everybody, we’re going to link to your data on your website so that families can come in here. I love how you have it set up, because it’s very interactive. It’s easy to sort through. It’s easy for the layperson, the parent or the student or the school counselor, to read, I absolutely love it. What I got curious about because I was playing on it before we got on is there like an average you guys say that, like bump or that boost? Was there an average boost that this gives, or is it so all over the place that you can’t really come up with a number and you need to take it college by college by college,

Jennie Kent 15:47

Lisa, I love your question. Absolutely, college by college by college. And I like that you also mentioned institutional priority earlier, because one of the big institutional priorities at some of these schools are their athletic teams, right? And one of the things that we think is really important for families to understand about our data is just because you will see, you know, a much higher percentage of students being in terms of an acceptance rate being admitted in early decision versus regular decision. It’s really comparing apples to oranges, right? The students who are applying early decision look very different from the students who are applying regular decisions. So I’m from Rhode Island. We talk a lot about our NESCAC schools, right? All of our great New England athletics. You know, NESCAC schools tend to admit the majority of their athletes. I’m not an athletic specialist, but this is what I’ve been led to to understand in that early decision round. So you have to think, Okay, how many of these students are just athletes that are? You know, athletes can get accepted at an 80, 90% rate because admissions has already seen their file. Otherwise, the coach isn’t really allowed to recruit them. So it’s definitely college by college and it, it can fluctuate wildly. You know, there are some schools that I think it’s fair to say, I used to kind of shame them a little bit for, you know, maybe the percentage of the class that they’re potentially admitting, and they’ve gotten a lot better, and there are other ones that have gotten worse. So you really have to look year to year. So

Jeff Levy 17:40

let me give a few let’s talk numbers. Let me give a few examples. I’m on page one of our of our chart, and we have, I don’t know, maybe we have 200 we have every school we’re aware of. And boy, have we searched that offers early decision in that chart, and it the number is 229 I’m on page one, in fact, on just part of page one. So here are some. Here’s the variety that we’re talking about. Barnard College, for example, admits 20 has an acceptance rate in their early decision round of 27% has an acceptance rate in their regular decision round of 4.8% that’s an enormous differential, and even more telling in some ways, If you look at our the column on the right, it tells us the percentage of the admitted class represented by the ED, the ED, the number of ed students admitted, and in Barnard’s case, 64.4%

Lisa Marker Robbins 19:02

It’s wild. I mean to me, that’s my favorite piece of information is not what percentage of students who apply Ed get accepted, but what percentage of the freshman class is being filled in those early binding rounds. Because if you see a big number there, then, I mean, that’s where. And I’m looking at some of them too, Jeff, I’m so glad you brought it up. It’s like, on some of them, you would think, like, I’m looking at Bentley, you still have a boost, right? But they’re filling far less of the freshman class. And so if you’re weighing two different schools as a family that both offer Ed, but one gives a bigger boost in in your in love with that school and you can afford it, then it would reason to believe that that’s where your ed that would be the strategy. Am I right? Right, kinda No,

Jeff Levy 20:03

I think you’re absolutely right. I mean, one of the things that I feel, I feel like we kind of feed the monster a little bit with this chart, because we don’t want to, therefore encourage more students to apply to Barnard Ed. It’ll just like, make it harder and harder, but but we also feel that it’s important that they know exactly what you’re talking about. Lisa going in some schools, it may make a lot more sense to apply Ed and other schools, maybe not.

Jennie Kent 20:34

I’m going to go out on a limb here a little bit so, and let’s use Bentley as an example, actually, because it’s an example that I often use. So Bentley 67% accepted in the early decision round. 47 and a half in the regular decision round, and they’re just taking 30% of the class in early decision I work with a lot of business students, just a lot. They represent a huge portion of of my business. And I’m a huge fan of Bentley. I love Bentley. And often you’re getting sort of again, in the New England area, the three B’s, you know Bentley, Babson, Bryant, I have often seen a student who has gone to visit Bentley. They are totally in love with it. Babson seems like, Oh, my math isn’t quite high enough, you know. But like, babson’s great, too. And they’ll say, I’m going to apply to Babson Ed because it’s harder to get into and I say, Listen, you loved Bentley. And the reality is, it doesn’t always pay off if you’re aiming too high for your ED, right? So why not use the ed to actually secure a place where you’re going to find community and where you’re a great academic fit, as opposed to, I might struggle a little bit with my math there, so I advise families both ways. It’s really case by case,

Jeff Levy 22:03

and I’m going to go out on a limb and say I totally agree with what Jenny just said, but the data is not the reason why you should make your decision about where to apply Ed you should. I mean, there are, there are a number of reasons that I think are more important, particularly, is this a school that you love more than any other school on your list? Are you going to have buyer’s remorse? Don’t strategize and apply ed to a school that really isn’t your favorite, because you may spend a lot of time after that regretting your choice. Figure out which schools you most want to go to, and then we’ll, we’ll help you figure out where it may if it makes sense and where it makes sense to apply. Ed.

Lisa Marker Robbins 22:58

I have a student I’m working with right now. And this is so typical, like all my kids are adults now, 23 to 33 and so and I this kid’s reminding me of some of our children who he has, even though he’s his essays are ready, he keeps like his list doesn’t change a whole bunch, but what geographically he’s resonating with has changed so many times. Oh, I want to stay in Ohio. Here I am in Cincinnati. Oh, no, wait, now the mountains are calling. Oh, three weeks later, I want to be closer to home, and so it’s one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of Ed like I didn’t, I didn’t invite you guys on because I love Ed. I invite you mom because I actually really don’t like it that much and but I think we need to be transparent. I think there are some people for whom it’s a good fit, but I’ve watched this young man between August and now October just continue to sway. And his mom had said to me, I think he should just take school XYZ off. He doesn’t seem into it. I’m like, he’ll change his mind six more times before we get to March and April. So I would recommend that school had no extra essays. You leave it on the list. So this whole idea of changing minds, and we’ve seen it through student senior year. I just It’s why I’m one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan I

Jennie Kent 24:27

have a great Ed Story, yeah, because I’m not the biggest fan of Ed either. And I had a student once who at no point did we have a discussion about Ed, and this was a student who needed to compare financial aid offers. I wasn’t pushing ed, and I signed on for a meeting one day, and he said, So where am I applying Ed? And I and I said, What do you mean? I didn’t think you were applying anywhere. Ed. We’ve had no discussions about Ed. I said, You clear? Really don’t love any school so much that you want to commit to it. I said, you know, eat Ed is like marriage. And he said, Well, the thing is, is at school, everybody’s talking about where they’re applying Ed. And so I thought, maybe this could be like an arranged marriage, like we will fall in love with each other later, right? But, you know, should I do this? So that’s the other thing. Just because Ed is out there, it’s not the best decision for for everybody. Don’t feel the pressure like you have to lock it in.

Jeff Levy 25:31

And there’s another subset of applicants who really should consider carefully whether or not Ed is a good, good pathway for them, and that that is families who are going to be relying on financial aid to make college affordable. And that, you know, 90,000 a year and climbing, who wouldn’t be concerned about, the net cost of college. I really prefer families to be able to compare all of the financial aid offers they receive before making a final decision of where their child will enroll. And Ed makes that almost impossible. There are I’m not saying that no financial aid family should ever apply binding early decision. I think we have to have a broader view of each family’s circumstances and what the pros and cons are and help our families make the best decision for them. But in general, if you need to compare financial aid awards, I would not, I would not think that you should apply in the binding early decision round. Even though you’ve heard that you can get out of the contract, it will complicate your lives a lot to do that

Lisa Marker Robbins 26:59

unnecessarily. Yeah, go ahead, Jenny.

Jennie Kent 27:03

I’d also like to point out that I have families who, on paper, can afford this big price tag, but they don’t feel like they actually can in reality. So I have families who come to me who say, gee, we’re not going to qualify for financial aid, you know, and I make it very clear to them, if your child applies Ed, you know, chances of you getting any type of merit money could go down, right? Whereas, in early action, a student is expressing interest, but they’re not locked in. So potentially, that carrot that the college dangles in front of you could be, could be larger, right? You could be missing out on on some merit money at institutions that offer it. I’ve

Lisa Marker Robbins 27:48

always said that it’s like the school is not incentivized in ed one or two to bring money to the table, because you’re obligated to them and so absolutely now. So we’ve talked about some people who it’s probably not smart for them to do it. We’ve talked about people who maybe it could work, but it’s got to be very individual. Is there any other piece of this story that we’re missing, or any parting words of advice you have for our families?

Jennie Kent 28:21

I mean, I always like to talk about international students. If you are an international student who is high need, I work with a lot of international students, you actually must leverage the early decision one and the early decision two round. And it’s this simple, if you are high need and you’re saying to an institution, please invest 300,000 plus dollars in me. They want to know you’re coming. So that’s that’s just something it because it’s completely the reverse of what happens with with domestic students, really. So I always like to mention that I don’t know how many international Yeah, and your listenership, and

Jeff Levy 29:02

it may sound like we’re being contradictory. In my experience, need based aid is not going to be adversely affected applying in the early decision round non need based aid, Merit aid, as Lisa said, and I totally agree with you, they are not incentivized to offer merit aid to Ed applicants because you’re already locked in. So that’s why, I think what both of you said is absolutely true, yeah. And

Lisa Marker Robbins 29:34

I think what where that leaves us is this is very complicated, and you need to start early, take your time, dig into your data. Jenny,

Jennie Kent 29:45

I think one of the other things that we haven’t mentioned, and this is very much in flux, depending on where you live, because some states are passing legislation, we haven’t really discussed legacy. So I would say the other chunk with. Those athletes who are applying in the early decision round that but that basket of apples, you’re going to also find some some legacy students whose parents attended institutions in there. Again, this is changing, you know, but that’s just another piece. So typically, a legacy student must apply ed to leverage that

Jeff Levy 30:22

go ahead, Jeff and another parting word here, we’ve talked around it, but I want to say it very directly, just because a school, the data tells us that a school has a three to one advantage in the early decision round over the regular decision round. It doesn’t mean that you as an applicant will have a three to one advantage applying in the early decision round. If you are not a recruited athlete and you’re not a legacy applicant, as Jenny just described, or not meeting another really important institutional priority, as Lisa mentioned earlier, you’re not going to have the advantage that the data seems to indicate you will. So understand what the real story behind the data, and don’t just take it at face value. This

Lisa Marker Robbins 31:21

has been fantastic, you guys. It was exactly what I wanted it to be when I invited you on during our very busy application season. If and we’re going to link to your data and all the other spreadsheets that you have as well, and we’ll, for sure, have you back on to dig into the numbers on another topic in the future. But if families are like, okay, these people really know what they’re doing, and I think can give us some individual support here, where is the best way for them to reach out or keep in touch with you guys.

Jennie Kent 31:53

So our website is big, J educational consulting.com, and we have a contact button right in the menu in the upper right hand corner, so just send us an email,

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:04

fantastic, and we’ll put that link in the show notes. Well, thank you both, and we’ll, for sure, have you back.

Jennie Kent 32:11

Thanks for having us.

Jeff Levy 32:12

Thank you, Lisa. It was a lot of fun.

Lisa Marker Robbins 32:20

I hope this conversation with Jeff and Jenny has shed light on the nuances of early college application strategies. Understanding how early decision and early action can impact your teens admissions chances is crucial in making informed choices that align with their goals. To dive deeper into the data we’ve discussed, I encourage you to explore the interactive resources on early and regular admissions decisions available on the Big J consulting website. We’ve provided a link in the show notes, this valuable tool can help you and your team make strategic decisions based on real admissions statistics. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend who might benefit as well. Sharing, following the podcast, rating and reviewing helps us support more families in navigating the college admissions journey. Thank you for listening to the College and Career Clarity episode, where I help your family move from overwhelmed and confused to motivated, clear and confident about your teen’s future. You