It seems like a lousy time to make the commitment to a first-choice school.
Applying early is for when there is a first-choice school that the student definitely wants to attend.
If the answer is YES from a first-choice school, think long and hard about whether you need to make further applications to other schools.
If you're the parent of a son or daughter who gets a 'no' or a deferral from a first-choice school, help the child put this in perspective.
If the answer is YES from a first-choice school, parents and children should talk about when and how to announce it to others, either personally or on social media.
In the case of rejection, the algorithm looks to make a match with a student's second-choice school, and so on.
(Even that number is only a conditional answer, since those committed students could still get word that their first-choice school has plucked them off its waiting list, leaving an opening for a student on the second-choice school's waiting list).
A: Yes, you can and should put down a deposit at your second-choice school, because there is no guarantee you will get off the waitlist.
The system then assigned as many of the remaining students as possible to their second-choice school, and so forth.
In the end, the high school senior from Silver Spring took the better offer from the second-choice school in South Carolina, placing price before prestige.
Yet according to "American Freshman, National Norms for Fall 2001," which tracks college trends, 69.7percentt of freshmen attended their first-choice college, 21.6percentt went to their second-choice school, 3.1 percent went to another choice.
