<p>if you discount the athletic recruits, legacies, etc, how does ED actually compare to RD?</p>
<p>If nothing else, you find out a few months earlier.</p>
<p>I spent 12 year waiting to get into a good university. I don’t think a few months will matter that much.</p>
<p>I do like Penn… a lot. But I do still like to keep my options open if the benefits of applying ED are marginal.</p>
<p>I assume there’s a significant (enough) increase in your chances. However, if you don’t plan on going to Penn no matter what if you get in, and you aren’t really in love with it, just apply RD. I’m the same way, I would never want to limit my options.</p>
<p>There is a very significant increase in chances. Don’t hold me to these numbers at all, but the acceptance rates are somewhere around 17% RD and 30% ED.</p>
<p>I know those numbers are impressive (17 vs 32%, almost double), but the latter figure includes a lot of “special” applicants - legacies, recruited athletes, etc. I just want to know what the ED figure would be without them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I want to know too!</p>
<p>um…u acutally have a really good chance of getting in and no more writing college essays for 10 colleges…</p>
<p>
The admissions guidelines specify that at least 85% of the entering class be admitted entirely due to academics and talent, with no more than 15% being legacies, recruited athletes, and developmental admits. </p>
<p>For the class of 2013, that would be roughly 583 students. Assuming that ALL of those applied ED, you have:</p>
<p>RD: 13.5%
85% ED: 17.7%
All ED: 32.6%</p>
<p>Again, this assumes that all special cases apply ED, which is not usually the case. Still, it does seem to indicate that there isn’t much of an advantage if one is a normal candidate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>that’s what I was afraid of… although 4.2% is on the absolute low-end, it makes ED quite pointless. And that hasn’t even accounted for the fact that ED applicants tend to be better than RD ones, so a higher admit rate is normal</p>