<p>"Harvard is noted for taking the EA kids they want and rejecting the rest, whether they reject them EA or RD. They don't defer many and they take even fewer of the deferreds in the RD round."</p>
<p>Are you kidding? Harvard only rejects 5% outright EA. They're notorious for deferring like crazy.</p>
<p>Also, if you look at the MIT admissions statistics (<a href="http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/apply/admissions_statistics/index.shtml</a>), you'll see that although MIT only accepts 13% EA, if you're deferred you still have a slightly better chance of being accepted RD than someone who only applied RD. (12.5% for EA deferreds vs. 9.6% for RD applicants.)</p>