<p>Hi,</p>
<p>If one applies to Hopkins ED, can he or she apply to Georgetown and UChicago EA? I know its a pretty simple question but can one do this?</p>
<p>You will need to check with Hopkins to see if their ED is in anyway “restrictive”- some schools will allow you apply to only that school in the early decision process. If you are accepted, you will need to either immediately withdraw your application from consideration to Chicago and/or Georgetown, or deny any offer of admissions that may have already been made.
Also, my question: why ED, if you’re also interested in other schools? Realize that (with very few exceptions) any school where you are accepted ED ought to be your definite #1, as if you get in, you are going there. Consider why you may be thinking about pursuing multiple other schools in addition to an ED school before making that kind of commitment.</p>
<p>Thank you for the response. This hear, having looked at acceptance rates, there has been a great disparity between ED/EA rates and RD acceptance rates. Therefore, since I have three top choice schools, I would like to have the highest chance of admission possible. Applying ED/EA/EA to these three schools would provide me with that.</p>
<p>Take those statistics with a grain of salt, steelrealdeal. Really, ED is binding- it should only be used if you are 100% sure you want to attend! The “chance” in admission gained may be favorable in some cases, but also know that EA admission rates are a bit inflated by the general number of students who apply because they are both totally prepared to do so and set on the school- therefore, often more likely to be admitted. There is, however, no hard-and-fast rule that says it is “easier” to be admitted to a school in the EA or ED admissions process, especially if you are less than prepared at the time. My advice: wherever you do apply, make sure it is at a time when your application is at its most polished, regardless of whether or not you feel you have a better chance of admission at that time. Do your research on Hopkins, or any other ED schools you may be considering, to make sure that you are 100% certain that that school is a perfect fit for you before making that kind of commitment- if it isn’t, no amount of increased probability in admission is going to help you if you later realize that you would have rather waited to hear back from other programs. A well-done application to schools like these even in regular decision rounds will shine through and have a higher chance of admission regardless of the time chosen, and in avoiding a binding ED decision you may save yourself the trouble of being forced in to a school that may not be the best for you.</p>
<p>Georgetown does not permit its EA applicants to apply ED. One could apply to Chicago and Georgetown EA, however (one of my kids did just that). Chicago allows students to apply ED and EA elsewhere (but check with the other schools for their policies). I don’t know what JHU’s policies are in this regard.</p>
<p>Georgetown’s EA/RD rates vary by school; from our research, EA/RD for SFS were almost identical.</p>
<p>last time I checked, Georgetown specifically said their EA and RD acceptance rate is comparable. I believe they maintain it that way intentionally.</p>
<p>Personally, I think this is the right approach: a significant EA/RD acceptance rate difference encourages way too much gaming, and leaves admission outcome predicated more on “strategy” and “chance of timing” and less on merit.</p>
<p>This year, U Chicago has created a HUGE acceptance rate difference by admitting unprecedented number of EA applicants, radically different from the comparable EA/RD acceptance rates in the past. </p>
<p>This year, Chicago’s EA policy, which is completely unrestricted, is essentially creating a situation where early applicants benefited tremendously without ANY skin in the game in terms of commitment to the school on their part like ED or SCEA. </p>
<p>It’s completely understandable that EA has advantages, and ED/SCEA has even more advantages given the exclusive/semi exclusive early commitment on the part the applicants. But, unrestricted EA with more than double the chance of getting in, especially in a school like U Chicago which does not draw a lot of athletes, celebrities, legacies, development candidates using ED? Especially such a radical change in one year? This year, a lot of “unsuspecting” RD kids got tremendously penalized for not applying early.</p>
<p>This point has been debated previously. I completely agree that U Chicago can do whatever it darn pleases, but I was hoping that well established elite schools like Chicago strive to create an college application/admission environment that is more rational and rewards merit and qualification as opposed to gaming strategies and chance.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to avoid herd mentality, even for top students.</p>
<p>When you are looking at ED admission rates, remember that many colleges use ED as part of their athletic recruiting, and also as a way of dealing with legacies. A big chunk of the perceived advantage ED applicants get may well be athletes who essentially have a 100% chance of admission and/or legacies who are given a preference if they apply ED. Strip those applicants out of the pool, and the odds for the rest of the ED pool are probably not so different than the RD odds. There may be some statistical advantage, but nothing like the 300% or 400% difference you see at first glance.</p>
<p>Traditionally, EA colleges do not have a large difference at all between EA and RD acceptance rates. That’s in part because they get a lot more early applications than the ED colleges do. I believe Penn and Cornell are the only ED colleges that attract over 3,000 ED applications, while EA colleges like MIT, Georgetown, Chicago get over 5,000 early applications. MIT has often had lower EA admission rates than RD. This year, it looks like Chicago may have a significant difference, but in the past the difference was generally a few percentage points, not something that should have a big impact on your decisionmaking.</p>
<p>And just to make things clear: You can apply to JHU ED and Chicago EA, or to Chicago EA and Georgetown EA, but Georgetown’s rules do not permit you to apply to JHU ED and Georgetown EA (with or without Chicago in the mix).</p>
<p>MIT may have lower acceptance rates for EA than RD, but they accept a lot of the EA kids that they deferred in the RD round. A surprisingly large portion of the class ends up consisting of students who originally applied EA.</p>
<p>^^^^ they accept about 300 kids that they originally deferred. Not very good odds for deferred kids. </p>
<p>I’m curious about the rates for chicago’s deferred kids… it seems like they’re screwed- they weren’t in the top 28.5% EA, and now they’re expecting an 11.5% accept rate for RD… how can they be in the top 11.5% RD if they weren’t in the top 28.5% EA? I understand a few people will be deferred and still accepted RD, but the chances seem pretty darn slim.</p>
<p>To the OP, I did the combo of MIT and Chicago. Right before and after decisions, I was wishing I applied ED somewhere (anywhere!), and I was even making calls to Emory to change my application to ED2. Then, I got into Chicago (deferred from MIT), and I was suddenly glad I didn’t apply anywhere ED. I was never 100% sure about any school, and applying EA gave me an advantage at Chicago (not sure there’s an advantage with georgetown or mit) without having to sacrifice my need to draw out decisions. I’m sure I would have changed my Emory application to ED2 if I were deferred… I liked having that option. So, I hope you can find a happy medium where you have enough options to feel comfortable.</p>
<h1>6 concluded with a great point about the effect of the expected big gap between EA vs RD acceptance rates. Perhaps, the hugh 42% increase caught even the new admin off guard, who might have increased EA acceptance rate with an aim to increase yield (the U would have more time and a focused target market to work on).</h1>
<p>The big difference betn ED and EA is the degree of commitment on the part of the applicant. The only commitment of EAs is to send in the apps before a certain date vs EDs’ irrevocable commitment to a single school. For UofC, the favoritism toward EAs this year seems purely on timing and not merit (becos most if not all RD files were not even read or received when EA decisions were announced so comparison of merits was impossible). While many would agree that early applicants warrant some rewards, and the huge increase of applications is something to be proud of, this strategy create an Early Bird mentality that could make future EAs become meaningless because knowing the higher acceptance rate, many more applicants will send in their apps early without commitment. As for RDs this year, tough luck!</p>
<p>I don’t think that many applications come in out of the blue between December 15 and December 31, and even if they do there are probably pretty standard ratios between files opened, completed applications received, and incomplete applications abandoned. I have to believe that on December 15 (or 10, or whatever the real decision date was) they had a pretty good idea what the final application count was going to be. And, therefore, that the shift to EA acceptances was deliberate.</p>
<p>If so, what would be the reason of increasing EA acceptances dramatically? Would the staff have time to read plenty RD applications already during Dec1 -15? Why did they continue to send out the love letter and some other marketing emails if there was already “more than enough” applications, just to make the numbers look even better for a new admin?</p>
<p>^Perhaps they wanted more time to court the EA acceptees? They’ve been sending us all sorts of stuff. Yesterday the course catalog arrived.</p>
<p>chicagoquestion, the idea may not have been to attract “new” applications so much as to encourage those students who had already set scores and transcripts to COMPLETE their applications.</p>
<p>I know that at our house and among both of my kids’ friends, there were a lot of folks dropping schools the last two weeks of December. Part of it was they did/didn’t get into EAs and were recalibrating, part of it was application and essay fatigue. </p>
<p>mathmom, I can say that S2 is getting more stuff than S1 did two years ago. Some of the stuff has also been time-shifted – IIRC, S1 got a catalog fall of senior year. S2 got his last week – which is probably better timing if one wants to tempt EA admits suffering from senioritis with all the delicacies they can experience at college. I noticed on one of the emails I got yesterday (not sure if it’s because of S1 or S2 that I get them), but there is an '09 person who is doing communications work in “new media” for Chicago. We’re also getting more emails this year for local alum activities than two year ago. There seems to be an institutional effort to get the network gears cranking.</p>
<p>Mathmom and Countingdown, it seems the courting and comrading are related to the want to increase yield as pointed out? And the encouragement to “complete” applications was to increase number of RDs? While I congrat all EAs and sort of blaming myself for not applying EA, why did they still encourage “more” apps that they had no intention to accept (total no of incoming class will be the same)? The increase in applications and consequently the drop in acceptance rate will of course make great stats for a new admin, but the shift in policy, at least as compared to prior years RD rates, did shatter the expectations of many RD applicants. </p>
<p>While some may say is sour grapes, shdn’t a U has more than applications numbers and performance to consider, as concluded by #6?</p>