<p>Last two years were 177/330 and 158/317 for the total ED – according to posted CDS.</p>
<p>Just think about this a minute, folks. All those people accepted ED are not going to be competing with your kids in the RD round. If they were legacies, URMs, athletes, etc., they were going to be admitted in whatever round they were in. Since they applied ED, they won’t be competing for admissions to multiple schools. Overall, it’s the same number of kids looking to get the same number of slots. How does this make it harder to get in for anybody?</p>
<p>At a place like Williams, it might make no difference whatsoever. It is a very good way for them to manage their financial aid budget (in their so-called “need-blind” process which isn’t need-blind at all). After they admit so many full-pays, legacies, sports admits, and ED URMs, they can figure out how much money they have left, and plan accordingly (and also know what slots they still need to fill.) And they also know they have more than 40% of the class that really wants to be there (rather than ending up there after rejections elsewhere.) It also increases their - ah-hem - yield (useful for USNWR purposes.)</p>
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<p>Mini, do you expect yield to return to the selectivity index used by USNWR?</p>
<p><a href=“How U.S. News Calculated the Best Colleges Rankings”>How U.S. News Calculated the Best Colleges Rankings;
<p>Who knows? It’s a really odd number. You can increase yield by raising list price increasing the size of financial packages to compete with others. Or by taking a higher percentage of students ED. Or by accepting more poorly qualified applicants (whatever that might be in the context of SATs, etc.) who feel lucky to get in. It might be as useful as the so-called 'peer rankings" by peers who have never even set foot on your campus, and are basing their rankings on reputations that might have existed 20-30 years earlier.</p>
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<p>Bingo. (10 characters)</p>
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<p>It depends on the direction of your lens. </p>
<p>While the number of RD and EA applications might not indicate a growth in the number of applicants, a growing number of ED applications DOES make it harder for the … ED applicants. Take the examples of Duke in the article and the comments I made for Smith. Applicants who were ready to “spend” their ED capital on a well-defined school enjoyed better odds several years ago than in the past and current year. In addition, the development of financial aid packages that mininize the risk of a poor support has served a growing number of lower SES students who do NOT need to fear the binding nature of the ED agreement. Not to mention the fact that the Common Application took most of the bite of such agreement away a few years ago. Simply stated, most of the negativity of the ED narrative has been removed. And not a day too soon. In the current stage, the ED round might very well be a lower SES student best equalizer in a less than equitable process. </p>
<p>Of course, a debate about harder ED rounds might have little impact on what really happens in the unrestricted EA and RD rounds, especially if the consensus is that the growing number of applications reflects more applications per capita as opposed to more unique applicants.</p>
<p>Also, it depends on the number of slots given to early applicants, as a percentage of the total number of slots given out.</p>
<p>What are the trends there? Are more kids getting offered EA admission as a percentage of the total? Do the colleges say hey, let’s take more early this year because there are so many great applicants we really want? or not?</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Unrestricted EA (a la Chicago) offers a meaningless metric. Schools that admit more EA students than the expected enrollment do not contribute to the analysis. Only the ED and, to smaller degree, the REA rounds offer an insight. A number of schools have reached what seems to represent a natural limit in ED admissions.</p>
<p>Surely even unrestricted EA reduces the number of completed applications in RD.</p>
<p>I guess an arguable downside of the move to early applications is that it forces students to make difficult strategic decisions early on that just aren’t necessary in RD.</p>
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<p>They are starting to release RD data and mostly it’s another record breaking year. You would expect the number of applications would decrease instead if they had a record number of early admits. It doesn’t work out that way. It also means a record number of rejected and the perception of increased competition.</p>
<p>There may be a lot of people who applied RD, but will withdraw some or all of those apps after they hear back from early applications.</p>
<p>^I doubt it will make much difference. We’ll know soon ernough.</p>