I’ll play devil’s advocate here.
Yes, that’s a natural thought - but even if they think that, they’ll then know they didn’t get into their top choice.
In other words, it’s still a guaranteed butt in seat.
I personally don’t see this as a problem. In fact, ED2 is relatively new and I’m sure this is why schools set this up.
There are lots of reasons for someone to apply ED2. And when they do, they are saying, you are now my first choice and if you accept me, I will come. Bowdoin will not ding an ED2 applicant for lack of interest.
I agree … I have spoken about this exact topic with two different University admissions administrators who are personal friends, not acquaintances. They both said the same thing about ED2 … it is treated as just as attractive as ED1 to the university.
The admissions departments do not let emotions get involved … an applicant accepted ED2 is just as likely to pay and show up as an accepted ED1 applicant. ED2 applicants are not punished or looked at as an applicant with any less interest in attending their college compared to ED1.
At the time of the ED2 application submission, that ED2 university was the students top choice, regardless what did or didn’t happen in the ED1 round.
Generally speaking, ED2 acceptance rates are lower than ED1 but that primarily has to do with athletes, legacies and a handful of other VIPs like world class musicians, dancers, etc. inflating the ED1 acceptance rate.
Good points, but I disagree with the part of letting emotions get involved. The admission office is made of up humans and so there are always emotions involved. Otherwise, the schools would simply give out standardized admissions test like they do in other countries like China and Japan where the best scores get in. I know for a fact that readers will fight for the applicants they want included in the admit pool and sometimes that can involve rather high emotions.
Yeah of course I agree with you about AOs favoring applicants and going to bat for them, that’s always been the case.
Regarding emotions, I was specifically referring to the admission departments’ policy about ED1 versus ED2. They do not have an emotional attachment to ED1 being any better than ED2.
Think of admissions as a funnel. EDII basically exists to capture highly-qualified students who got a rejection or deferral in EDI and lock them in before they default to RD at another school. Remember, a lot of the most selective schools defer a lot of strong candidates to see how their RD pool shapes up. EDII allows competitor schools to poach some of that talent. This is a feature of an EDII program, not a bug.
Thanks will keep this in mind.
These rankings are quite interesting and unexpected in some cases. UC Davis is above UC Berkeley! Wisconsin is better than both.
“better” is pretty relative. I think the best way to view any ranking system is if you’re in the top 20-25, it’s probably more important to look at what type of research a particular lab is doing and how that matches with the students interest. For instance, U of Wisconsin is doing some tremendous research in the developmental biology field. Two Duke professors (different labs) were awarded Nobel Prizes in recent years, yet Duke is ranked 8th. Does that mean if you attend one of the top 7 on this list, it’s better? Probably not.