<p>Arzachel, I beg to differ! Colleges keep a close tab on trends, including the number of applications students send out. While they don’t have exact numbers, and those are trends, not specific to an individual, it does help determine their yield. If a HS has kids who don’t have issues with finances, like spectra’s, then kids are much more likely to apply to a much greater number of colleges. This, of course, only relates to RD. So, in spectra’s school, you’d have a much better chance of getting accepted if you applied ED, just because the school knows they are #1, but acceptance rates get tighter for RD.</p>