Thanks!
Not sure how to respond to this, acceptance rate for REA is higher than RD, but the applicant pool is stronger. If you could give a little more background to why you think it’s “so much harder”, we could probably give a better reply.
Sorry, i thought it was commonly accepted because it is with the people at my school
the website just says that it isn’t true that it is easier to get in rea than rd
The bottom line is both decision pools are extremely competitive. ND is a top 15 University nationwide and it is difficult to be accepted. REA is going to be a bit more selective because they want to see the entire applicant pool. Since they are making REA decisions in December before seeing the entire pool, they are going to be very selective. A good number are deferred so that they can be considered with all applicants.
This is a more general (not ND specific) answer. With EA/REA the school is committing to the applicant while the applicant is not committing to the school. There is no reason to accept applicants unless they are clearly at or even above the school’s standards. Overall (again, not specific to ND), I have seen more deferrals with EA/REA as compared to ED.
What Happy1 said.
EA is a different business model from ED as practiced by other top 20-ish schools.
Those type of ED schools (Duke, Penn, NWU, etc.) are able to fill up half of their enrolling class through ED. The school knows that the yield on any ED offers they make is 100%. By definition, anyone getting an ED offer from Duke is going to Duke and will not have the option to consider offers from Penn, NWU, ND, etc.
So the schools get a lot more control and certainty over EXACTLY what their enrolled class will be by using ED. They get to make a lot fewer offers (which keeps the acceptance rate low). Large use of ED also tends to suppress the amount of financial aid that it will take to enroll the complete class. Because of those benefits, the ED schools have an incentive to admit some students binding ED that they might not admit later at the non-binding RD stage. Some schools (Duke) are quite explicit about the fact that it is easier to get in ED, even after adjusting for the strength of the ED pool.
EA is less certain from the school’s side. So there’s not the same incentive to ease the admission restrictions a smidge in order to lock up a sure thing. If you gave out a lot of non-binding EA offers using slightly lower standards, the school would be subject to an adverse selection risk. The strongest offerees would likely have choices at other schools just as fancy or fancier. But the weakest offerees would be highly incented to accept the EA offers.
By using restricted EA, ND tries to make its early stage a little bit more of a sure thing for them than a more open regular EA would be. Since to go REA to ND means you can’t shoot an ED silver bullet at Duke, Penn, NWU, etc.
ND is quite clear that the bar is higher at the REA stage:
“Because the Admissions Committee is unable to extend all of its offers of admission in the Restrictive Early Action process, it is highly conservative when making Early Action admission decisions. The Admissions Committee advises students to apply in the Restrictive Early Action process only if they are in the very top ranges of our applicant pool.”
If your application is as strong as it’s gonna get by early admission time, you are not at a disadvantage to apply early. You may be less likely to be admitted during the early round, but that doesn’t mean you’re more likely to get rejected. If you’re qualified but the university wants to see the larger pool before deciding on your application, you’ll get deferred to the regular round.
Two disadvantages to REA at ND:
- You might get rejected REA if your application would be significantly stronger one semester later. That probably doesn't happen too much. If you are a reject (rather than a defer) based on six semesters, how likely is it that you could do something in semester 7 that would vault you all the way to accept. More often, you would think, semester 7 turns an REA defer into an RD accept.
- You give up the opportunity to play the ED card at another school where the ED round is easier than RD.
Regarding what a previous poster said about deferrals in REA, ND actually defers relatively few applicants compared to other schools. Well over half of the REA applicants are denied.
For the last cycle, ND REA was 30% admit, 15% defer and 54% deny.
Since the ultimate denial rate is going to be 80% or more, it shouldn’t be surprising that a slight majority of the REAs get denied (even after accounting for the stronger REA pool).
End of the day, most of the 54% would have been deny regardless of whether they applied early or regular. Regardless of whether they were showing 6 or 7 semester of grades, activities.