Colleges where applying RD may not be worth the bother

I think this is especially true for schools where majors fill up and consideration for merit is really only offered in early action. I mean, schools like Purdue and Pitt do say this, but it would still be easy to miss the information if you’re not looking for it specifically.

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Pitt is rolling so it doesn’t have ED, EA, or RD, but there is still a big advantage to applying early. I have seen kids rejected while applying late, even with good stats. Once they admit as much as they want, they stop. I always cringe when I read someone giving advice in February along the lines of “Pitt has rolling admissions, you can still apply there”. Technically it’s true, but chances of success are greatly reduced.

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from @DigitalDad on another thread:

" Barnard ED’s were up by 17%, to 1,501 for a class size of 700.
Last year, 24% of ED were admitted, this year 29%!

From the ED pool, they now already filled 62% of the class!
If total applications will be in the same vicinity as last year’s, then the RD pool will have a 3% admit chance - making an RD admit 10 times less likely than an ED admit.

Test-optional applicants were 57%, test-optional admits 49% - so about 34 fewer candidates admitted test-optional than what had applied."

This trend indicates that schools are seeing the students they need in the early round and want to take the bird in the hand more than risking what they may or may not see or get in RD?

I know many say they don’t do ED so they can shop financial aid packages in RD but I wonder if that is going to need to shift? Those families might feel pressured to just apply ED and see what they get and then decide whether to shop it around? Per @Mwfan1921 they can get out of binding if need isn’t met…

Optimistic minds will see high % of applications in ED rounds as a positive thing for RD. Assuming overall applicant pool has not changed, it will mean more competitive applicants will be taken in ED rounds making RD rounds easier if ones application is strong…:wink:

Incidentally/interestingly - for Columbia University’s other traditional undergraduate colleges (e.g., Columbia College, and Engineering/Applied Science, ED applications dropped slightly, by 2%.

Of course, given the number of total applications, that’s just a drop in the bucket given the total admit rate of 3.9% last year.

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I get your point in general, but specifically: Barnard meets need.

Simplifies planning, for sure. Although colleges seem to have gotten pretty good at forecasting what % of admits actually do enroll.

It will become more clear when we see all of the Ivy numbers but there was an extra EA boost to all the non-Princeton Ivies last year (and some other selective schools, likely) because Princeton didn’t have an EA round last year. Yale was down 8% this year, presumably due to Princeton bringing back EA this year - and the Columbia numbers were probably impacted for that reason, too.

What will be telling regarding these trends we are discussing will be whether these schools are increasing the percentage of ED student in their total incoming class like it appears Barnard did.

Re Barnard meeting need - which most highly selective schools say they do nowadays - there can be still situations where students still can’t accept the ED offer due to disagreements on what their EFC really is. Students are supposed to run the NPC first but I still think there can be discrepancies - @Mwfan1921 has seen this first hand, I believe.

On your last comment, I heard something last year about how AOs had JUST gotten their yield projections honed in enough to be useful, per your point…and then Covid and TO happened. They will hone it again, I am sure, but they need more data again to get it re-honed back in with TO and other schools changing their TO, etc (like the Princeton thing!). Hard job!

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That’s not really how it works though. Schools use RD to pick and choose the students they need to fill all of their institutional needs, which is often those who have a hook. With single digit acceptance rates at highly rejective schools (not only the usual suspects, but schools like Tulane), the RD rounds are unlikelier to be easier for unhooked applicants, even the strong ones. With that said, of course some strong students will be accepted, but it’s a gauntlet out there.

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In terms of the “other side of the coin” from the OP, Michigan likely wouldn’t be on this “RD may not be worth the bother” list.

I haven’t seen the numbers in the past two cycles (Class of 2024 and 2025), but prior, Michigan would accept roughly 50% of their class in EA (7,500-8,000 acceptances) and the other 50% during RD.

The one caveat with Michigan is that since the pandemic began, they have pushed back their EA decisions from releasing them just prior to Xmas to the new norm of late-January in the past two cycles. I assume this helps with their EA yield to wait until after other school’s ED.

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As a rule, public universities (except about half a dozen exceptions) do not have binding ED.

They also have little reason to give an acceptance boost to non-binding EA applicants - it has few benefits for the college that students apply early. So, for a good chunk of students who have reason to prefer applying RD, it will always be worthwhile to apply RD.

This is, in fact, the rule, while binding ED with a much higher acceptance rate, is the exception.

Colleges like Michigan are also competing for students with colleges that have binding ED or REA, and since most of the highly accomplished applicants are not accepted to the colleges that compete with Michigan, Michigan will be getting a lot of those applying RD.

So yes, it will likely always be worthwhile to apply RD to Michigan.

Worthwhile yes, but I’ve learned through the years that EA shows demonstrated interest to Michigan and we were told so by an AO. Last cycle with a record 80,000 +/- total apps, 55,000 +/- were submitted EA.

Michigan in the past (pre-pandemic) has accepted roughly 50% of their freshman class during EA and defers or postpones the bulk of the remaining EA apps. So, the RD pool of apps is not just the 25,000 RD apps (submitted by 2/1), but in the case of last year, includes something along the lines of 40,000-45,000 postponed EA apps, which are now considered RD for the purposes of their consideration.

Thus the competition pool goes from just 55,000 EA apps, again using last year’s numbers, to 65,000-70,000 EA-postponed/RD + the 2/1 RD apps fighting for the remaining 8,000 (50%) of acceptances.

And I believe now with a late-January EA decision date (formerly pre-Xmas), Michigan will accept a larger portion during EA, since all the ED acceptances to other schools will have pulled out of the running in December or early January pre-EA release.

IMO, “most of the highly accomplished applicants” can easily complete an application by 11/1, assuming they’re highly accomplished. One additional EA app isn’t really that much more difficult. My D18 was accepted EA from OOS in December 2017, which all the applicants around here are told to do.

But RD by 2/1 apps are still worthwhile. We’ve had a few here on CC.

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Found this interesting from a post earlier on this thread. Check out how this yields an overall acceptance rate that seems to benefit Tulane in the USNWR arms race

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I’m not supporting Tulane’s methods, but neither acceptance nor yield rates are factors in USNWR’s ranking methodology. Is the thought a lower acceptance rate and/or higher yield would increase the peer review rating? If so, I don’t think I would agree with that.

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Interesting @Mwfan1921, I always thought that acceptance rate was factored into the ratings. Go figure. FWIW, I know that Northwestern places great emphasis on ED for particular demographics and this evolved from an initiative years ago aimed at increasing yield. I know this first hand from someone who worked there at the time. DM me for more info if you desire.

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I believe you on NU’s changing emphasis of ED.

In a number of non-Ivy D1 schools we are seeing some tell recruited athletes to apply EA or RD rather than ED/REA to open up ED slots for non-athletes. Makes sense in some ways…get some more students you want in ED, push some near 100% certain-to-be-enrolling students to EA/RD.

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The notion that schools are trying to maximize yield and/or minimize acceptance rate with the goal of bettering their ranking is one of the most pervasive falsehoods perpetuated on this site. Those citing it seem to prefer to add their yell into the echo chamber rather than take a few minutes to view the factors used by the rankings publications and see that neither is present. It’s become an easy, convenient and incorrect way to vent frustration with specific schools and the the overall admissions process.

Driving yield and acceptance rate have many benefits for colleges but improving ranking through those metrics isn’t one of them.

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Acceptance rate & yield of any particular school can affect “peer assessment score” rating(s) which accounts for a significant part (20%) of the ratings formula which determine US News’ rankings.

Works very well with respect to graduate & professional school ratings & rankings in US News.

The US News’ rankings correlate with the published acceptance rates for colleges, universities, law schools, and graduate schools of business.

Also, there have been a handful of scandals regarding misreporting of statistics in efforts to boost US News rankings. (The University of Illinois School of Law is one that worked. Also, attempted by Temple University’s graduate business school.)

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