<p>Title says it all</p>
<p>EA’s overall admit rate is higher than RD’s, but that doesn’t mean anything for the individual student. A student with a borderline application won’t be accepted just because he applied EA. Bottom line is, you’re either going to be accepted or denied, and when you apply shouldn’t make all that much of a difference.</p>
<p>That being said, apply RD if and only if your application needs the extra couple months of review.</p>
<p>Extra time meaning sat act test taken during September?</p>
<p>I believe that incontrovertibly EA applicants would have a stronger chance than RD applicants.
Of course, OxalisWombo is correct. If you are a failure student applying with a 2.1 GPA or something, doesn’t matter when you apply.
If you are borderline, EA might be that extra bump you need.</p>
<p>Honestly, I don’t care how much stronger the EA applicant pool is. IIRC, last year the EA admit rate was a good 15-20% higher (if not more) than the RD admit rate. I would hesitate to claim that the EA applicants were that much more ‘fit’ or ‘qualified’ for UChicago.</p>
<p>If anything, there is reason to believe that at Chicago the EA pool may NOT be stronger than the RD pool. The RD pool is going to contain at least a couple thousand application – and maybe more – from people who thought they had a good enough shot at being accepted at HYPS to apply SCEA to one of them. That’s a really strong group of candidates who are effectively excluded from the EA pool.</p>
<p>Note that last year was a real anomaly – Chicago significantly increased the number of applicants it accepted EA, notwithstanding that people knew at the time that RD application numbers were going through the roof. To me, it looked like a deliberate signal to people that they ought to apply EA. Chicago had never done anything like that before, and in fact the official line was always that EA/RD didn’t matter. But of course, the admissions office is under relatively new management. This will be Year 3. We’ll have to see whether they do it again.</p>
<p>Also: “extra time” as in fall semester grades, more time to do the essays, and perhaps November test dates. October test scores are fine for EA.</p>
<p>When I looked at the 2015 UChicago results threads, there were fewer unexplainable decisions in the EA round than in RD. Like, you could more often point to a couple of real reasons why someone was deferred/rejected in EA.</p>