<p>I'm sorry if this question has been asked before, but do you have a better chance. My GPA is a 3.55, and some schools I want to apply to have an average GPA intake of 3.67 etc.</p>
<p>For the most part the answer is yes. Some schools favor ED more than others. Also, remember that most athletes and legacies apply ED which can distort the numbers and make it look like the chance of ED admissions are higher than they actually are for an unhooked candidate.</p>
<p>Colleges say you don’t, but their admit rate for ED is usually higher, often much higher, than regular and thus what they say needs to be take with a grain of salt. Nevertheless that does not mean your chances are really increased if you are outside its usual middle 50% range.</p>
<p>Colleges that say it doesn’t help are being honest. It’s to their advantage to get more ED applicants (yield), so why would they lie?</p>
<p>That said, it does help at the vast majority of colleges. At some of the tipy top it does not because they limit the percent they take in the early round and generally maintain the round to admit athletes, legacies and the otherwise hooked.</p>
<p>Colleges really like applicants who WANT to go to their school. With so many students applying to a long list of schools, just because a student is applying does not mean the student is truly interested. So, by applying ED you are literally saying this is the only school I want to go to, and that means a lot to a College. So I would say it really does help, especially if you are on the lower side with stats. </p>
<p>If it didn’t help, then why would schools even bother with it?</p>
<p>@Eliyahu is exactly right. If you don’t seem interested in a college, they won’t be interested in you. Early Decision is a binding agreement, so it really says loud and clear “this is my number one.”</p>
<p>As for some real data, Cornell admits 1/5 of students regular decision, while they admit 1 in 3 for early decision. So it makes a significant difference.</p>
<p>There’s a book, “The Best 361 Colleges” that lists the percentage accepted ED and the percentage accepted RD. You can probably find it at your local library or in the guidance counselor’s office. For some schools, it makes much more of a difference but you have to WANT that ONE school!</p>
<p>Don’t lump all schools together; asking “Do colleges…” is mostly not meaningful. </p>
<p>Applying ED can give a boost at some schools, but don’t pay much attention to the ED/RD admission rate differences: the ED applicants are highly self-selected, skewing the numbers.</p>
<p>What skews the numbers is all of the ‘friends and family’ that must apply ED to get special treatment Recruited athletes top the list making up over 15% of the class at ivies. Legacies are next and are over 10% at every ivy. Do the math, this is not an opportunity for sub par candidates!</p>
<p>Ivies/peers do not care about demonstrated interest-half the country is intersted-but many colleges ranked below them do.</p>
<p>Well, the Ivies are mostly irrelevant to most U.S. high school students; about 0% of U.S. college students attend Ivies.</p>
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<p>Even “lower” Ivies and their peers offer ED as a way of demonstrating interest and manipulating yield. Speaking anecdotally, schools like Columbia, Duke, Amherst tend to be more willing to overlook a lack of spectacular EC accomplishments or a transcript weakness (like straight-B’s in math) for ED applicants. This isn’t, of course, to say that ED will help a subpar applicant, but that it can certainly be a boost for students with solid but not “wow-worthy” stats/ECs.</p>
<p>A friend who visited Vassar also said that the adcoms were very forthcoming about the importance of ED, when adcoms aren’t overwhelmed by applications and they don’t have to worry about playing the yield game.</p>
<p>lyssar henry is right about the cornell statistic.
but correct me if i’m wrong: it is only a statistic.
sure, 1/3 looks much better than 1/5, but the whole " only those who are deadset on attending the school Early decision to it" argument backfires in this instance. Many people who are DEAD SET on attending a college like cornell usually have great gpas, ec’s, and other accomplishments that are prodigious. in other words, the pool of applicants will be different from the pool of regular admission applicants. What im trying to say is, though the STATISTIC may be better ED, the CHANCE of getting in may not match the given statistics.</p>
<p>^That’s the argument for EA, not ED.</p>
<p>glassesarechic: So are you saying that applying EA to a school like Yale doesn’t really help out your admission chances? I definitely had the impression that Yale’s SCEA definitely does help out your chances, if only by a little.</p>
<p>Applying SCEA to Yale doesn’t help your admission chances.</p>
<p>The ED stats are better than RD, but it is a different (and self-selecting) universe. Some colleges do use it to defend their yield.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/761568-applying-stanford-vandy-cmc-chicago-northwestern-tulane-ea-choice.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/761568-applying-stanford-vandy-cmc-chicago-northwestern-tulane-ea-choice.html</a></p>
<p>Scroll down to post #21/22 from xiggi. Of course, this data is a bit dated but it’s close enough for anyone’s purposes.</p>
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<p>Yes, that’s what I’m saying. The early pool to schools like Yale and Stanford is generally more competitive than the RD pool, and numbers are inflated by athletes, legacies, and the otherwise hooked. It’s difficult for the average applicant to stand out in such a pool; they will likely be deferred.</p>
<p>Small schools, usually yes. Places like Elon and Davidson take ED VERY seriously. Bigger schools generally don’t care as much. You can find out how much it matters for each school on the college board website.</p>
<p>At stanford, it’s 12% admit rate over 8%.
not a huge deal.
At Elon, 80% get in ED whereas 48% get in in the overall pool.
At yale, 13% get in ED over 8%.
It depends.</p>