<p>Particularly Ivy+ schools. Does binding yourself to a college really increase your chances?</p>
<p>I've heard that for UPenn, it really helps, but what about the other ones?</p>
<p>the tulane admissions officer told me they would pick the candidate who applies for ED over RD if they had basically the same record</p>
<p>Because there are fewer students applying early decision rather than regular decision, there is a statistical improvement in your chances for being admitted. Look at Princeton, for example...they admitted almost 600 students through ED out of a pool of 2500; in regular decision, when there could be as many as 12,000 applicants, the school can only admit another 900 - 1000 applicants in order to yield a class of 1150. Crunch the numbers...your chances are way better through ED. UPenn takes about 50% of its class through ED and creates a situation similar to Princeton.</p>
<p>Not all schools, however, take a lot of kids through ED. Pomona, for example, only takes about 29% of its class through ED, leaving plenty of space available in the class for those that apply RD. Brown and other schools usually limit the number of students enrolling through ED at about a third of their classes. Just depends on what schools you are looking at!</p>
<p>For the weaker Ivies, yes. Princeton and Harvard don't have early anymore, so don't worry about those. Yale will favor you to a slight extent, but since all of it's applicants are very good it means you have to be stacking up equally against the other applicants, and the extra EA will push you in.</p>
<p>For schools like Cornell and Dartmouth, and Upenn for the matter, ED will be a larger boost. Some special programs, like the Huntsman program at Upenn, are open only to ED applicants.</p>
<p>I think Harvard and Princeton are ending their early programs next year.</p>
<p>Else I think Kami has it right.</p>
<p>It is school specific with ED being a bigger boost than EA. There was a book that claimed to quantify it. The numbers were substantial with ED being worth more than 100 SAT points ... was it ED 150 and EA 50? </p>
<p>Columbia's ED acceptance rate is almost triple their RD.</p>
<p>Well, according to <a href="http://admitspit.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/admission-statistics-for-top-colleges-2006%5B/url%5D">http://admitspit.wordpress.com/2006/09/18/admission-statistics-for-top-colleges-2006</a>, Princeton had an ED acceptance rate of 49% (49%?!) for the high school Class of 2005. This may or may not be a typo, but the acceptance rate for this year's Class of 2007 was still 26%, which is already quite high. But if a 49% turns out to be an authentic statistic (nearly 1 out of 2 students accepted?!), does this not convince you of at least ED giving Ivy applicants an edge?</p>
<p>The EA rates for Harvard, Yale, and Stanford (and the ED rates for other Ivies such as UPenn) usually turn up significantly higher than their overall acceptance rate after RD is factored in, as demonstrated by <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=278646%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=278646</a>.</p>
<p>"they would pick the candidate who applies for ED over RD if they had basically the same record"</p>
<p>This is THE phrase that you need to remember above all else. If you are not a STRONG candidate for the school EA/Ed won't help you these days, with so many more qualified applicants trying for the same # of openings. The STRONGEST candidates often apply early, which is a BIG reason why early acceptance % is often higher. As for ED, because acceptance is binding, the colleges want to lock in candidates they would probably accept in the regular acceptance round anyway, and thus ensure they have a good start on filling their class with students they want. You can't just look at the precentages of early acceptances and think you have a better chance if you are not a strong candidate for acceptace.</p>
<p>ED IS a clear edge. Any school would be impressed with a strong candidate that wants to attend its school over any other. I would agree a marginal candidate may not be helped at all depending on how big the ED pool is. The reason it is an edge is that we all know that many strong candidates do not get in RD at many schools.</p>
<p>Check the early admissions stats carefully. At Dartmouth, for example, they admit about 30% of the class early. However, if you pull out the number of legacies and recruited athletes from the number admitted early this year, you are still back to a 15% admission rate for the other early admits.</p>
<p>^^ ED is NOT NOT NOT a clear edge. In fact, applicants face BIGGER competition in the EA rounds at the most competitive schools. For example, more than half of Stanford's EAers had either 2400s or were on the top of their class. Certainly class rank doesn't mean everything, but we can see that not everyone in the RD pool is like that. Additionally, those higher acceptance rates are deceiving. </p>
<p>For Princeton, it seems as though your chances are doubled (from about 12 to 25). However, about half of the kids Princeton accepts in the EA round are legacies, URMs, or recruited athletes. So what is the admit rate for the 'normal' kid?.... about 13 percent. You have a slight, very very small advantage by applying early (percentage wise at least), but remember that the applicant pool IS stronger. </p>
<p>Furthermore, should you be deferred from the EA round, it is much harder to be accepted in the RD round. Since colleges have already basically said, 'you're not good enough' in the EA round, you are starting the RD round with a big X on your application. However, when you apply RD, colleges have not seen your app before, so you start off with complete indifference. The point is that EAers present bigger competition, and although that 1 percent addition to the admit rate is nice, it doesn't pay off for the disadvantages you receive if deferred.</p>
<p>I'm always amazed how clueless most high schoolers are to the admissions game, period. Read "The Early Admissions Game", a book that statistically proves that applying to SOME schools early is extremely beneficial. (And yes, it takes into account legacies, URMs, recruited athletes, etc.)</p>
<p>kryptonsa36- Princeton did not have a 49% acceptance rate early that year. In fact, it was 26.7%. Here's the article I got it from: http:<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S13/47/72C39/index.xml?section=topstories%5B/url%5D">www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S13/47/72C39/index.xml?section=topstories</a></p>
<p>Why don't you let us know what those 'SOME' schools are.</p>
<p>The book looked at 14 or so schools, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Stanford, UChicago, Columbia, etc. The schools that demonstrated the greatest advantage for applying early were Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and UPenn. If I remember correctly, MIT did not seem to favor early applicants and there wasn't a big boost at Cornell.</p>
<p>Although my D is still very interested in going to Amherst she was deferred ED. Amherst accepted 134 ED of 350 who applied. 175 were deferred and 38 were rejected. Of the 134 who were accepted 70 were male and 64 were female. 28% were "students of color" and 21% were legacies. This does not take into consideration those who got tips because of sports prowess who are counted as ED. So folks you do the math. If you are a white, upper middle class, female whose parents did not go to Amherst and are not a tipped athelete your chances were minimal ED even if you had fantastic credentials. I think the same applies to the top lacs and some of the top universities. I think I would advise parents and students who are applying next year to carefully look into the statistics as they apply to your child's demographics. I think U.C Berkley has it right when acceptance there is based upon pure merit and nothing else. See this weekend's NY Times Education supplement. </p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with Amherst's building of it's class of 2011 but we were not realistic in reading in between the lines of what their ED reality would be.</p>
<p>"Check the early admissions stats carefully. At Dartmouth, for example, they admit about 30% of the class early. However, if you pull out the number of legacies and recruited athletes from the number admitted early this year, you are still back to a 15% admission rate for the other early admits."</p>
<p>Okay, let's do that. For Class of 2011, Dartmouth had 1287 ED apps and accepted 382. An admit rate of 29.7%. Of the 382 accepted, 58 were legacies and 120 were recruited athletes -- 178 total, assuming no overlaps, meaning 204 of the admits were not in either category.</p>
<p>So, even if 100% of the legacy and recruited athlete ED applicants were accepted, the admit rate for everyone else would be 18.4% (1109 apps/204 admits).</p>
<p>But that is an absurd scenario. Let's assume that 50% of the legacies and recruited athlete applicants were admittted -- closer to reality but still too high (an assessment I make on the basis of data from Haverford from last year, to which I do not have access right now). In that scenario, the admit rate for non-legacies, non-athletes would be 21.9% (931 apps/204 admits). (If the admit rate for legacies and athletes were 45%, the admit rate for everyone else would be 22.9%; if the legacy/athlete admit rate were 40%, the admit rate for everyone else would be 24.2%). </p>
<p>For the Class of 2010, the overall admit rate was 15.4% -- and that means the RD admit rate was something lower than that. Looks to me like 21.9% is better.</p>
<p>You can't just say there were this many athletes or that many legacies admitted without knowing how many in those groups applied. And you can't say ED is of no benefit because of those groups without knowing what the comparative percentages for those groups are as applicants and admits in both the ED and RD rounds. (Same point with URMs or whatever.)</p>
<p>To be sure, the benefit of ED for the "non-hooked" candidate is undoubtedly not as dramatic as a bare comparison of ED and RD admits rates might suggest. But that doesn't mean ED is not a meaningful leg up. Williams admitted 41% of its ED applicants for the Class of 2011; Williams' overall admit rate last year was about 18% (making its RD admit rate lower). You'll need some pretty clear data to convince me that difference is all attributable to legacies, recruited athletes and URMs. </p>
<p>(There are schools where ED does not appear to be a big boost. The ED and overall admit rates at MIT, for example, are pretty comparable.)</p>
<p>Well, the thing is I'm no star athlete like Michelle Wie who got accepted to Stanford EA... but how bout someone with my stats who devotes a lot of time to my extra-curriculars?
(I'm a junior so I'm retaking my SAT's this year)</p>
<p>I'm thinking of applying EA/ED to UPenn Huntsman, UPenn Jerome Fisher, Stanford, OR Princeton...</p>
<p>(sorry this should kinda be in the other discussion category)</p>
<p>hmm dont know why they make asteriks....</p>
<p>RATS </p>
<p>it's on *******</p>
<p><a href="http://www">www</a>. ******* . com/display.php?user=august_chopin</p>
<p>^ please erase the spaces I put</p>
<p>If you apply to other elite schools that aren't necessarily need-blind in the application process, ED is a boost b/c they know that you are pretty much trapped even if they don't give you a great package</p>
<p>LOL CC must think P - R - S - T - A - T - S is some foul language word</p>
<p>well replace the * with that ^</p>