At cornell regular vs ED is like 14% vs 28%, duke 9% vs 26%, and a number of highly competitive schools have similar statistics. Im wondering if applying early decision can actually help someone get in to the school or if the acceptances are misleading and really it’s just that more competitive applicants tend to apply early decision so more are accepted? thanks could really use some insight
ED does help at many schools because the student is committing to attend – you can google a ton of articles on it. Do keep in mind that applicants with hooks (ex. recruited athletes, legacy) tend to apply ED which plays a part in making the acceptance rate higher.
Yes, and yes. ED candidates are often really good students. Though my understanding is that at some colleges, .ed won’t help that much, because it is kind of “reserved” for athletes, legacies, and special cases. Don’t quote me though.
It can depend on the school. If the school considers “level of applicant’s interest”, ED is the strongest possible way of showing interest.
Yes it definitely can help but depends on the school and the size of the school. You mention Duke, and on their website and in their info sessions they say that ED can provide a boost. Some schools like students who want them, others don’t care as much. At very small (2,000 and under) LACs, the boost can be nil because of the 200 kids they accept early, there are enough recruited athletes and legacies to take most of those spots.
In many cases ED can help you. Only problem is that you are locked in to pay however much they give you, and in some cases you’ll never know whether you would have gotten into the other schools you really liked.
If you really really like a school like Duke for example, ED can greatly benefit you. Just hope that you’re not paying the full 60k
Given interest is a factor considered by most schools, ED will certainly give you a boost, but by how much, it is hard to tell.
Actually interest is NOT a factor considered at most schools. That would include most public colleges.
I’m going to disagree a bit with @“Erin’s Dad” here. Whether or not the CDS mentions demonstrated interest, I’m a firm believer that many private schools and maybe even some publics really care. Our experience with DS and many of his high stat friends is that they got some very random rejections from some schools where they didn’t do much to show interest. With kids that have top 10 level qualifications, grades, scores, ECs, etc… It would seem that a lot of schools know they are going to be competing with the top schools for those kids and maybe figure it’s not worth wasting an admission, and a lower yield, by letting them in. ED seemed to work pretty well with schools that were highly ranked but maybe not the most highly ranked. I’m sure most of the Ivies and equivalents know how much interest a kid has. But NYU, Pomona, and Vandy for example, it might make a big difference.
Last year several top ED schools admitted close to 50% of their class ED. They could not ALL have been athletes or legacies.
Also, they VERY highest applicants do SCEA to a HYPS for two reasons, first because they feel they have a shot and second because it is non binding so gives them a boost without committing them and they can compare money.
@SeekingPam , it depends on the scool. A small LAC --freshman class of 500 – may be using close to 250 for athletes and legacies. If the have 30 sports teams (men’s and women’s ) and each coach wants 5 (which is not so many), and you have a few who need more, such as football, and then you add the legacies and perhaps the bassoonist the orchestra needs, there’s not a lot of room for the random kid. Many schools now tell legacies they have to ED to get the benefit of that status. Of course, this isn’t true everywhere. If you look at the FB pages some of these schols set up for their new classes and read the posts from December, you’ll wonder if anyone is a mere student s’s opposed to a student -athlete.
I tend to agree with @notveryzen. Even if a school says it doesn’t consider demonstrated interest on its CDS, it still may pay to apply ED especially at lots of top LAC’s like Pomona. Our kid was an unhooked high stats girl. We figured that applying ED1 meant that her high stats gave her a better chance of standing out in ED1 (among the athletes and legacies) than would’ve been the case in the RD round. Every one in her HS with a similar profile was applying REA to HYPS. She probably had a good chance of getting into her LAC in the RD round, but maybe she would’ve been edged out by another unhooked high stats girl. ED made sense for her. Seven of her classmates applied to her LAC in the RD round and none got in. This year the only one to get in was a recruited athlete. Purely anecdotal evidence of course, but we’re glad our kid applied ED.
Of course we have seen several threads recently of people regretting their ED admissions, usually because the ED school was a strategic choice and not the true first choice.
@Corinthian makes a great point about strategic choice vs. first choice. I think we’re entering a time where kids have to be a lot more strategic in the process and maybe worry a little less about a perfect fit. If you are aiming for a top 20-30 school, and there are legitimate reasons beyond being a prestige hungry charlatan, you have to choose wisely and do everything you can to maximize your chances.
My S was accepted to 3 top 20ish schools but I can easily envision a situation where he could have been totally shut out like some of his friends with similar or better grades and scores. The schools are very different on the surface but all offered the program he wanted and all would have put him on the path to the career he is currently focused on. The smartest strategic decision he made was avoiding SCEA even though he really wanted to take a shot at a couple of those schools. He didn’t do ED but thought long and hard about it and would have been perfectly happy at the ED school or at his current top choice which only had EA.
Whether and how much ED matters at any given school, the school certainly wants applicants to think it matters a lot, since it helps make yield higher and more predictable, and screens out many high financial need applicants without being need aware.
@gardenstategal I know what you mean and for Amherst and their ilk you are correct. I was talking specifically about Vandy 48% of the class ED and UPenn (I foget but it was ridiculous) among others. National research universities.
In fact I am starting to wonder if high stats EDs will start applying to EA schools just to have backups in case finances are an issue?
As for strategic v fit and love. If you visit the school and you read up on it and maybe do an overnight in the fall, exactly what is going to change on December 1 or April 1? If you are not sure on November 1, what makes you think you will be able to decide better on May 1 if money is not an issue?
K1 could not decide in October so in the end the schools made the decision for K1 in April. After the schools decided for K1, it was not a big decision which one was left of the ones that K1 liked. It was not where K1 would have ended up if K1 had done ED and EA.