<p>I heard that ED/EA has a more competitive pool of applicants. Is this true?
I can understand that EA applicants have higher stats than RD applicants on average. However, I don't understand why ED has a more competitive pool than RD because ED is binding.
Most students will not apply ED to schools that they think they can get in through RD. So I think many students apply ED to their reach school, which would make the pool less competitive. </p>
<p>Caveat: The following applies to schools outside the usual suspects, HYPSM, the Ivies, and the Top 5 LACs.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s different for private schools, but we go to one of the top public HS (Top 50 open enrollment Newsweek HS) in the country both academically and economically. Paying full rate is still a burden here, $60K a year is a huge number, so the number of kids even here that are willing to commit blind to a school, regardless of the FA package is small. I outright asked our GCs how many kids out of a class of 300+ that applied ED that were not athletically recruited. The answer was 10, of which 5 got in. The number of kids choosing SCEA or REA schools are much, much higher. So ED even from an elite public is still a very, very small component of admissions that few take advantage of.</p>
<p>So is the applicant pool stronger? Depends on what you mean - eliminate the athletes, and probably yes, but you’re also correct in assuming that a lot of people are applying to reaches, so maybe it evens out. That said, colleges receive many, many more applications RD than ED, and many of those RD applications are very strong as well. Personally, I think a case can be made that the competition in RD is much, much tougher. If you’re qualified (above the 25th percentile) in the ED round, odds are strong they’ll take you. In the RD round, you might lose to someone just a little better. The mistake students make is thinking that weak candidates have a better chance in ED - they don’t. Rather, it’s the strong candidates who have a better chance because they’re willing to be locked in.</p>