<p>How much does early decision really increase your chances of being accepted? All Schools accept a higher percentage of Early Decision applicants than RD, and one would assume that the Early Decision pool isn't as competitive. </p>
<p>But how much easier is it to get accepted Early Decision? For example how difficult would it be to get into Vanderbilt or Duke Early Decision vs. RD?? </p>
<p>Anybody know based on studies, experience, or knowledge of ED acceptances?</p>
<p>just my opinion/slight knowledge/belief, i'm not a ED researcher though, so i appologize if you believe otherwise...
it's not "easier" to get into great schools ED, it's just a pool of more serious usually more qualified applicants, so a large percent of them get in... they don't let in people ED that they definetly wouldn't let in RD, but it at least shows you're love/dedication for the school if that means much.</p>
<p>bump. There is no evidence to support the last post, all the data shows that it helps to some extent. Just wanted to know specifically how hard it would be to get into Duke or Vanderbilt ED???????? (by how much does ED augment an application).</p>
<p>You'd have to look up the statistics for each school you're interested in. For some schools, the ED admission rates can be far better than the normal admission rates, but for the top schools, the ED admission rates usually aren't significantly better than the regular rates. For example, applying to EA to MIT gives you almost the exact same odds as a regular decision candidate, and some might argue that your odds are even worsened by EA due to the extra high quality of EA candidates.</p>
<p>I think MIT is more of an exception than a rule, ED rates are significantly (like 2 or 3 times) higher than RD rates at many top schools.
ED gives you a better chance- Schools always say that ED applicant's are just stronger, but I'm not buying it. A lot of ED applicants are students who know they are a bit below a schools standard admit so they apply early to try and push themselves over the edge.</p>
<p>Hmm, yeah, why do most people think EA/ED applicants are of a higher caliber than RD applicants? I mean, I get the legacy/athlete thing, and I'm not disputing that belief, I just want to know why.</p>
<p>little_galaxie, the idea is that in order to apply ED you have to have a clearer idea of what you want, and be able to get your application in order by an earlier date - in other words, a higher-than-average degree of organization and motivation. In the RD round, there are kids who may apply at the last minute just for the hell of it, or kids who may not really know what they're looking for and are just trying to apply somewhere - not in the ED round. There's really no evidence either for or against this argument, so there's little point debating it, but that's the hypothesis.</p>
<p>How difficult are Duke and Vanderbilt ED vs. RD? People you can use data, experience, or even underqualified/overqualified people you know who were accepted/rejected.</p>
<p>From the College Board website: Duke - 23% acceptance rate, 41% accepted ED. Vanderbilt admits 33% overall but doesn't have ED data posted.</p>
<p>JJJ1234, the statistics are kind of misleading, because in general the people who apply ED are more likely to get in anyway, regardless of whether they applied early or not, so don't just say, hey look, Duke's ED acceptance rate is way bigger, so I should do that. But then again, applying ED does suggest to colleges that, wow, this person really wants to go to our school.</p>
<p>How hard is it to get into Duke or Vanderbilt ED? Im not satisfied with the previous responses, because they are either uninformative or false.</p>
<p>Getting into any school ED isn't much easier than it would be if you applied regular, because your application is exactly the same. The only difference is that by applying ED, you show the colleges that this is really your first choice.</p>