<p>OP - An ED applicant will receive one of three possible decisions: admit, reject or defer to RD. An applicant is not automatically deferred if adcoms believe she will not be competitive in the RD round.</p>
<p>Also, you are correct - I believe that at most schools, the FA package may not be the same. However there is no way to verify this since an applicant can only be admitted either ED or RD, but not both - the FA package is calculate only once.</p>
<p>The number of applicants in the ED round matters because this round includes many unique applicants: recruited applicants (admit rate approaching 100%); legacies (varying increase in admit rate based on college policy); and other development applicants with increased admit rates. When these unique applicants, and their correspondingly higher admit rate are removed from the ED pool, the ED admit rate drops to much closer to the RD rate. In other words, the increased ED admit rate results from the self-selection of students, not the adcom policy.</p>
<p>Similarly, all of the “lottery ticket” applicants who have no realistic chance of admission apply during the RD round - they use their ED on a realistic school. If these applicants are removed from the RD pool, the RD admit rate increases closer to the adjusted ED admit rate.</p>