I PM’ed you, @lookingforward . 
I have no memory of the context in which I made the statement quoted in the first post – since I disagree with the OP argument I’m more than curious about that context.
I have seen absolutely no evidence that Brown recalculates GPA. I have attended several workshops where alumni have gone through application folders with admissions officers, and I’ve never seen a recalculated GPA. When a file is reviewed, the GPA is barely looked at. What is studied, very closely, is the entire transcript – the classes taken and the grades received.
So please stop arguing about whether or not GPA is recalculated after junior year and how that affects ED admissions. It’s a moot and spurious argument. Period. Brown asks to see your senior year grades, and uses them to make admissions decisions.
While there is a good chance this is correct, you most certainly can’t conclude this from the handful of people who comment on results threads. A great deal of ED acceptances meet institutional priorities – athletes, developmental, legacy, first-gen, full-pay and minority. But there are also unhooked kids who get in, and us outsiders have no clue what the percentage is and how that percentage compares to RD.
Not true. Brown has publicly said the acceptance rate for deferred students is the same for regular decision students, so it is no more or less rare to get in after a deferral than if you applied regular decision. Bottom line: it is rare for anyone to get accepted.
If Brown is your first choice, if finances are not an issue, and if you can submit a strong application, you should apply ED.
Maybe i used your quote slightly out of context and I apologize if that’s the case. You did say, though, that kids fitting that description (BWRK’s, so to speak) “mostly get deferred” because Brown will see many more of the exact same kids in RD. This makes sense. @fireandrain
@lightsgoout said
Maybe they don’t care much about yield, but I think they do value matriculating a core class of kids who are excited enough about Brown to make a binding first choice commitment.
In the ED round Brown seats almost 45% of it’s class from a mere 10% of the total applicant pool. Let that sink in for a minute…
In the RD round the applicant pool is 10X the applicants (over 30,000) competing for almost the same number of spots taken during the ED round.
In my opinion ED is the way to go, if (1) you’ve visited, done some serious research and self introspection and determined that Brown is your first choice (2) you’re not overreaching, but truly qualified for admission (3) your family is comfortable with the estimated tuition and aid, and (4) you’ve planned well enough to allow ample time to work with your HS guidance counselor, teachers and yourself to put together a coherent application package that makes a strong case for you being at Brown.
I’d like to think the winners in this process are the kids who have done extensive research and deep introspection in putting together a well thought out, balanced, short list of colleges rather than those just applying to a bunch of Ivies and such.
“Every school computes GPA itself. The senior grades they receive are factored into that calculation.”
Not every school recalculates GPA with senior year first semester grades, the UC’s definitely don’t. They all look at the first semester transcript for ED or RD but I don’t think they recalculate the GPAs for all the applicants in the RD cycle or for ED deferrals. Reviewing a mid-year senior transcript is a lot different than recalculation.
“I’d like to think the winners in this process are the kids who have done extensive research and deep introspection in putting together a well thought out, balanced, short list of colleges rather than those just applying to a bunch of Ivies and such.”
It has been shown that early decision only benefits the college, you may find a handful of students that benefited from it but even in those cases, the college also benefits, higher yield, students being locked in to FA packages, and students having less choices. It benefits higher income applicants as well and has raised the stress level of the college admissions process. You have a very unhealthy focus on the decision of that one school in December. As I mentioned in another post, whenever a consumer has less choice, it is bad for the consumer and ED reduces choices, eliminates actually, so in this the only winner is the the vendor (in this case, your friendly college that use ED). Note, this does not apply to schools with pure EA or even SCEA.