<p>A lot of people on here say that, when they apply early action or early decision to schools (mostly seen Cornell), they're maximizing their chances for admission into that school. Is this true?</p>
<p>Generally, it is true…in that the % of admits from the EA/ED pool are significantly higher than the regular decision pool. For example, I think I read that the early admission % rate for Cornell this year was about 30% while the % rates for regular admits was closer to 15%.</p>
<p>For most schools, the acceptance rate is higher with EA/ED. However, the EA/ED applicants also have better credentials in average. Also, there is a much smaller pool of applicants doing EA/ED than RD. Top schools like Stanford, most applicants got rejected if not accepted from SCEA. Only a small fraction of students got deferred for RD.</p>