My D24 is having a hard time deciding whether to apply to one of her RD schools ED II if she gets rejected or deferred from her ED I school. In general ED applicants are admitted at a higher rate, but my impression is that the bump is mainly for ED I. Anyone have more knowledge about whether there is an actual and measurable acceptance bump from applying ED II as well?
ED 2 also comes with an admissions advantage over regular decision.
3 Likes
Will depend on the school - and not all ED bumps are truly bumps - and some schools will own up to that.
For some it is, especially if need aware.
Think about it this way - unless you are a true elite.
You can guarantee a butt in seat, hopefully full pay - vs. taking the chance later of not getting someone.
So in those schools, it will be a lift.
1 Like
Personally, I don’t think it makes sense to assume there is any sort of universal bump for ED 1 or ED 2, and indeed at some colleges there is very little difference in acceptance rates between ED and RD, and the difference is plausibly explainable by other factors.
But, there may be a narrow range of colleges in certain locations that “yield protect” in RD. If they do, ED 2 would seem to have the same virtues from their perspective as ED 1.
For the school D24 is applying to, the common data sets show a clear admissions advantage to applying ED. We are not applying for need-based aid. She is applying ED 1 to Vassar, which is need blind. Her potential ED II schools are all mostly need aware: BU, Wesleyan, Trinity, Dickinson, Mount Holyoke, Lafayette. I think she likes BU the best but that’s technically harder to get into than Vassar so not sure if that’s her best bet.
I think any school that offers ED II is practicing yield management, but I do not have any idea how much the ED II bump represents over RD.
Side comment–I have never looked at Vassar or BU but assumed Vassar would be the more selective admit. Interesting.
If you are referring to a higher pool-wide acceptance rate in ED than RD, that is not actually evidence of a universal boost, as the applicant pools can be very different, and there can be special cases where it matters a lot (like recruited athletes) that do not apply outside of those cases.
Anyway, if she likes BU best (after Vassar), I would personally only consider that for her ED II school. That is quite a mix of other colleges, but what I would suggest is just making sure she is very comfortable with her likely and target lists.
1 Like
I note there are colleges like Rochester that offer ED II and yet have almost no reported difference between ED and RD admittance rates. Obviously colleges like Rochester are happy to get enrollees they like through ED I or ED II, but they are not really in a position to turn down equally desirable applicants in RD. Instead they have to admit them, then fight for them with things like merit programs.
1 Like
I don’t have stats at my disposal to back up my off-the-cuff impression, but there are a number of schools that actively encourage applicants to convert their RD apps to ED II (Chicago & Northeastern come to mind).
Need aware schools also favor EDII as those students remove some of the uncertainty around FA awards in RD. An old article but still an interesting read.
I didn’t even realize that Rochester offered ED II. They used to offer non-need based merit awards but I don’t know if they still do so.
1 Like
If you think of it, EDII is EDI without the recruited athletes… always remember to substract the 100 pct admission of recruited athletes from EDI. Also BU is much larger than the LACs, and if it’s anything like peers Tulane and Northeastern, EDII makes a huge difference compared to RD but probably at the expense of full need being met as others have suggested. An unaffordable EDII is useless.
2 Likes
So - first off:
Vassar and BU - wow - opposites 
Secondly, no one has to ED. It’s a choice.
Don’t forget, many athletes will be in ED - so that will impact Vassar more. So I would take the 363 of 940 with a huge grain of salt.
You shouldn’t be ED’ing for best chances but for - where does the student really want to be.
If Vassar and BU are the top two choices - great.
If you said, BU is a harder get so we’ll do Lafayette instead because the odds are better - that would be silly. Because you should be where you want to be.
If I said to you - you could get $15K off at Lafayette or more at Mt. Holyoke but nothing at Vassar or BU, would it matter? If it would, that would be another consideration. Merit is likely at those two but not these first two.
Whatever you decide, good luck.
1 Like
I have heard a number of schools speak about how unpredictable ED2 is. They just don’t see the same patterns every year. Schools are opportunistic for ED2 and react to the applicants that are in the pool. Is there an ED2 bump in acceptance rate, compared to RD? Maybe, but again it’s unpredictable. There are still hooked applicants coming thru in ED2 (athletes, QB, etc) but the number is more variable than ED1. I haven’t heard of any schools that meet/don’t meet full need in ED1/2 vs other rounds. Do some schools that don’t meet full need offer less merit to ED1/2 applicants? Yep, and it’s important for applicants to sort thru that before applying ED1/2.
Many, many private colleges do. There typically isn’t a compelling reason not to. You have to crank out decisions a little faster, but otherwise it is a very one-sided deal in favor of the college.
The problem these colleges have is just not enough applicants they want sign up for that deal. At Rochester, in their latest CDS they admitted 614 out of 1437 ED (total, so 1 and 2 combined), 42.7%. But they were looking to enroll a class of around 1625, so they also needed to admit 7136 out of 18496 non-ED, 38.5%.
This is actually really common if you look outside a narrow range of colleges.
Like, nearby Syracuse, 1235/2060 ED 1 and 2, 60.0% (and in their case that is going to be a decent chunk of recruited athletes). They were looking to enroll a class of around 4108, so they had to admit 20236/39429 non-ED, 51.3%.
University of Denver, 139/224 out of ED 1 and 2, 62.1%, want to get to like 1638, so 14885/19118 non-ED, 77.9% (actually higher).
And yes, all these colleges have robust merit programs.
I think Vassar might be a tougher admit if you are thinking of required stats/honors/skills to be admitted. And Vassar is a fit school, so has a self-selecting applicant pool, meaning fewer apps than you might expect if you just looked at the admitted student stats.
BU is a tougher admit from the standpoint of percent admitted. BU gets waaaay more apps. In large part because location.
5 Likes
If she is competitive for Vassar, and you are full pay, I would expect many of the schools on your list to be targets or safeties. In which case, your daughter might want to wait and see if she gets into Vassar RD or off waitlist.
Thanks. I was thinking after I wrote that about how popular urban areas have become to college applicants, Boston especially.
I realize there is a much larger cohort who want to attend school down south in the warmth.
Many of my perceptions/biases are outdated.
I have never visited Vassar but have wandered down Comm Ave alongside BU buildings.
1 Like
I just googled a list of ED II schools and was very surprised at some of the ones listed: Hopkins, CMU, and Vanderbilt, in particular.
I used to calculate the RD yield rate and recall being shocked by how low it is at some schools, especially those that admit 50+ % of their class via ED.
Yeah, I am not sure people always realize how even very well-ranked/popular/famous schools tend to have a lot of cross-admits in RD with other really well-ranked/popular/famous schools, such that many of them necessarily have pretty low RD yields. Which means they may admit a lot more people RD than some realize, even if that only yields a relatively small percentage of their class in the end.
Of course in some sense people should know this. Like, a few months from now, a lot of kids represented here will be turning down offers from some really good colleges. And that is what produces those relatively low RD yields.
Whether ED2 confers an advantage really depends on the school, but I believe it probably does, at least some. Most schools release their ED stats for all ED rounds together so it’s hard to break out.
Most of the supported athletes and special programs (QB) are in ED1, so the pool is more likely to be similar to RD. At some schools, it will include many kids who were not successful at their SCEA schools, and to the extent they had been viable candidates for Stanford or Harvard, they can make the pool very competitive. I’m going to guess this is less the case for BU than a school like Williams, for example.
Unlike ED1, the timing will not spare you preparing RD applications, so you are doing this simply for an earlier answer and that bump (perhaps tiny, perhaps bigger) for the school knowing you’ll come if they say yes.
Also, if you are deferred at your ED1 school, presumably your favorite, you are giving up a chance to get in RD or from the WL if your ED2 application is successful. The odds here are hard to calculate, but the emotion of giving that up should be considered. For some it’s harder than others.
If it’s feeling like a tough choice, figure out why – that might help you decide what to do.
3 Likes
I was going to mention this. I know a student who got into Vassar off the waitlist this past summer and is enrolled there now.