<p>I hope I'm not imagining this.
Applying early decision just puts you into a different pool of applicants with roughly the same qualifications as most others.
Can anyone confirm/deny/flat out tell me I'm completely wrong?</p>
<p>Applying ED will help you definitely as it helps boost the matriculation yield for colleges. EA however, won't help nearly as much.</p>
<p>I just recently read in a book at B&N (I can't remember the exact name but they seem to know what they were talking about) that ED and EA is actually harder with tougher applicants, albeit much fewer applicants. Their reasoning (and research) said that students who apply ED generally have a strong sense of what they want to do, are proactive, or are more organized. Thus, these students are the prepared ones and willing to take a stab at their #1 choice. It would be unwise for a student who always wanted to attend Stanford to go ED at a school he wouldn't be happy with.</p>
<p>I applied to college about 10 years ago and I was also under the impression that it was easier to get in with ED. However, my brother applied two years ago to both EA and ED (U. Chic. and Northwestern) and got into both. Thus, he never attempted to apply anywhere else so I don't know how he'd fair but we talk about this and he (as well as I) don't feel he was that strong of a candidate (grades and SAT scores). </p>
<p>But if you trust the B&N book, it's harder, not equal or easier with EA/ED. But seriously, what do you have to lose? You get your essays done earlier and you might even get an extra interview practice session in (if you don't get in to your school).</p>
<p>There is no single answer to this question (there's a similar thread, discussing this, a couple of pages back in this forum), because it depends on the school. In general, NW and UChicago are really good bets for ED and EA. They do not have big endowments; they would fit in the "enrollment management" group of schools that can only afford to give out so much financial aid, and they have yield concerns versus institutions similar to them, as well those up one notch from them. Chicago especially, NOT because it's supposedly less desirable, less excellent -- but because fewer people apply, given its rigors -- is a good bet, and without risk because their EA has no restrictions. (It's not SCEA) NW, which may have a larger pool of applicants, is nevertheless still quite interested in full-freight customers. (Though they are called a University, they are really more like an LAC in that regard.) ED is also a good bump for Vassar, as they are right up front about not being need-blind for admissions.</p>
<p>However, for the super-selective schools, it really is best to honestly assess your chances. Preferences for that round go first to the clearly hooked applicants who also have very good academic records. If you are not in a hooked category of admission, you should be one super student if you are working off of an Early Round strategy first, followed by development of RD apps. If you are merely quite competitive (but not superlative) and you are not hooked, it's likely that you will deferred to the RD round if you are applying to HYPCS, at the least. If it's no big deal for you to be deferred, if you think you can recover quickly enough to turn out sufficiently good RD apps to a variety of other colleges, then there's no loss by trying the EA/ED route anyway. But even so, it would still be better to begin RD apps at the same time you're working on your Early app. I've seen student after student lose time & positive energy "waiitng" for the Early decisions, then scrambling frantically with less time to polish the RD apps when they get deferred.</p>
<p>There are two veins of thought:</p>
<p>1) Statistically it's easier</p>
<p>2) The pool is self-selective and ergo it's just as competitive</p>
<p>An ED pool has a high concentration of athletic and legacy admits. As a result, the overall SAT scores are slightly lower than those of regular admits. For the 'unhooked' applicant, ED is, in my opinion, just as hard as regular.</p>