<p>Is EA as competitive as RD for Chicago?
EA's acceptance rate should be about the same if not higher right?
If anyone has actual numbers, that'd be great! :)</p>
<p>buuummppppppppppppppppppppppppp</p>
<p>if your thread is still near the top on the forum, there is no need to bump it. you hadn't even waited an hour before bumping it...
sorry, i don't have any statistics that you're looking for.</p>
<p>I absolutely loathe and despise US News, but I found this bit of information:
USNews.com:</a> America's Best Colleges 2008: National Universities: Where applying early may help you most—or not</p>
<p>Almost half of the entering class was made up of EA admits!</p>
<p>The EA acceptance rate was 33% while the overall rate was 28.5%, which implies that the RD rate must be in the mid to low 20s. The conclusion is that there may be a real advantage to applying EA. </p>
<p>Chicago</a> Maroon | College apps jump by record numbers</p>
<p>Chicago</a> Maroon</p>
<p>Remember that EA is nonbinding, though it doesn't always combine with other plans (for example, you could not apply to us EA and our friends in New Haven early because they have a Single Choice Early Action program; but you could apply to our friends in Pasadena and Chicago early, because both have non-restricted programs).</p>
<p>If you think you're going to do Early Decision, check with the school to see how they feel about other Early Action applications.</p>
<p>Yes, this process exists only to confuse you. :-)</p>
<p>idad,</p>
<p>Maybe.</p>
<p>We really do not have data on the mix of applicants. Reminds me of the results published in "The Early Admissions Game" a few years ago, back when adcoms denied any advantage to applying early. Turns out that at most places is was a huge advantage, but not everywhere. But this was only "discoverable" because Avery et al had access to the actual applicant stats.</p>
<p>We don't have that access here, so we can't conclude anything. </p>
<p>More importantly to me is that such a question seems to imply that the OP subscribes to the gamesmanship approach to admissions, a risky approach.</p>
<p>Admissions is NOT a game. There are no "hidden advantages" awaiting your discovery and exploitation. (more accurately, for every hidden "advantage" there are no doubt several hidden "potholes" for you to stumble into in an effort to "game" the system.)</p>
<p>Generally, admissions people say that the early pools are stronger, on average, than the regular decision pools. Maybe because stronger students are more likely to have their stuff together to apply early, or because the students who apply early tend to be those who are thinking more strategically. And certainly because the early pool will tend to have more people who really love the college, and because the early applicants are tend to be more sophisticated about the process, which probably means they are richer, have higher test scores, etc.</p>
<p>Also, remember that the early pool is where lots of recruited athletes and other "hooked" applicants are admitted (including, last year, Questbridge students). When you strip all of that out, it's really not clear that normal, run-of-the-mill strong applicants have a meaningfully better chance of admission in the early round. Probably there's some advantage, but not a whole lot. Nothing like the advantage at ED colleges, where the ED applicants are committed to attend if accepted, and which pick a similar percentage of their classes from a much smaller percentage of their total applicant pools. (For example, last year Chicago issued about 36% of its total acceptances in the EA round, but the EA applications represented over a third of the total applications it received. Brown issued just under a third of its total acceptances in its ED round, but its ED applications represented under 12% of its total applications.)</p>
<p>At Chicago (and comparable EA schools, like MIT), there's a little bit of a twist, perhaps. The EA pool will not include any students who applied SCEA to Yale or Stanford, or ED to Brown. That's about 12,000 very strong applicants, at least 10,000 of whom will ultimately apply to other colleges, and many, many of whom will at least be considering applying to Chicago. I would be surprised if Chicago didn't get at least 1,500 RD applications from students deferred at Yale, Stanford, or Brown. So there are factors that may suggest that the EA pool is not stronger overall than the RD pool.</p>
<p>I disagree a bit with newmassdad. I think it's naive to think that applicants shouldn't have a strategy, which means paying attention to the "game". Not just for the sake of racking up a big score, of course, but in order to maximize one's chances of being accepted at, and receiving adequate financial aid from, at least one out of the several (I hope) colleges a student has identified as meeting the student's intellectual, educational, and emotional needs. That's why it's important to have safeties, but it's also why people think about early action, etc., too.</p>
<p>Chicago's yield set a record this year as well, resulting in them taking few from their wait list. That, combined with the common application, may make this year even more competitive. Being in the early pool may be the best route since it shows interest and one still has a shot if deferred to RD where the pool may me weaker. However, I too am skeptical of the early pool being stronger argument for U of C. I think those essays keep away many of the "Hail Mary" applicants other schools se in the RD round.</p>
<p>If you can get the forms in on time and you're not otherwise limited by applications elsewhere, I don't see any reason not to do Chicago EA. Your decision comes sooner and you'll know you have a school in the bag (or, alternatively, might want to add a few more safer schools to your list).</p>
<p>^ the only reason i wouldn't do EA is if you had a bad junior year and are using your first semeser senoir year to show improvement.</p>
<p>Or, if you are not happy with your essays by EA time, its probably better to wait.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Generally, admissions people say that the early pools are stronger, on average, than the regular decision pools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet the only published work in this area, The Early Admissions Game by Avery et al., clearly showed that adcoms either did not understand their own applicant pools, or were "spinning" because at most places, the early pool was not stronger. More importantly, the authors found, by comparing students who applied early to comparable students who applied regular, that the admissons odds were several times more favorable for early students.</p>
<p>Note however that this research focused on Ed and SCED schools. It actually found, if I recall correctly, that EA had no benefit. ( I believe MIT was in their sample).</p>
<p>Make what you will of the data. </p>
<p>JHS, where did I say "don't use a strategy?" re-read my comment and you will see it was was about "games". how can one play a game when one does not even know the rules? Note that I consider a game to be trying to guess the "secret" rules and tricks. You advocate that? fine. </p>
<p>Strategy is another thing all together. How could anyone advocate not having a strategy?</p>