<p>My school keeps stats of accepted individuals and it says that the lowest accepted GPA for early is 97 and for regular it is 91; and the average accepted for early is 98 while regular is 96</p>
<p>This just leads me to conclude that perhaps Columbia's ED is more difficult?</p>
<p>The official explanation is that ED applicant pool is much stronger than the RD pool because of their conviction and passion for the school. So in some aspects, yes the scores and ECs may be shinier, but the accepted applicants are of similar caliber both ED and RD. </p>