Is Dartmouth more competitive during Early Decision or Regular Decision?

[piano320]

I switched my mind from applying to Dartmouth Early Decision to Regular Decision. Does this affect my chances? I am also a legacy.

[KellenHanson]

Legacy must apply ED.

[dartagnaneb]

^if they want the extra help.

[preppedparent]

Much harder to get in RD. Your best chance statistically is in the ED round legacy or not.

[sybbie719]

While a larger percentage is picked up ED, you must remember that over 60% of the ED pool is hooked( recruited athletes, developmental admits, facbrats, legacies and perhaps siblings). URMs are hooked in both rounds. If you are unhooked both rounds will be hard no matter which round you apply

While there is no "you must apply ED if you are a legacy " at Dartmouth, however, applying ED probably solidifies your commitment to wanting to attend and that it is overall your first choice.

[binky17]

@sybbie719 do you think the chances of acceptance if deferred to RD are slim to worse if not hooked?

[sybbie719]

5 to 10% of the students who are deferred ED are admitted RD

http://admissions.dartmouth.edu/facts-advice/faqs

[binky17]

Thanks @sybbie719

[Postmodern]

While a larger percentage is picked up ED, you must remember that over 60% of the ED pool is hooked( recruited athletes, developmental admits, facbrats, legacies and perhaps siblings).

@sybbie719 can you point me to where you got this data?

[Postmodern]

^^^^ trying to answer my own question, I did find this:

According to Dartmouth’s most-recent Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) report (124kb PDF), there were 831 students participating in varsity athletics, comprising almost 20 percent of the undergraduate student body.

That would mean 207 in the freshman class of the 482 accepted ED last year. If 100% of the athletes were in that ED pool, then that still leaves 274 or so reg decision applicants who are not athletes. That’s a 15% acceptance rate for non athletes, lower than the 25% overall ED rate but higher than the 9.5% RD rate (but admittedly not accounting for the other categories you mention, that I can’t find data for). Also assumes the RD round has no athletes or other hooks.

This seems consistent with their FAQ:

Early Decision applicants are admitted at a higher rate than Regular Decision applicants. The practical advantage to applying early, however, is that you learn the outcome in December. If admitted, you will attend your first choice college (Dartmouth!) and you will not have to file other applications.
Keep in mind that the published higher percentage of applicants accepted early is somewhat misleading because it includes recruited Division 1 athletes, whose credentials have been reviewed in advance. With recruited athletes removed from the Early Decision numbers, the statistical advantage isn’t quite as large.

[dartagnaneb]

Posted this at some point on the ED thread:
So, completely based on last year’s numbers: if 10% of the admits are recruited athletes, that’s ~218 people. There were also 17 Questbridge Matches, so we’re at 235. If we eliminate those people both from the ED applicant and accepted pools, we get (494-235)/(1927-235), which gives us an admissions rate of 15.3%, without factoring in Legacy admits. Definitely lower than the overall ED rate, but when you recalculate the Regular Decision acceptance rate to only consider RD admits, it gets to be a bigger advantage than we initially assumed. 1,682 accepted RD applicants out of the 18,748 student RD applicant pool gives us an RD admissions rate of just 8.9% a figure which doesn’t even account for ED deferred students. Without proper numbers, it’s impossible to decipher an exact regular admissions rate, but basic arithmetic would suggest an even smaller figure. This means that the ED admissions rate for non-recruited athletes and QB folks is actually nearly twice as high as it is for RD candidates.

[sybbie719]

Also factor in legacy admissions accounted for 19% of the accepted ED students (add another 94 students (494-329). Yes, there may be some overlap in the categories. There are also 10 Veterans that were accepted through Posse.