ED is not an option for us (because merit would be needed), so EA seemed like the best option. I told my S23 that he is likely to be deferred, but to think of it as simply giving Northeastern the opportunity to compete with other schools to attract him. If they don’t have an offer for him, no problem… in any case, he would be happy to attend one of the schools that has already admitted him 
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A lot of it boils down to how schools admit students. For example, UNC used to accept, reject or waitlist. No deferrals. On the other hand, NC State defers. Most high stat kids apply to both these schools here in NC, many more test optional students and nearly good ones apply to state. State has to accept the best kids first, knowing fully well they will have a terrible EA yield outside of engineering. Then they move on to deferrals and RD kids. Most in-state RD kids are likely going to end up on the reject pile. So, the EA deferred kids now start to trickle in. It is what it is. One just needs to know how the school operates.
If your school has over 70% admission rate then I’d not worry too much!
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I disagree. Use deferral as a tool instead to skim off those that are not interested. What colleges need IMO is a hard commitment date for EA admits AND release the decisions by mid Dec latest. So, commit by Dec 31 or lose your spot. Then they could release the next batch and so forth.
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That would make it closer to ED in reducing the ability to compare financials, although without the precommitment to attend if the financials are ok.
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I can see the attraction in that for kids who would otherwise consider ED. On the other hand, an early commit date wouldn’t work for kids who also have top choices that only offer an RD round (like the UCs). My kid would not be applying to any school with a Dec 31 commitment date… those would just get crossed off the list.
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That is the whole point. Only allow kids that really want to EA and commit. Push others down to RD.
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RD is no problem, but a lot of schools require applying in the EA round for merit scholarship consideration. That is the primary reason S23 applied EA to many of his schools. So, never mind – we would cross those schools off the list.
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Many of the EA schools, especially the state ones, do not have a December notification date.
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Adding essays likely won’t happen. More applications means lower admit rate means higher ranking in US News. Not sure colleges want to lower the number of applications received - all I have seen is attempts to increase apps (fee waivers, marketing, etc.). I just know from my kids experience that if the essays were a PITA the school got a much more discerning look 
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Early Action doesn’t seem like anything Early, just regular decisions for most kids who seem to deferred to regular decision anyway. I guess in an ideal situation you would apply to your top couple schools EA, see if you get in, and then apply regular decision to the rest without penalty to RD. By giving EA kids an acceptance but no idea of how much merit they will get until March kind of defeats the purpose, if merit is going to significantly impact your decision. If you accept a kid EA, give them their merit package at admission and then give them a firm commit by date 6 weeks after decisions are released. Colleges then know how many to admit RD and how much merit to give RD kids. More like a hybrid of private schools ED decisions which are binding, and RD which is non binding.
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Totally agree with this idea.
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Many kids do EA when offered because they don’t have enough money to be able to do ED. Even if my kid had a favorite school, we can’t afford to gamble with ED. He applied EA where available. An early commit date for EA wouldn’t allow kids to compare aid offers to make their decision. That is not much different from ED, which already puts rich students at an advantage.
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I can speak to EA at Michigan, since I’ve been monitoring that forum for years.
Michigan received 55,000 +/- EA apps last admissions cycle. 84,000 apps in total. Michigan accepts roughly 50% +/- of their total acceptances (15,000-16,000) in EA or around 7,000-8,000 EA apps.
So, yes, the great majority of those EA apps are deferred to the RD round(s). I guess they could fill up their entire class in EA, but that’s not what Michigan does.
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Many schools that offer ED/ED2 generally fill 50-60% of their incoming classes with ED admits. Many of them disclose such information in their CDS’s. At Northeastern, for example, 57% of its incoming class were ED admits a year ago. A few schools (e.g. UChicago) are rumored to admit even higher percentages (as high as 3/4) of incoming class via ED/ED2, but they generally don’t disclose such information (to avoid criticism?). The higher percentage of ED/ED2 admits naturally means fewer RD applicants would be admitted.
According to the CDS, less than 23% of Northeeastern’s class applied ED, which is among the lowest I have seen at highly selective private colleges. Most Ivy+ type colleges that offer ED admit ~half of their class via ED. This fits with Northeastern’s yield being 33%. If they only admitted ED/waitlist kids, yield would be much higher.
There are a lot of incorrect rumors about college admission, which probably relates to so much of the admission process being hidden and students/parents not understanding the reasons for decisions. If a top stat student applied EA/RD and was rejected, it can lead to rumors that you have to apply ED to have a chance. There of course many other possible reasons why a top stat student may be rejected, but no reason is given to the student/parent, leading to guessing about what criteria could be lacking.
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I.e. make EA more like ED, so that those who want to compare financials will have much less of a chance (since many more selective colleges admit a very large percentage of their students early). May be helpful for colleges that do not have big FA/scholarship budgets and want to keep FA/scholarship expense down.
Or would it be more like applying for jobs, where the applicant has only a short window of time to decide on an offer, without necessarily knowing whether other jobs will make offers and whether such other offers compare well?
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Get rid of EA. Make every school have an ED round. Notifications by Dec. 1. Accept, reject, defer to RD. RD applications due by Jan 1. Acceptances by March 1. Schools could still do rolling RD starting in the fall. It would weed out the chaff.
@VirginiaBelle is spot on. Can’t limit apps unless state flagships can guarantee admission for reasonably qualified residents. Otherwise they have to consider plans B,C, and D.
US news dropped Admit rate from the ranking criteria back in 2018
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Yup! Exactly. The donut-hole families are at a real disadvantage that way.
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The issue is schools are also competing with each other, its tough to get colleges to standardize a process if you end up with some colleges benefitting and others not. It’s also important to remember, that the craziness only applies to a small percentage of schools and a relatively small portion of students.
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