Is ED2 or Possibly Common App/Coalition App Overuse Causing a Wave of RD Rejections?

Seeing lots more great kids getting rejected this year or so it appears. Is it the many applications the better schools got ED2 (WashU was speaking publicly at a recent visit about how many strong ED2s they). Is it that every kids seems to be applying to 15-20 schools when they used to apply to under 10? Are the accepted ED2 students even pulling their RD applications? Thoughts

If schools are taking more kids in the ED rounds than in prior years, that could impact RD at particular schools. But on the flip side, all the ED admits, aren’t applying to lots of other colleges. They either withdraw or didn’t apply at all after receiving their early acceptance

Where there might be an impact is those schools who are now taking a greater percentage of their incoming class from the ED pool, and consequently reducing the number of RD offers (by some multiple of the extra ED admits, depending on expected yield) because of that.

No that is was true with ED1, with ED2 which every non HYPS, Non Ivy seems to be doing this year, it does not reduce the RD applicantions, it reduces the number of seats available RD drastically. That will be the next crisis is my prediction. With ED2 you do not find out until February so you still have to apply everywhere in case you are not admitted. Then for applicants who find out in late February, many will not withdraw their other applications. Either because they want to see what will happen or because they want to see what the money will be. While this is wrong, based on what people are telling me this is what is happening

Based on what which people are telling you? Admissions officers? ED2 is also binding so they can’t wait to see where the money will be. They either will or won’t have committed to the ED school long before RD decisions are out.

I think the problem is more people applying to so many colleges. Colleges are adjusting to the effects of this and realizing they just don’t need to give out as many offers as before, imo.

Not admissions officers. The grapevine. I have no way of knowing if it is true nor do I pretend to be an expert. None of my kids have ever applied ED2. If it is happening then it is the wrong thing to do.

All of this is completely second hand that some who are admitted ED2 are not yet pulling their RD applications. I am sure many are, but some are not. The problem is there is no way to enforce this. ED2 decisions came out less than a month ago in many cases and 99% of RD will be done by the end of this week, so if the kid did not get around to it yet, there is no way to enforce this

I can’t say it has absolutely no effect, but I can’t see that the ED2 pool is going to be particularly big anywhere, many schools don’t have it, and of those that do, almost all of them have had it for a while (it’s new for WUStL this year) so the effects wouldn’t be new. And of course, even for those students who didn’t pull ED2 apps, they are not going to be accepted everywhere else they applied (most ED2 applicants - according to anecdote too - were rejected ED1 or EA somewhere first). I think the main reasons for what seems to be a brutal RD round for many lie elsewhere.

What are you comparing to? The RD round has been brutal for many years now.

Look at the RD round even here for colleges that have responded such as Wesleyan. I belong to a number of parent groups outside of CC. I literally do not know Any admitted to Wesleyan RD. The rejections I heard from Emory were brutal RD. The same school that took 42% of applicants in ED1 according to Ivy Blog. I know a ton of people admitted RD to Emory in prior years who were good but not as spectacular as the kids rejected or WLed RD this year. All anecdotal I realize. Will obviously wait for the recap articles when they come out

@LRLMom
Your perception is off. The top students of yesterday aren’t much different or worse than the top students of today. The top 1% of ACT test takers was a 32 about 5-7 years ago. It’s a 34 today, and schools like Emory just have to keep pace.
Also, Emory’s ED acceptance rate is not in the 40’s whatever site suggested that is wrong.

IMO the numbers problem … too many excellent but unhooked applicants chasing too few spaces particularly after two rounds of ED.

Please see the article from Emory
https://news.emory.edu/stories/2018/12/er_early_decision_admission_2023/campus.html. The one weakness is that it does not break it down as to how many applied to Emory and Oxford or one or the other. My older son was class of 2015 and a 34 was still the top 1% then and a 33 was top 2% and so on. I do not think that has changed

@LRLMom
You can only really calculate the rates for each school separately because one, although most students who apply to Oxford also Apply to Emory, there are some that only apply to Oxford. Also, the vast majority over 60% of students who are accepted get into both schools, thus you are essentially double counting. Oxfords ED acceptance rate is usually lower than Emory’s as ED yield is 100% and they only nee 150 students out of the thousand or so that apply, that changes for the RD round.

I don’t see how this makes any sense. A student can apply to 15 colleges, but will only attend one. So unless you are Harvard or similar and can assume that your yield will be high, and each student you admit will have a high likelihood of attending, colleges have to adjust their admit numbers UPWARD not DOWNWARD, since they are competing (once they admit someone) with the OTHER 14 schools the student applied to. They are not going to get all their admits to attend.

@donnaleighg the thinking is that because a student can only attend one school, on aggregate he or she gets “too many” offers. Colleges realize they are giving out too many, and they see this by yield falling - not the top colleges so much as the “backup” ones - and adjust downwards to get their yield back at their desired levels. And some colleges are approaching this by upping the % of the class that comes from ED, where the yield is obviously very high.
If everyone was raising admit rates, we wouldn’t be seeing some of the numbers described this year, particularly significant outright declines in the numbers of offers by a number of schools.

the timing of ED2 seems really problematic. Early action public university applications are due in the Fall and typically kids don’t find out until late January at publics. All the schools I’m aware of allow kids to apply non-binding EA to publics , further even the school calculators can be WAY OFF for financial aid if the income is not entirely on W2s and also does not separate college costs for other siblings based on expensive or “cheap” college. Our initial offer for FA was literally about half of what the school website said. I can see yield being a problem with ED2 if FA is way off. I think ED2 is nothing more than a way for schools to juice yield but the timing of it is not helpful - especially if the calculators for EFC are off.

2.4mm applicants this year. A little less than 1mm in 1980. Roughly the same amount of spots. It’s math and competition.

FYI in the 1980s. UCLA had a 74% acceptance rate. Ivy’s in the 30s. Now the the children of these grads in the the 80s and 90s are applying and despite all the data it’s hard to change embedded and long held beliefs. About the selectivity of schools and the process.

It’s a whole new world and some of us (me) simply had no idea or the numbers were conceptual and didn’t apply to my situation. Wrong.

Don’t know if number ED2 options have been riding. I do know that all the school counselors I’ve knowing were diligent in insisting their students inform the colleges of their ED1 and 2 acceptances. Some had the forms signed by student and sent out through the high school. It seems to be that more schools and counselors are being more careful in dealing with college admissions.

I know that ED reduced the number of applications that my son and a lot of other kid completed. Actually, even if he had not gotten accepted ED, he was done with the process because he was happy with an EA school that got his application early in the season. He had no desire to apply to more colleges after the eatly batch. Time to enjoy senior year

Oh I’m absolutely certain that the number applying to colleges, especially to elite colleges as reaches, would drop to a fraction of what it is without the Common App. A decently well off kid can churn out applications to an entire crop of Ivy or high ranked colleges as their reaches on the off chance that they will be accepted, top students apply to as many colleges for bragging right as to how many accepted them, etc. Without the Common App, things like this would be simply too much trouble for the limited reward that they provide.

There would also be higher yield and fewer wait-listed and deferred applicants.

Yes! It inflated colleges applications and the evidence is both Michigan state and Penn state application jump after joining the common app. Without the common app most schools wouldn’t have acceptance rates this low…