Curious why some schools choose this admissions strategy over others? In D22s case having that early answer made her close the deal. Wondering if more schools had rolling admissions would it change anything?
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Many schools used to have rolling admissions but have transitioned away from that. Either they have EA or just deadline admissions at varying dates.
Just my perspective - I’m guessing it’s all about “prestige” and low acceptance rate. If all colleges admitted until all the spots were full - they would have higher acceptance rates and less applicants. Also equals less $$$ on applications. It’s really never about what is best for the student. It’s about low acceptance rates, prestige and rankings.
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Rolling admission is easy and convenient for a college to do if it has an automatic admission threshold. In that case it can instantly admit those who meet the automatic admission threshold, although others may be kept waiting if a portion of the class is filled competitively among those not meeting the automatic admission threshold.
More selective colleges do not have an automatic admission threshold, so doing rolling admission would mean frequently having to predict both yield of early admits and strength of later applicants when deciding whether to admit earlier applicants.
An analogue outside of college is applying for jobs, which is effectively like rolling admission, but with an ED-like constraint that an applicant who is hired has only a short time to decide whether to take the offer. This can result in guessing for both sides, in whether to take the current applicant or job offer that is just ok versus waiting for a better one.
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