<p>Does anyone have data on the class of 2009? Specifically, EA acceptance rates vs. RD acceptance rates? Thanks.</p>
<p>I <em>believe</em> these numbers are correct. They're the numbers my EC gave me.</p>
<p>EA acceptance rate was 13.7%. RD was 14.6%.
5% of international applicants were accepted, which made up 7.5% of the class of 2009.
Of ranked students, 62% were valedictorians.
49 states were represented.
3% of the 14.6% were EA-deferred.</p>
<p>Personally, I don't trust rates, but hey, to each his own.</p>
<p>EA was lower than RD? Interesting. Thanks.</p>
<p>Indeed it was. Keep in mind, 3% of those accepted in RD were deferred from EA. It's not that significant, but it does notch it a bit more towards even.</p>
<p>EA is a competitive pool.</p>
<p>At any rate, 13.7% probably isn't different in a statistically significant fashion from 14.6%, meaning that for all intents and purposes you have about an equal chance to be accepted in the EA pool as the RD pool.</p>
<p>Start thinking statistically instead of in terms of absolute numbers. It's a good quality for MIT students to have.</p>
<p>The lower EA rate is very interesting - it's bizarre that so many early admissions universities have far higher admissions rates for their early pools, but still claim that there is "no advantage". Their justification for this claim is that early pools are simply much better self-selected. But if that's true (and in such a dramatic way - some schools have early admit rates more than double their regular ones), why wouldn't it also be true at MIT?</p>
<p>The natural conclusion is that most of these schools (except MIT) aren't really being honest when they say that there's no advantage to applying early. I don't mean to imply that their admissions officers are terrible, dishonest people or anything - they might not consciously realize that they're giving early applicants a boost. But the statistics are hard to argue with, unless someone sees something that makes MIT's early pool much different from those of other schools.</p>
<p>MIT's EA program differs from other universities' in that it does not evaluate interest, so applying EA really does not have that benefit. Other schools such as Stanford, Yale and Harvard have single choice, so it's a much better indicator of how interested you truly are in the school. Same, but to a greater extent with Early Decision programs such as Colombia, UPenn and Princeton.</p>
<p>MIT's lower EA rate is most likely a result of their policy to not accept more than 30% of their total admits in the early round (we had this discussion in the EA Roster thread). I visited MIT over the summer and asked them about this and whether EA held any advantage. The response was that MIT EA does not give a statistical advantage whatsoever. It is just knowing your result earlier if you are a clear admit and being able to re-submit certain parts of your application or calling the adcoms to question the deferral/rejection (not sure exactly how practical the calling part is - potentially may sound very overbearing, eh?).</p>
<p>Yeah, I think the equivalent rates are due to MIT not taking more than 30% of the class in the EA round. </p>
<p>At any rate, I think that, unlike most of our peer institutions, MIT's entire pool (rather than just the EA pool) is self-selecting -- everybody and their mom submits an app to Harvard "just to see", but fewer people are inclined to do that for MIT because of it's math/science focus.</p>
<p>I would venture to say that perhaps there is less of a difference between the MIT EA and RD pools than at other highly selective schools.</p>
<p>219 of my class are valedicotrians, and the overall acceptance rate was ~14.5% the international class is about 90 something people big too. -the tech, but from memory</p>
<p>
[quote]
I visited MIT over the summer and asked them about this and whether EA held any advantage. The response was that MIT EA does not give a statistical advantage whatsoever.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I guess it just depends how you look at it - the admit rates are the same for early and regular, as in "people who applied early and got in early" versus "people who applied regular and got in regular." But if you add the people who applied early, got deferred, and then got in regular to the people who applied early and got in early, then the overall admit rate for early applicants is higher, like in the 20's I think.</p>
<p>Wow, that's a terrible sentence. Hope you can still make some sense out of it.</p>
<p>10,443 students applied
1,495 admitted</p>
<p>2794 students applied early action
384 students admitted early
2240 students deferred to regular action
267 deferred applicants admitted during regular action</p>
<p>(384+267)/1495 = 43.54%. So 43.54% that were admitted applied early.
(384+267)/2794 = 23.30%. HOWEVER, it is important to note that these statistics aren't too meaningful, as the deferred applicants were reentered into the RD pool and treated exactly like regular applicants. You also have to take into consideration that while many students were deferred EA due to the ~30% limit, many students just didn't have what it takes to be at MIT.</p>
<p>Olo, I had the same question as you. In the RD round, EA candidates are treated as regular applicants. So the higher percentage as Senor Jones is due to, on average, a higher standard of EA applicants rather than an advantage of applying EA. Although I suppose that is a statistical advantage. Either way, my tea!!! MIT EA --> MI TEA --> My Tea (I bet you cannot do that with Harvard, Caltech, Yale or anywhere else).</p>
<p>Nevermind. Good posts, Ben Jones and Olo.</p>
<p>Indeed. There is no inherent benefit to applying EA. Theoretically, the people who were deferred then got in EA met MIT's standards but fell victim to there desired intake limit.</p>
<p>CIT EA -> CITE A -> City, eh?
HED -> Head
Y ED -> "Why, Ed?"</p>
<p>I'm sure there are more clever people than me out there. :).</p>
<p>All true - the actual numbers aside, it's not a real advantage - for all the reasons you guys have listed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3% of the 14.6% were EA-deferred.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Meaning
.03x.146=.438%
or
3/14.6=20.5%
??</p>
<p>I'm thinking the second one seems more reasonable. But "of" means multiply so I dunno.</p>
<p>There were 9889 applicants in the regular pool after the EA round finished. 267 EA students were accepted out of this pool, which amounts to about 3% (2.70) pf the entire regular decision pool.</p>
<p>But honestly, don't bog yourself down with statistics, please. I promise you it makes the whole application process easier if you don't.</p>
<p>I still don't understand the significance of the 3%.</p>
<p>
[quote]
10,443 students applied
1,495 admitted</p>
<p>2794 students applied early action
384 students admitted early
2240 students deferred to regular action
267 deferred applicants admitted during regular action
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Somebody can check my math, but here are some intersting conclusions:</p>
<p>384+267=651 EA applicants ultimately accepted
1495 total admits
-->So 43% of those finally admitted applied early.</p>
<p>(384+267)/2794 = 23.30% overall acceptance rate for EA applicants.</p>
<p>10443 applicants - 384 EA admits - 170 EA Rejects = 9889 applications considered in the RD round.</p>
<p>2240 EA deferred/9889 total RD applicants = 22.6% of applicants in regular round
(1495 total admits - 384 EA admits)=1111 admitted in the regular round
267 EA deferred acceptances/1111 regular acceptances= 24% of regular acceptances</p>
<p>So deferred EA applicants were only 22.6% of the regular applicant pool but recieved 24% of the regular decision acceptances. 24>22.6, so deferred early decision applicants are admitted at a slightly higher rate than regular applicants in the regular round. Here are the actual admission rates in the regular decision application round:</p>
<p>1111 total admitted in regular round - 267 admitted EA deferred = 844 regular applicants accepted
844 regular applicants admitted/(10443-2794=7694 regular decision applicants considered in regular round)=10.96% acceptance for regular applicants.
267 EA deferred admits/2240 EA deferred=11.9% acceptance for deferred EA applicants in the RD round.</p>
<p>Of course, this doesn't mean that an individual who applies early has a better chance of getting in; we cannot make conclusions about causality. It's possible that EA applicants get preferencial treatment in the regular round because they applied early, or it could be that people who apply early are more competetive on average and are therefore accepted at a high rate in the regular round. </p>
<p>The numbers are still interesting, though.</p>
<p>You are not working towards a meaningful statstic, though. Out of the 9889 students, 267 that were accepted were deferred from EA. That's 3%. Then there were 844 people accepted from the regular pool who applied regular decision. That's 8.5%. So for the regular pool, three times as many people who applied for regular admission got in. You can't compare the number of EA accepted to the total number of EA deferred because that doesn't matter anymore; EA deferred applicants are treated exactly like regular decision applicants (theoretically).</p>
<p>I'm never posting in a numbers thread again lol... all this talk about statistics and chances is pointless.</p>
<p>I realize that they are treated as one group; but the acceptance rate of EA deferred people and RD people is not the same, as you would expect.</p>
<p>All I'm saying is that the percentage of deferred people later accepted is greater than the percentage of regular applicants accepted. So we must conclude that eitiher EA applicants are stronger (most probable) on average or they are given preference in the regular decicision round (the discrepancy isn't really large enough to suggest this, in my opinion.) I see it as evidence that the EA applicant pool is stronger than the regular pool.</p>
<p>If people who applied early got preferential treatment, more would be accepted early. Harvard's EA rate last year was more than double the RD. MIT is one of the very few schools who actually accept fewer applicants in the early round. I believe they do it so as to make sure the accepted class really is of the most qualified people, instead of just filling it up as soon as possible.</p>