<p>I agree; why not defer no more than 700, enough to fill a complete class with the 300 early admits, and reject the rest?</p>
<p>Many years back, I had a son and a daughter both applied to MIT EA and both get deferred. We learned that from the high school guidance office ( they contacted MIT) while they were good candidates, my son could use a better letter of recommendation (one letter seems to indicates he while a geneious, has zero social ability, so that they suggest send new one) and my daughter will get in during regular action, they just want to see her Junior year grade improvement stays. It turned out that my son ignore the suggestion, and eventually got rejected and went to Stanford. My daughter keep her senior grade up and end up enrolled at MIT. My point is if you get deferred, don't just wait, find out why and improve your case.</p>
<p>40 years ago I applied to 2 colleges early action and decided to go to the one that "wanted me" rather than waiting for RD on my first choice, where I was deferred. It was a total mistake. I knew almost the day I arrived that I was at the wrong place and transferred out as quickly as I could. Everything ended up okay, but it was definitely a wrong and an emotional decision to simply take the EA admit that I had. I was really just exhausted by the whole process and wanted it to be over with - NOT a good basis for important decisions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Byerly's contention was that EA admits have a higher yield than RD admits, even if they are deferred and later accepted. I don't have any data to confirm or refute that.
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</p>
<p>You can figure it out from the info on the statistics page of the website. The numbers suggest there *is *a higher admit rate (almost twice as high). What you can't tell is why. It's conceivable that those who apply in October are on average stronger candidates. I'd imagine that those EA acceptences certainly are, and the EA leftovers are about on par with the rest of the pool - maybe slightly stronger since the definite rejects are already gone.</p>
<p>you should reread Byerly's contention, mathmom</p>
<p>The contention that 50% of the accepted class originally applied EA? It's true. But the acceptence rate of all EA kids is "only" 25% or so. </p>
<p>As far as I know there are no stats for the EA applicants compared to the later applicants so we can't be sure why they are accepted at higher rates.</p>
<p>Edit:
It certainly doesn't hurt that both MIT and Caltech encourage the deferrals to send in more material. A second chance to improve an application that regular applicants don't get.</p>
<p>The contention that 50% of the accepted class originally applied EA?</p>
<p>No, the contention you quoted :-)
This thread is about EA admissions and yield.</p>
<p>Ah, yield. Okay, I never could figure out why it was so terrible to know which applicants liked you enough to apply early. Must have deliberately forgotten that one. ;)</p>
<p>I was deferred at MIT and an Ivy League school. Wow, what a difference between the two. The Ivy League school's form letter basically said few deferred applicants are accepted RA, so we suggest concentrating on new applications to other schools. Those of you deferred from MIT know that the form letter sent out gave a much different impression. Comparing the two approaches, MIT comes off as caring and interested, my Ivy League school comes off as saying most likely you just aren't good enough. Three cheers for MIT.</p>
<p>Um that wasn't the feeling I got from my MIT letter, but alright...</p>
<p>I can definetely understand why being deferred can make one sad and a tad bit upset. But to become bitter is an emotion that you have to really think about before you become. Here's an interesting observation: look at the thread of EA admits and EA deferred, and you will see that the deferred students generally put up a lot more detail about their application then the admitted students do.</p>
<p>First we can't draw many conclusions about the strength of the deferred applicants against the admitted applicants in any sense off of this website, since we see a very skewed and small sample of applicants.</p>
<p>Second, here is an interesting quote I found from an Amazon Review of "The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT"</p>
<p>"Darwinism adversity is thought too allow the best and brightest minds to emerge at the top. The rest are set away. MIT approach does seem very darwinistic and often student complain about having "no hope". MIT presents a Godless face too the pursuit of scientific excellence."</p>
<p>While the quote may be a bit extreme, I do feel sometime that in attempting to comfort students, this board can at time turn into Grandma's cookies and brownies baking, and not reflect that admissions is SUPPOSE to be competetive and that MIT strives to be a meritocracy. If you don't feel "attached" to MIT because the so-called meritocracy did what it said it was going to do (MIT Admissions are insanely translucent), and become more in love with some other school, stop whining and go to the other school, or wait to hear about RD results! </p>
<p>PS: Obviously dilute what I wrote since I usually write headstrong, and also remember that you can't measure "merit," only "applied merit."</p>