<p>1) How much of the class was accepted during ED?
2) What is your prediction rate for Oxford RD?</p>
<p>1) I don’t think there’s any way to know. There may not be a huge ED demand, since this is the first year Oxford has had ED. However, each early decision acceptance means several fewer RD admits.</p>
<p>2) Again, there’s no way to know. But I expect that the total admissions rate will approach or dip below 30% for the Oxford Class of 2014.</p>
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<p>I would not think that will happen. It cannot go from 66% two years ago to suddenly 30% this year.</p>
<p>It went from 66% two years ago to 44% this past year. 30% isn’t unreasonable given the small size of Oxford, the uniqueness of its program, the increased competition to and interest in attending a top school, and the advent of ED. While the ED interest may not be exceptionally large the first year, I estimate that Oxford needs to accept roughly 3 fewer RD applicants for every ED admit.</p>
<p>Following that logic, in a few years, Oxford will be more competitive than Harvard. You and I both know that’s not going to happen. Besides, not a lot of people, even those applying to Emory, know or even hear of Oxford. No offense to your alma mater.
However, why doesn’t Oxford publish its own ED rate?</p>
<p>66% to 44% to 30% over a three-year period does not imply that I believe such a trend will continue ad infinitum. It’s just that I believe that there has been a shift in demand that will lead to a new equilibrium at a lower acceptance rate. Obviously, we will reach a point where further recruiting efforts start significantly encountering decreasing marginal utility which will keep us from getting anywhere near the competitiveness of Harvard. 30% isn’t just an idealistic, random estimate, either. Previous admissions information has indicated that, this year, Oxford received nearly twice the number of applications it got last year. This is combined with the introduction of ED. </p>
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This is the first year that Oxford has had ED, so I can’t promise you whether we’ll publish the rate or not. I don’t expect that we will, however, since we’re not the fastest to publish information (e.g., stats from the entering class aren’t posted until significantly after the new class enrolls) and the ED rate/number won’t likely be very large this year.</p>