It is just general chance, about 14%-18% ED vs 7%-9% AD.
Note that “improved” chance may an obscure term. For those very high achieving students, they may not apply ED as they want to wait out options from other schools. The “improved” chance only due to the absence of very top competitors.
Rice has been taking an increasingly larger percentage of its class ED for the past few years since 2017 when Yvonne De Silva (formerly at Penn) took over the admissions office. The number of Questbridge admits (admitted early) has also gone up every year recently.
Do Questbridge kids and athletes count in these ED numbers? At many schools the ED admittance seems high but many of those kids are recruited athletes.
According to Rice, "the Rice University Office of Admissions accepted 440 applicants through the Early Decision program for the Class of 2026. Seventy additional students were also admitted through the QuestBridge National College Match program. " I believe the scholarship athletes and maybe preferred walk ons are also admitted ED. I do not know if they comprise part of the 440 listed above.
It’s interesting the way Rice worded that statement, can’t tell if the 440 spots include QB or not. Which is material in terms of proportion of spots filled in ED when you are looking at a class of about 1,200. I expect a lot of the recruited athletes go thru ED, but not all…the ones that do should absolutely be included in that 440.
I took it to mean 440 traditional ED plus 70 Questbridge for a total of 510. Rice is a Division 1 school and fields teams in football, baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s cross country/track and field. men’s and women’s tennis, women’s soccer, and women’s swimming. Rice gives athletic scholarships. How this plays into the ED numbers is not clear. One of my friend’s sons was admitted ED. He is a top student from the best private school in Houston and the son of 2 Rice alums. He is also a preferred walk on for the football team so probably isn’t on an athletic scholarship.
Agree the 70 QB students are likely additive. Any athletes who were accepted ED are in those numbers, any accepted RD will be in those numbers. No way to know whether Rice is fully funding every team, so we don’t know how many recruited athletes there are.
According to the Common Data Set for 2020-2021, Rice awarded 48 non-need based athletic scholarships to first year students and 241 to all students. Of course some athletes might also qualify for need based aid. CDS_2020-21_WEBSITE.pdf | Powered By Box
It is true that a higher percentage of ED applicants get admitted, and people sometimes get excited about that because they mistakenly think standards must be lower for ED. They are not.
The ED percentage is relatively high because it includes a cohort of top-tier students who are absolutely certain Rice is their first choice and are therefore comfortable binding themselves to the ED process. And on the other side of the coin, the RD percentage is relatively low because it includes more lower-caliber students who are happy to roll the dice on Rice as one of many simultaneous applications.
Bottom line, ED is a great option for many students but isn’t a way for people who’d be rejected RD to sneak in through the back door.
FriscoDad literally the opposite advice of anything I’ve read. Financial concerns should not be the reason to apply RD instead of ED?
Applying ED prevents you from seeing the financial aid offers you could have received from other schools if you’d waited until the regular decision period. If that matters to you then you should absolutely apply RD rather than ED.