<p>Of course what “hurts” Yale early application numbers is the single-choice rule. When Harvard first introduced early action, without a single-choice requirement, it was “swamped” with thousands more applications than it had anticipated. (Which meant, back then, that it got about as many EA applications as Yale does now.) The single-choice rule was a traffic flow limiter, because the admissions staff didn’t think it could pay adequate attention to that many applications in November and still do the rest of their jobs. </p>
<p>How many early applications do you think Yale and Stanford and MIT would get if you could apply early simultaneously to all three of them (and to Chicago and Georgetown as well)? Easily 10,000+. And why would anyone want that?</p>
<p>The reason all the EA schools get more applications than ED schools is precisely because you don’t have to tell the school you are in love with it and want to get married. And, at the same time, there isn’t anything like the admissions advantage that ED offers over RD. EA is student-friendly, and doesn’t inherently favor rich people. (The demographics of EA are fairly different from those of ED.) There is absolutely nothing wrong with applying EA to multiple colleges – all of them, except Yale and Stanford, basically encourage it.</p>