<p>We visited MIT recently, my son loved it and he worked hard to get everything together and applied Early Admission. But when I heard the statistics of how many apply EA, and how many are deferred as compared to how few are accepted or rejected, I had to wonder what MIT gets out of the process. I'm not criticizing the concept, I'm just honestly curious. It seems like a lot of effort for the MIT admissions office for a comparatively small return. (I'm defining return as decisions made, as opposed to decisions deferred.) Perhaps it spreads the workload out a little bit, but given the very large ratio of deferred to decided, it wouldn't seem this is a primary goal. I think a lot of colleges use EA to try to identify and accept really good candidates early to create a better chance that the student will choose that institution, but from what I can tell MIT has no shortage of exceptional candidates.</p>
<p>Yeah this intrigued me as well, just because they do defer so many applicants. Purely speculation, but I would guess it just gives them more opportunity/time to make their decisions and form their class. But truthfully I have no clue…</p>
<p>I mean, if i had to guess, i’d say it’s because it gives them a longer period of time to gather materials/make a couple decisions. it’s probably easier to file all those papers over a period of a few months instead of just getting a massive rush of apps right before christmas!</p>
<ol>
<li>It acts as a good indicator for what they should expect in Regular Decision (# of ppl applying, applicant stats, etc.)</li>
<li>It starts the admission process earlier</li>
</ol>
<p>I asked that question of a friend who is familiar with the MIT process. She told me that MIT uses the EA process to identify truly unusual candidates that they know will be accepted by HYSP. They know they can fill their class many times over with RD applicants with top scores, so they don’t need to fill a quota through EA. She told me that the advantage of EA to MIT is that, once they’ve identified those Chosen Few, they get to recruit those students hard for the next four to five months before they hear from MIT’s rivals, HYPS. They hope this gives then a jump on their competition for these truly gifted applicants. </p>
<p>It makes sense to me. </p>
<p>She also mentioned that H and P’s decision to reject EA/ED has helped MIT, along with Y and S. All three schools can now identify target candidates and then recruit them hard before H and P can accept them. Of course, this does not mean these schools always get these applicants, but it does give them a slight advantage compared to when H and P also accepted ED applicants.</p>
<p>I’m applying to MIT this year, and I did a bit of messing around with statistics while waiting for EA decisions. I discovered something quite suprising.</p>
<p>Among U.S. citizens, MIT’s ratio of accepting early action applicants is TWICE (let me repeat that: TWICE) as high as its acceptance of regular action applicants. The actual numbers come up to about a 17 percent acceptance rate of EA applicants accepted and an 8 percent acceptance rate of regular decision applicants. These figures apply only to U.S. citizens (who can apply EA). </p>
<p>While I’m sure there are a variety of factors influencing this (better students?), the statistics indicate that if you want to go to MIT, you should apply EA. And reading your original post again, I realize I’m pretty far off topic But perhaps you can connect it somehow.</p>
<p>MIT gets 50% of its admits from those who apply EA. </p>
<p>540 admitted through EA
299 admitted among deferred EA applicants
=839 admits from among original EA applicants = 17.9% eventual acceptance rate for EA</p>
<p>51% of total admits (839 of 1635) originally applied EA</p>
<p>EA applicants comprise 30% of total applicants (4681/15661).</p>
<p>Deferred EA applicants are evaluated fresh during the RD round, so there’s no special gold star put on the applications of students who applied EA and were deferred. No doubt some deferred EA students are able to take the time between EA and RD to improve their applications, but I would put forth that EA applicants are admitted at a higher rate to MIT because of who they are, not because of when they apply.</p>
<p>I completely agree with you mollie. In fact, EA deferred applicants are admitted at a much smaller rate than RD applicants. However, because of how significant the difference is (~18 percent to ~8 percent) I don’t see the hurt in applying EA, even the only reason students are admitted is because of who they are.</p>
<p>EA deferred are admitted at a much less rate than RD because everyone who MIT definitely wanted to admit has already been admitted the first time around.</p>
<p>The bottom line is: It’s damn hard to get into MIT. </p>
<p>Why not apply EA? It’s not restrictive. You can use the Common App. You lose $65 if you’re rejected. Big deal. Just roll the dice and keep your fingers crossed.</p>
<p>MIT does use EA to scoop up athletes. My cousin is a big time stud athlete who’s also brilliant. He was told in August that he’d be admitted if he applied EA. They really want their athletes to commit early and EA is how MIT commits back. I suppose a lot of schools do this. So don’t read much into the higher EA acceptance stats.</p>
<p>@fireshark - that makes it sound so much worse than I feel like it actually is. How about fewer EA deferred are admitted because there are fewer of them than RD applicants?</p>
<p>and I don’t know what you mean by lower rate. From the admissions website:</p>
<p>299 out of 3644 EA deferred applicants admitted during the regular round. 299/3644= approx. 8%</p>
<p>1057 admitted in the RA round, including deferred students. 14624 applicants in the RA round, including deferred students. (1057-299)/(14624-3644)=758/10980= approx. 7%</p>
<p>so by my math, they’re admitted at roughly the same rate. of course, I could have made a computation error or misunderstood the data. please correct me if I’m wrong.</p>
<p>EDIT: Old College Try - You can’t use the Common app at MIT.</p>
<p>The only downside to unrestricted EA is having to complete the application by 11/1, a month earlier than for RD; usually not a problem for kids organized enough to apply to MIT. Getting in EA is a huge advantage emotionally, as the pressure is off for the entire second half of senior year. Also, you may apply to fewer schools, saving a few bucks.</p>
<p>My son was accepted EA at three schools, but waited to hear from some Ivies in April before committing. MIT contacted him several times before April in creative ways (the “Tube”, calls from students and alumni, CPW, etc.). The extra time for marketing was to MIT’s advantage.</p>
<p>This also doesn’t make sense, I meant the rate of them, not the total number. Of course there would be fewer EA defer admits because there are fewer EA defers total.</p>
<p>I do not count international applicants when factoring in RD rate calculations. Of the ~15,000 RD apps, about 3,000 are international, of which about 3-4% are accepted. Significantly lower than for U.S. citizens. And since only U.S. citizens apply EA, it only makes sense to consider only U.S. citizens in RD when making comparisons between the two.</p>
But perhaps you can connect it somehow.</p>