<p>Preliminary early decision numbers are in for several schools. These numbers are subject to change.</p>
<p>Yale University -- down 15%
Amherst College -- down 10%
Connecticut College -- down ~7%
Wesleyan University -- down ~7%
Williams College -- down 7%
William and Mary -- down 6.7%
Tufts University -- down 6%
University of Pennsylvania -- down 2.9%
Brown University -- down 2.5%
Princeton University -- up 1.7%
Harvard University -- up 3.5%
Stanford University -- up 5%
Northwestern University -- up 6.9%
Middlebury College -- up 7%
University of Chicago -- up 9.3%
Georgetown University -- up 11%</p>
<p>They aren't acceptance rates, they're percentage change in ED applications between this year and last year. </p>
<p>I found most of these numbers by glancing through college newspapers. If you'd like a link for a specific school, I can try to find the article for you--just let me know which school you're curious about...</p>
<p>Ya, pretty weird how ED went down. With number of applicants rising, I thought more would rush to secure an ED spot...actually was expecting them to sky-rocket.</p>
<p>Actually, Yale is down 13%, not 15%. Sorry for the error.</p>
<p>Yale University received 13 per cent fewer Early Action applications this year than last year, the Yale Daily News reports.</p>
<p>3,541 people applied for seats in the Class of 2011 under Yale's November 1 Early Action deadline. Last year's EA applicant pool numbered 4,084.</p>
<p>Yale officials think that last year's record-low admit rates may have discouraged potential candidates from applying. Yale accepted just 17.7 per cent of its EA pool for fall 2006, and just 8.6 per cent of its overall applicant pool.</p>
<p>Some observers think another factor in the decline is that Yale decided not to include paper copies of its application in this year's information packets. Another possibility is that some students mistakenly thought the recent news about Harvard and Princeton dropping their ED programs meant that EA was no longer an option at Yale.</p>
<p>So why do you guys think less people applied ED, when it's been on an upward trend for years at most of these schools? And on the other end of the spectrum, OK, besides Harvard, why did schools like Gtown and Chicago's ED apps go up so much?</p>
<p>lolabelle i think its because when kids see soo many other kids applying early many might feel less inclined to do so (that means their chance is less) and apply somewhere else or just wait for RD...just a guess though</p>
<p>"Another possibility is that some students mistakenly thought the recent news about Harvard and Princeton dropping their ED programs meant that EA was no longer an option at Yale."</p>
<p>I find this very unlikely. If you care that much about Yale, you would make pretty damn sure you know everything important about the school.</p>
<p>I believe, at the end of this year's ED cycle, we will see a rise in ED applications, but not to the traditional schools as expected. I think many students (and their parents) have decided that applying ED to an ivy or ivy level school is such a stretch, that they have decided to apply ED to match schools instead.</p>
<p>I like this thread. If we keep it going, we may see a pattern develop.</p>