Re: ED always being an advantage, I think it depends on the school. Some places, like Duke and Penn, state clearly that it’s an advantage. OTOH, last summer when we visited Amherst and Williams, AOs at both schools told me the same thing you would hear at Harvard or Yale—that chances for unhooked applicants are the same in ED and RD; the much higher admit rate during ED is attributed to the large percentage of hooked applicants and overall stronger (self-selecting) pool. The Amherst AO in particular said they limit the number of ED admits to 30-33% because they are confident that they will have a strong RD pool. I suspect this is why these two schools, perhaps uniquely among all top LACs, do not have ED II.
*I’d wager that Duke, like many other ED schools, is trying to snag top applicants who are perhaps wavering between an SCEA school versus the better odds of applying ED to a slightly less uber-selective school. *
I concur, for some schools. DD was debating SCEA at HYPS vs ED to top LAC. The comments from Williams and Amherst AOs (there is no “bump” conferred to unhooked applicants applying ED to Williams and Amherst in particular) convinced us that she was not blowing her chances at those schools to leave them for RD. In the event, she got into her dream school SCEA, but that was important information from those AOs at the time she needed to make a decision on the early school.
You must realize that to some extent you were being sold a bill of goods by Amherst and Williams. Williams filled 44% of its class last year ED. Amherst was less aggressive with 36%, but that’s still not quite “30-33%.” And that was from only 5.6% of its total applications.
The thing about Amherst and Williams, though, is that despite being very attractive, high-quality institutions with great reputations, their RD yield is relatively low – in the 25-30% range. As a consequence, they accept a lot of students RD relative to the slots they have to fill. Furthermore, they both recruit a lot of athletes relative to their class size, and that’s a sizable percentage of their ED admissions. So it’s basically true that you do not burn your bridges there by failing to apply ED.
Is this the tragedy?
Or is the tragedy that the student who successfully applies ED to Duke and gets a “satisfactory” financial aid package that includes substantial loans might have gotten a package with much smaller loans from a school of comparable academic quality? But the student will never know whether this would have happened. And if the student had chosen to submit all applications RD, that student’s chances of admission to Duke would have been lower than they were with ED.
@spayurpets did an analysis of yield last September and came up with the following data that breaks out overall yield and RD yield for ED schools. This was based on info for the Class of 2020 in press releases, so isn’t complete or based on final stats but interesting nonetheless. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19751078/#Comment_19751078
Ranked Yield for ED Schools, Total and RD (Estimated Class Size):
1.University of Pennsylvania 66.8% (2445) (RD 1110=47.7%)
2.Brown University 56.9% (1660) (RD 991=44.0%)
3.Pomona College 55.2% (410) (RD 237=41.1%)
4.Dartmouth College 54.0%(1175) (RD 681=40.5%)
5.Cornell University 52.2% (3275)(RD 1937=39.2%)
6.Bowdoin College 51.5% (500) (RD 216=31.4%)
7.Duke University 51.4% (1705) (RD 892=35.1%)
8.Northwestern University 51.3% (1925)(RD 864=32.1%)
9.Vanderbilt University 48.1% (1600)(RD 800=31.7%)
10.Middlebury College 47.6% (685)(RD 287=27.5%)
11.Tufts University 46.8% (1325)(RD 662=30.5%)
12.Williams College 45.6% (550)(RD 304=31.7%)
13.Johns Hopkins University 41.6% (1300)(RD 716=28.2%)
14.Amherst College 41.1% (472)(RD 292=30.1%)
15.Harvey Mudd College 40.2% (200) (RD 123=29.2%)
16.Scripps College 32.8% (245)(RD 132=20.9%)
17.George Washington University 22.6% (2474)(RD 1633=16.1%)
You need to be very careful when listening to the question from the audience and the response. Unless stated correctly and succinctly (‘after excluding all of the recruited athletes, legacies, developmental cases and URM’s…’), it makes it easy for the AdCom to spin the answer.
DB – now you are starting to get it!!
ED has nothing to do with schools wanting to show the love to the kids who love them above all others. Or making sure you only get the four tuba players you need instead of 2 or 6.
ED is about making budget for full payors and rationing financial aid.
ED is also about keeping up with the HYPS Joneses in the USNWR rankings-- improving your reported selectivity stats by driving down your acceptance rate and also getting high stats kids to enroll at Duke where Duke is NOT their first choice. Meaning kids whose first choice is riskier Princeton and Duke is the more certain second choice. Remember – the pioneer for binding ED was Penn in the 80s when Penn was the safety school basement of the Ivy League. And look where Penn is now!
So ED is just one more of the tools that schools deploy to serve those ends. Other tools in that tool box are legacy admissions and (in the schools slightly down market from the big ED band) merit scholarships. Both of which are also questioned as primarily advantaging the advantaged. USC does not do ED because of a long-standing dislike for that practice. But they still have to make budget, and it is no surprise that they do a lot of legacies and also do a lot of merit money for a school in the top 25.
Now that we agree about what the purpose of ED is, the question is whether it is a good thing or not.
My view is that (at 50% of class or more) ED is getting out of hand and creating too much distortion and crazy-ness in the market. ED is a needle mover when Penn is the only one doing it. But not when you have 20 peer schools doing the same thing. Tufts isn’t gaining on Duke by using ED. But both Tufts and Duke have to keep running faster (more and more and more of the class allocated to ED) to stay in place.
But no school (other than HYPSM) can afford to unilaterally disarm. But if all 20 schools would disarm or dial back ED at the same time, they all would wind up in the same place they are today.
The kids who go ED to second choice Duke today would apply to Princeton and Duke if Duke dropped ED. Some of them would get into and enroll at Princeton. But most of them wouldn’t get into Princeton, but they still would get into Duke (since without ED Duke would have a much higher admit rate for EA and RD). And those kids would happily enroll at second choice Duke. As they do today.
But some kids who get into both Princeton and Duke would actually (surprisingly) pick Duke. Georgetown reports that it eventually enrolls a good bunch of kids who apply to GT as a safety, get in, and then wind up falling in love with the school.
The data that @spayurpets compiles with the help of other CC members is a treasure trove (in addition to the class of 2020 data, there’s a thread in progress for the current year - if you have confirmation of an individual school’s numbers, please post it there).
That said, treat the yield numbers with caution - they’re based on the best guesses of class size, and are therefore the most susceptible to gaming by the schools, which often don’t disclose their targeted class sizes or adjust them downward, play games with admits off the wait list, etc.
I’m not sure that’s quite right, @northwesty, because if all the ED schools unilaterally disarmed, they’d presumably be in the same places relative to each other, but not with respect to HYPSM, because the formerly ED schools’ admit rates would rise and average stats would fall, while HYPSM’s would do the opposite because they’d be getting more apps from higher-stats kids. Duke, in our example, would be unilaterally giving up on snaring those risk-averse kids who would have got into Princeton but ED’d Duke.
Unilateral ED disarmament would explicitly reverse the trend of recent years, and Penn, for example, would be back in what you described as the Ivy League safety school basement, no longer bracketed with the tippy-tops in terms of selectivity. Columbia (another ED school, which doesn’t disclose its ED stats) would be in a similar boat. Why would they agree to that, even if all their peers disarmed? Or are you suggesting that HYPSM would have to give up or dial back SCEA as well, which H&P, having been burned once in a similar move, would probably be very unlikely to agree to do?
In another thread I used @spayurpets data from 2015-6 to come up with a list of schools with high ED/EA percentage of freshman class. Reposting here:
Early Admissions as % of Total Target Class (estimate)
60% and above
University of North Carolina EA 175% (4000)
Georgia Tech EA 158% (2800)
University of Virginia EA 142% (3675)
University of Georgia EA 141% (5300)
Boston College EA 117% (2300)
Notre Dame EA 80% (2010)
Princeton SCEA 60% (1308)
50% to 59%
MIT EA 58% (1120)
Yale SCEA 58% (1360)
Bowdoin ED1/ED2 57% (500)
Georgetown EA 56% (1580)
Harvard SCEA 55% (1675)
Middlebury ED1/ED2 55% (685)
Northwestern ED 55% (1925)
Penn ED 55% (2445)
Tufts ED1/ED2 50% (1325)
Vanderbilt ED1/ED2 50% (1600)
40% to 49%
Duke ED 48% (1705)
Scripps ED1/ED2 46% (245)
Williams ED 45% (550)
Johns Hopkins ED 45% (1300)
Pitzer ED1/ED2 44% (265)
Brown ED 43% (1550)
Pomona ED1/ED2 43% (415)
Dartmouth ED 42% (1175)
Cornell ED 41% (3275)
Stanford REA 41% (1800)
Davidson ED 40% (415)
30% to 39%
Amherst ED1/ED2 38% (472)
Wesleyan ED1/ED2 38%
Smith ED1/ED2 36%
Harvey Mudd ED1/ED2 35% (200)
George Washington ED 33% (2474)
Boston University ED1/ED2 30% (3500)
etting tired of hearing here on CC (and quite often IRL) about the kids who were accepted by their SCEA school and have 15 more apps to submit.
Fifteen apps would be ridiculous, but a few to other equally selective peers (there aren’t 15 SCEA peers) is understandable. Having said that, in DD’s case, there was a reason she chose one SCEA school. An unanticipated benefit of getting in SCEA is to be “one and done”—there’s the rest of HS senior year to work at/enjoy, and future plans to focus on.
Note that some elite HSs actively discourage showboat applications. I believe Exeter states explicitly in their college application guide that the School will not submit school materials to RD schools if a student is admitted SCEA to a school with a sub-10% admit rate. This policy is explained as embodying their “non sibi” (not for oneself) motto—i.e., they don’t want the most competitive students from their school bogarting all the top spots at HYPSM, given that each student can only attend one.
In order to avert this “tragedy” of a potential Princeton gradate having to attend Duke, a modest proposal would be to reconfigure college admissions into a system similar to a draft organized by professional sports. Graduating seniors would apply to schools much like they do under the current system, but schools would have staggered acceptance announcement days in order of their US News ranking. Based on the current ranking, Princeton would announce their class on December 1st, with Harvard on the second. Chicago and Yale could share a date, much like they share a ranking.
Admitted students would have 6 hours to respond. If they do not accept within their allotted time, their slot would go to the next kid on the waitlist. The next college on down would be updated with the names of students that were already accepted and confirmed, so they could take these kids off the draft board so to speak.
Such a system would make everyone happy. The colleges would all get great yield rates, and students would have the opportunity to be accepted into the highest ranked school that would have them. No more hidden Tigers!
If you assume an 80% yield on their SCEA admissions – which frankly sounds conservative to me – they each would have filled just under 50% of their class that way.
That could very well be true, but the way I would look at it is, they are frontloading a lot of hooks in SCEA, so the admitted early pool has a different composition than the total (early + RD) admitted/enrolling pools. Plus, of course, due to lower yield during RD, the absolute number of RD admitted applicants is much greater than [Enrolling Students minus SCEA Admits]. This means that the percentage of unhooked offers of admission is actually much larger in RD than in EA. I don’t think anything close to half of the unhooked offers of admission are made during EA.
I don’t agree with this, and I am guessing by your use of the phrase “a modest proposal” you do not either. 
@Zinhead, that “modest proposal” is clever (if probably illegal, per @northwesty and @JHS), but I can think of a few people it would not make happy, specifically, anyone who needed financial aid. At least if you get in ED somewhere and the aid is less than you need, you have a get-out-of-jail-free card and right to shop in the RD round. With all the spots taken, that goes away.
The others who would be unhappy would be all the schools except Princeton, and many of the rest of the applicants. Let’s say Princeton admits you, but your first choice is lower-ranked by USNWR (say Harvard) - what would you do? And I’m sure Harvard, Yale and Stanford wouldn’t want Princeton to be in pole position and able to tempt hundreds of students with “exploding offers” like this before they could make offers of their own.
I can think of some refinements that might improve this plan, specifically: using it only for a fixed percentage of the class (with a conventional RD round to follow, to deal with the fin aid issue) and having rotating draft picks among the top 25 or so USNWR schools (to prevent Princeton from hogging the best kids). Everyone would have to be online and able to respond within some specified time limit. Rotating picks would pose an interesting issue with legacies - you want them, but you’d prefer to pick them in the final rounds of the draft, or RD. That would be amusing to watch.
Again, though, this type of plan seems likely to face legal hurdles, which is unfortunate, since it’s probably an improvement over the current system.
HYPSM would go ED or beef up EA if the next 6-20 schools turn up the heat with increased ED acceptance rates. I see a model that drives up # of applications and down the acceptance rates. Result: knowledgeable parents and students win in the new game (and in the old too). Stay on CC.
“because if all the ED schools unilaterally disarmed, they’d presumably be in the same places relative to each other, but not with respect to HYPSM”
Yeah, but (having spent the time to delve into it) doesn’t it really seem like a big bunch of BS to you?
Despite all the artillery being deployed to game the system, Duke still ain’t Harvard and Penn still ain’t Harvard either. Harvard’s admit rate is at 5%. Duke and Penn (even with the heavy ED-gaming affect) still only have their have their nominal admit rates down to 9-10%.
I think the ED weapon has been played out. Penn was able to zoom up the rankings (in part) by using ED more than others were at the time. But now Duke and Penn and NW have to use more and more and more ED ammo to stay in place. Which place is STILL behind Harvard.
What’s next – 75% of the class comes in through ED just to keep up? And Penn and Duke and NW get 100,000 RD applications and a 1% admit rate in RD?
A little further down the ladder, I see the same thing happening with the merit money game. Also played out. Sticker price is $65k (same as Duke and Harvard!!) but we’ll give YOU a deal. $25k merit scholarship since you are so smart. Which, cough cough, two-thirds of our students get…
It gets pretty silly after a while. But if you are a wise consumer (thanks to these CC boards) you can play the system. But there’s much more simple and transparent ways to get to the same result imho. I’m not sure Zinheads plan would work, but it is interesting.
But my modest proposal would be first to de-escalate or eliminate binding ED and SCEA too. I think some unrestricted EA would be good since it advances the sorting out process along earlier in the cycle. Maybe with a cap of like 4 EA schools to keep the trophy hunting under control. Some kids would go big – HYPS only. Others would do the traditional reach/match/safety thing with their 4 bullets.
And with feedback from four schools in hand by December 15, my guess is that the RD portion would calm down significantly – fewer more targeted apps and higher admit rates. Or maybe that would cause the world to blow up?
You must realize that to some extent you were being sold a bill of goods by Amherst and Williams.
You think the AOs are playing 5D chess but they are actually playing checkers. Add up all the (declared) hooks in their ED admit pool and it is huge. Very few offers left over for unhooked. Why would they discourage (or at least not encourage, which is effectively the same thing in many cases) ED applications if there is a benefit to be had? Williams AO told me: We don’t care about demonstrated interest and there is no admissions bump for unhooked applicants. OK, then DD won’t apply ED. Keep in mind, in most of this thread, the complaint is that ED is used to encourage applicants to lock out other choices.
I think we would agree, @northwesty, that for so long as the likes of Penn and Columbia consider it vital to be classed with (if not necessarily equal to) Yale and Harvard, rather than Duke and Northwestern, the arms race will continue. Penn will never be Harvard, but if the world decides that it should more appropriately be bracketed with Duke, and that being an ancient uni in the Ivy League doesn’t automatically give it a premium (whatever the actual merits), that’s a very serious threat to Penn. So the attempts to look more like Harvard than Duke will go on and on.
I like your four-way EA idea, btw, but I think it would be simpler and have a greater chance of putting a lid on things to cap total apps from any individual at, say, eight.
One thing that would affect the math for Williams and Amherst is the relatively bigger influence on ED of their athlete population.
Harvard has a lot of athletes. Not all of them are recruited athletes, but many are and many come in through ED. 1,097 unique athletes and total enrollment of 6,874. 16% of heads.
Williams has 757 athletes on an enrollment of 2,013. 38% of heads. A lot of those heads will be coming through the ED round.
We can’t totally do all the numbers ourselves to guage the strength of the ED hook all by itself. Since at some of these schools you have an overlapping of hooks.
The ED pool may also include the athlete hooks (Penn) or may not (Duke). The ED pool may also include 100% of the legacy hooks (Penn requires legacies to apply ED) or only some of them (Williams does not require not legacies to ED but some probably do anyway).