To answer your specific question about your chances of ED admission to Duke versus Vanderbilt. You probably already know that Vanderbilt offers you both EDI with a decision in December, 2023 and EDII with a decision in February, 2024. Duke only offers EDI.
Class of 2026 Duke EDI acceptance rate = 21.3%
Class of 2027 Duke EDI acceptance rate = 16.5%
Class of 2026 Vanderbilt EDI acceptance rate = 24.1%
Class of 2026 Vanderbilt EDII acceptance rate = 10.3%
Class of 2026 Vanderbilt combined EDI & II acceptance rate = 17.6%
Class of 2027 Vanderbilt combined EDI & II acceptance rate = 15.7%
Individual Vanderbilt EDI and EDII acceptance rates for the class of 2027 have not been released, but to ball park the numbers by using the same protocol as last year, the Vanderbilt class of 2027 EDI acceptance rate can be estimated to be about 21.5% and the EDII rate can be estimated to be 9.2% … assuming the university does not alter their methodology for accepting EDI at more than double the rate as EDII.
In summary, your chance of EDI admission at Vanderbilt is probably better than your chance at Duke. You could also apply EDI to Duke and EDII to Vanderbilt if Duke doesn’t work out, but the Vanderbilt EDII acceptance rate is not good.
Anecdotally, I have seen several applicants apply to Vanderbilt EDII, get waitlisted/deferred but get accepted later on. So applying EDII may offer some secondary benefit to waitlisted/deferred applicants, but nobody really knows for sure.
It is probably more generally the case at the most selective private colleges that getting admission either ED or RD goes to those with:
Top-end ordinary stats plus extraordinary additional achievement.
Top-end ordinary stats plus major hook (important recruited athlete, relation to a huge donor).
Top-end ordinary stats plus good but not extraordinary additional achievement plus minor hook (ordinary legacy, URM, relation to large but not huge donor).
ED is probably a boost relative to an identical applicant in RD, especially if the college considers level of applicant’s interest. However, published ED versus RD admission rates do not really tell the full story, since the applicant pools can be significantly different (e.g. recruited athletes are likely to be concentrated in ED).
ucbalumnus, your comment about the questionable benefit of ED is obviously a common concern and criticism of the value of ED. And I agree that in the case of small colleges / universities like LACs, recruited athletes, special talent cases (music, dance etc.), Questbridge admits and legacies etc. all eat into the ED acceptance rate and can give “regular” applicants a false sense of their chances.
This is less of an issue in this particular case for two reasons. Both Vanderbilt and Duke are mid-size rather than small colleges / universities, therefore any athlete, special case, Questbridge, or legacy contribution to the admitted pool is diluted over the larger number of admits at Vanderbilt and Duke, compared to smaller colleges / universities. It still has an impact, but it is a smaller impact.
Secondly, Vanderbilt and Duke are SEC and ACC athletic conference members respectively, and many of their recruited athletes are on full athletic scholarships. Some are verbally guaranteed scholarships far in advance of the submission of their applications. There are boys in middle school who are offered football scholarships at SEC universities. And SEC and ACC universities do not funnel all of their athletes through ED like the Ivies, LACs and some other universities do. They do not have to. And to make it even more clear, the majority of the SEC and ACC conference members do not even offer ED.
For the class of 2027, athletic national letter of intent signing day was 12/21-23/2022 for football and a full 4 to 6 weeks before EDI decisions for basketball and all other sports from 11/9-11/16/2022. Some of the athletes recruited to Vanderbilt and Duke are not obligated to apply in the ED round(s) at all, and their admission is not included in the ED count.
So yes, ED admission rates can be artificially bloated as you pointed out, but it is definitely different for every college / university and in this case, the ED advantage of EDI for this applicant at both Vanderbilt and Duke is significant compared to RD.
While recruited athletes are diluted at larger schools relative to smaller schools with similar sets of sports teams, legacies are not, since larger schools have roughly proportionally larger numbers of alumni who could be parents of legacy applicants. Of course, legacies are not required to apply ED, although it is likely that the percentage of legacy applicants applying ED is higher than for RD.
I think in the end, you’d have a favorite between the two. They are similar but not the same. ED should be used for your favorite. Trying to game to find the right one is a bit crazy, especially if you ED to your 2nd choice and thus pass up the opportunity to attend your first.
Visit both. Choose the one you like better for your ED1.