I was able to find the overall acceptance rate at Vanderbilt, but I could not find the ED1 and ED2 acceptance rates individually. Is ED1’s acceptance rate necessarily higher than ED2? Thank you
I have not seen separate stats for ED1 vs. ED2.
Conventional wisdom is that ED2 provides less boost than ED1, but who knows.
Also, who knows how the ED1 pool compares with ED2? Is the ED2 pool stronger because it contains all those smart kids with high enough stats to aim very very high in ED/SCEA and missed? Or is it weaker because it contains all those kids who got rejected from the top 10 schools?
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Usually schools don’t separate out ED1 and ED2 acceptance rates. If Vandy is your top choice and you want to go ED you should apply at the earliest point when you feel your application is at its strongest.
I have heard an admission officer from a different top tier school say that ED1 rates are typically higher even though the standard is the same for both rounds. This is because the ED1 round includes students with hooks (ex. recruited athletes. children of large donors whose first choice is the college) applying in that round. In addition, the admission officer noted that ED1 applicants can be stronger in general as they don’t feel that there is a weakness in the application that they need to rectify by showing strong first semester senior year grades.
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I will echo what @happy1 says, that the conventional wisdom is ED1 and ED2 have very similar admission rates once you remove the athletes, legacies, and other special cases that will apply ED1 only. An “unhooked” generic applicant will supposedly fare about the same ED1 or ED2.
I was ED1 and as far as I know the ED2 acceptance rate was about equal. To me it just seemed like ED2 was an opportunity to take more time perfecting your application. I believe they are around the same pool size so it should be equally easy/difficult to stand out from other applications.
One possible issue with ED2, but this may easily cut both ways, is that the applicant pool for ED2 at many schools likely contains many students who were rejected ED1 at a more prestigious school—think of a wave of Harvard “rejects” applying to Vandy or WashU or wherever (HYPS rejects applying to a top 20 but not top 10 school). Many of these applicants are very strong, just that they did not make the cut in the shark-infested applicant pool at a top Ivy. I have heard it said many times that the reason schools have an ED2 round is to pick up these kids rather than let them just go into RD and possibly get away. For example, Vandy would certainly like to have kids that love Vandy but just felt compelled to give Yale a try.
“I have heard it said many times that the reason schools have an ED2 round is to pick up these kids rather than let them just go into RD and possibly get away.”
Hard to know for sure without having separate data for the ED2 pool. But given who has ED2 (Chicago, Vandy, WUSTL, Tufts, Emory, Wake), it certainly could be used by kids who aimed VERY high in ED1/SCEA but missed.
At our info session, the head of admissions was very clear that ED1 was better. He said that they take about 50% of freshmen total from ED1 and ED2 and if they ED1 pool is really strong, there are less spaces in ED2. I would say if you know Vandy is your home, go ED! to get the very best shot!