Certain schools are seeing a big increase in apps. The huge, vast majority are not. As stated earlier, more marginal candidates are trying for SCEA/ED, thinking they will get a boost. Every “average” excellent student thinks they have a shot if they play the ED or SCEA card for the most prestigous universities. The Common App makes it easy to do so. 99.9% of kids are not realistic about their chances and do not understand how holistic admissions work. Put all of that together and that’s why it’s as ridiculous as it is now.
I believe that its due to;
- an increasing world population with the same number of US school/class seats,
- and a renewed focus on the outcome results and the cost/ benefit analysis, especially at schools that provide 100% demonstrated need,
I feel that the latter is widening application rates and yield between what is perceived as the top-ranked and all others at an ever increasing rate.
IMO the Common App does not sufficiently explain the increase. Anecdotally, my own 2018 kid applied to 17 schools, only 3 used the Common App and 2 the Coalition. DD2016 applied to 12 (if I recall) only 7 were Common App. So far our family is sitting on 24 acceptances, 1 alternative admissions offer and 0 denials/deferrals. The decrease in admissions rates and feeling we didn’t really have a handle on what was a viable option for our B+ average kids was the fuel on our fire. And yes I know we just fanned the flames by applying to so many…
More applications lead to lower acceptance rates which lead to panicked seniors which lead to even more applications… and the cycle grows more extreme each year.
@TheGreyKing, you made some good points in your post above, but there are few things to keep in mind:
- Not all schools offer a significant bump for ED. Williams has a more pronounced difference between ED and RD rates than most schools, yes. But remember that recruited athletes need to apply ED (that's a pretty big chunk of ED students at Williams, isn't it?). In addition, some schools (not sure about Williams) tell legacies that to get any bump, they need to apply ED. I recall reading that one school allocated a certain number of ED slots to first generation applicants (can't recall which school). For many schools, these things mean that unless you are a candidate with one of these hooks, your chances may be only slightly or perhaps no better than they would be applying RD. My D's school (Harvey Mudd) stated in an info session last summer that there was no real difference.
- Students with divorced parents or parents who have their own business cannot rely on the NPCs to be accurate. That makes it hard for them to know if they can apply ED. Can they walk away if the money doesn't work? Sure, but to be admitted to your #1 school and then have to walk away is painful. Students whose families have these situations are at a disadvantage.
- Sometimes ED students still complete a bunch of applications, including with application fees. My D applied ED to her school and was accepted, but she also applied to a number of schools EA or even RD by Dec. 1 in order to meet merit scholarship deadlines. That meant that we paid for six applications even though she went ED. Yes, this was our choice, but it would have been foolish for her not to have since she really liked those schools.
- Surprisingly, a few schools offer merit to students who apply ED. I'm not sure why, unless the college is worried the student is going to walk away even with an ED acceptance? But I'm not complaining because D got merit with her Mudd ED acceptance! I've read that a few other schools do this, too.
My D’s ED story ended happily for her, and she is thrilled to know where she is going and to have the whole process behind her so she can enjoy senior year. But the reality is that ED offers the colleges themselves a greater benefit than it offers most students.
I wonder if there will be a trend towards more and more students backing out of ED acceptances because of insufficient FA, or even merely claiming insufficient FA.
It seems like half D’s grade applied EA or ED to schools – many more than when my S applied in 2012. Why? I think it’s for a few reasons. As said in other posts, it’s easier to get into most schools ED. Second, for both ED/EA, you hear sooner and can possibly avoid racking up costs/time of applying to other schools. Third, for ED, if you are full-pay, you are likely given priority at many schools and it’s an advantage; schools are able to figure out how much aid they have in the kitty for RD based on how many fullpays they have. Finally, although we didn’t work with a private college advisor, the advice they’ve given most of the kids here is to apply ED if it’s a clear 1st choice and you don’t need aid and apply EA because you have nothing to lose. (Likely that most parents of applicants who hire a private college advisor don’t need aid…) In general, EA is advantageous for the applicant since they don’t have to commit and can wait to compare merit and financial aid. So, peers of the private advisor kids noticed/learned to also apply ED and EA. Our HS counselors also suggest these strategies to kids, but have 300-400 kids each, so they’re overloaded and can’t necessarily give attention to all the kids (hence many people hire private advisors). The HS counselors do a good job all things considered! And, lastly, perhaps some of us parents gleaned insights from CC threads and worked with our kids on applying ED or EA. 
I believe that the ED advantage for non-hooked applicants at most of the highly selective schools is now neglible on an absolute basis. Case in point, Hamilton published a 29% ED I acceptance rate for the Class of 2022 - take out the hooked applicants and I think the non-hooked acceptance rate was less than 20%. Yes, that’s better than the projected non-hooked RD acceptance rate of less than 15%, but it’s still a small number - there are many similar examples.
In addition, at Hamilton 20% of all applicants were International Students - I think this is really the first couple of innings of seeing this.
Here’s a wrinkle that I thought of after hearing the unfortunate story of a friend’s kid who attended a top local college prep HS: the ED “card” can also be played to differentiate the applicant from their classmates who may also apply to the same college, but will do so RD.
A few years ago a friend’s son had his sports-generated ED application implode on him for idiosyncratic reasons, so he moved to submit the then-standard number of 8-9 college RD applications. Most of the kids at his high school (again, a VERY prestigious prep HS) had applied to various schools ED and quite a few had their acceptances in hand. My friend’s son made his RD applications to a list of schools, each of which already 1-2 ED admits from his HS, and despite his competitiveness in a “national” sense struck out across the board. He ended up going to a low-safety he applied to at the last-minute, then a year later transferred to a top-25 school.
Two lessons, one of which was already made above by another poster or two: (1) pick a safety you like and you can afford, and apply early to lock it down no matter what you are doing ED; (2) be aware of what your classmates may be doing and think about your own interests, not just the laundry list of “prestigious” schools your HS counselor may suggest. You may be a good candidate for a school, but if several kids from your HS are also applying (or already applied early), you may get locked out of what looked like a good bet. I know they “say” there are not limits on the number of admits from the same high school, but be careful if you will be the fifth-best candidate for each choice no matter what the national averages are.
Agree with @BooBooBear as DD’s HS class last year had many that struck out in ED, overreached in RD and ended up with an empty basket of WL and Denials - save for their Safety, which they never imagined having to attend.
I know that anecdotes are not the same as data, but based on the experience of my son’s friends, it seems that even “unhooked” applicants have an advantage ED. In particular, friends with no hook whatsoever and scores slightly below the college’s median scores (but still in the middle 50% or near the top of the bottom 25%) made it into some top 20 LACs and universities ED. (Some of his friends applying early action, as compared to early decision, to top universities, did not do as well. ED seems a more powerful advantage than EA, which makes sense, because the college itself gets less benefit from EA.) It is impossible to know whether these students still would have been admitted during the regular decision round, but certainly there would be more competition in the RD round.
BTW, their high school is just a regular public high school, and before last year, very few students went to top colleges. So their success is not due to any special relationship between their high school and any college. My son is the first student in the history of his high school (since the start of Naviance at least) to go to Williams, for example.
I would advise anyone to apply ED, barring any of the prohibitive factors I listed in my earlier post, above.
I’ve noticed in several EA decision threads here on CC (Northeastern, Tulane, Case Western) that some very high stat students (and their parents) were actually offended that they were deferred. Some indicated they were withdrawing their applications. Tip top stats and no interest shown is interpreted as seeing the school as a safety. Deferral is one way to get the student to show interest if not a safety or withdraw the application if offended by not being accepted at their perceived safety.
But how would the popularity of applying ED or EA be the main factor that leads to a 15% increase of applications when compared to the previous application session?
I know the benefits of ED and EA, but I am not convinced that knowledge of those benefits would suddenly increase the # of applicants significantly compared to the previous year. A gradual increase is easier to comprehend. Same for the CommonApp hypothesis; the CommonApp has now been around for a while and there are several top colleges who don’t use it and have same kind of increase.
No one thinks the natural disasters had an effect? Also, do you guys then think that RD pools this year will not increase from previous years as significantly as ED/EA pools did?
Our school advises unhooked, non-legacy students whose grades are on the upswing to avoid ED1. Their ED2 or RD application will be stronger.
While it differs from one school to the next, I think that for an unhooked applicant, there is little advantage in applying ED. (Some, but little. ) I fully concur with one of the up thread posts that you need to be a strong applicant for that school (and generally, this also applies to hooked applicants ) when you apply ED. Applying ED won’t make up for being only marginally qualified. At best, you’ll be deferred so they can see if later rounds turn up stronger applicants.
While my kid did end up applying ED, he was really torn because he felt like he would have better information for making a decision if he could attend accepted student events.
EA greatly allayed fears that there wouldn’t be any good options.
@BooBooBear is absolutely correct. This scenario is being played out at my S’ HS this yr. His HS is top-ranked, fairly large in graduating class (~650), and historically has sent a total of 5 to 8 kids to HYPSM every year according to Naviance in the past 5 yrs. This year, 4 kids already got into PU. About 20 other kids put in their applications to PU and vast majority got deferred. Historically, PU took in one or two kids from this HS, now they already have 4, what are the odds the other 20 will eventually get in. Same with Georgetown, this year, 3 kids got in already. GT has not taken any kids from this HS in past 3 yrs, and before that, only 1 or 2 per year. Again, what are the odds GT will accept more from the same HS. Competitions in famous state schools like UMich/UVA/UNC are off the chart in his senior class. There are easily over 100 top scoring kids in the whole graduating class put in at least one application into the EA rounds with one of these three top public schools. Anyone put in a RD application to these are competing against those being defer, and in the context of how many kids these OOS universities will take more from the same regional HS. There is an arms race going among these top 10% kids in a graduating class. Better to hit the ball and running for ED/EA than to sit back and think about the RD chances because the stats indicate how far they are above the national average for the school. It is better to have a “good’ school lining up in the pocket and wait for the RD outcomes from other 'good” schools than to have only the lower rank “state, safety” schools and get knock out in the RD round because the particular top school has already taken more than the usual number of kids from the same HS in that particular year. Of course, because of this arms race, these kids are putting in 13 to 15 applications each. Such bump drives the application number increase and decreases the admissions odds, which in turn drives more insecurity among the top kids. What should the sophs and juniors do then when they are ready? Apply early and apply more are the only two acceptable answers.
@Mickey2Dad Never saw Princeton referred to as PU before. 
@TomSrOfBoston I agree with your observation this year. It will be interesting to see if this perceived trend of schools deferring higher stat kids continues.
Why would you not apply EA? In general, if you are an organized, consistent student and there is little that is going to change with the admissions package you are going to present there is no real danger to applying EA; other than a small chance that you will not make the cut in some schools slightly stiffer EA round.
I would like to see all schools move to a rolling admissions decisions. It is one way of forcing the hand of highly interested and motivated students. You want in, well then you are going to have to be on the ball and get that application in early. And I’d like to see the student decision date moved up too, maybe to mid March. And wouldn’t it be interesting if we limited the number of applications and that could be submitted to 10?
I don’t see colleges putting a limit… they make $$ off of every applicant.
^I see what you’re saying but I know in DS’ class, kids were totally freaking out when Penn accepted 4 ED because “4 is the quota for our school.” 3 more got in RD, and one who was denied ED is happily at Dartmouth. Admittedly, 20 kids from one HS is unlikely to happen, but I think it’s easy to lose track of how different one class may be from another.
It’s also not bad for the RD kids to get the ED kids out of the pool.
@TomSrOfBoston That’s the reference some of the top kids in this HS used when they got the defer notice. :((
@TheGreyKing, that certainly wasn’t the case at DD’s HS in the Mid-Atlantic - only those non-hooked applicants that were well within the top-25% were accepted ED at top-20 schools.