<p>Early decision applicants have a higher acceptance rate, or so I heard.</p>
<p>Does the "Early Decision" label alone boost the borderline applicant's chances? Do the rest us need to swim a little harder in the proverbial pool of admissions?</p>
<p>Yes.
yes again.</p>
<p>i hate the fact that it’s true …yikes…oh no</p>
<p>neither one of those are true. All the lower acceptance rate means is that more people applied RD and that’s because there is no obligation or downside to making another crapshoot application with recycled essays. Difficulty is held constant.</p>
<p>Eric Furda, Dean of Admissions, asserts that “” … students who apply early decision to Penn share a demonstrated passion for our academic programs, the campus community and the city of Philadelphia, and we respond to this pool with a higher admit rate than in regular decision."</p>
<p>[Answers</a> From the Admissions Dean of the University of Pennsylvania, Part 1 - The Choice Blog - NYTimes.com](<a href=“Answers From the Admissions Dean of the University of Pennsylvania, Part 1 - The New York Times”>Answers From the Admissions Dean of the University of Pennsylvania, Part 1 - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Penn definitely is more favorable to students that apply ED.</p>
<p>Yes.
However, being a borderline applicant may even help you.
Penn deems interest very highly, so if Penn is your top choice RD round, they may accept you over someone who applied to Penn just for the sake of it. My college counselor told me Penn has a slick ability of accepting those who they are sure will attend their school. There are about 5-7 students who are accepted to penn every year in my school, and they chose to go there. last year, they rejected a couple of applicants who went on to go to caltech and mit, respectively.</p>
<p>Yes statistically there is a higher acceptance rate: but that doesn’t mean you can get into Penn easier ED than RD. ( its a common misconception since the admit rate is higher) </p>
<p>You have to take into account that since its ED, Penn is the first choice for those students so the school knows these kids REAlly want to get in. Also most EDers are more prepared with their SAT/SATIIs that they don’t need the extra two months to finish testing and essay writing. Usually the EDer are stronger academically (not always) but like from my school only the best of the best applied EA/ED to top schools like Penn,Yale, Stanford. </p>
<p>I personally think that applying ED is not that much a difference than applying RD because the adcoms say “if you get in ED than you would have gotten in RD”. The admit may be lower in RD but think about the % of students who are just applying for the heck of it with below 1700 SATs and lower than 3.0 gpas. If you eliminate these obvious rejections the admit rate goes higher.</p>
<p>“Demonstrated Interest” is part of the admission equation for most schools, and the best way to demonstrate interst is to apply ED. Only the they know how much weight it carries. It’s a safe bet that anybody admitted ED would have made it RD.</p>
<p>“It’s a safe bet that anybody admitted ED would have made it RD.”</p>
<p>Unless were talking about legacies. They lose their advantage in the RD round.</p>
<p>From what I’ve gathered around CC (if that’s accurate by any means), Penn is one of the few schools that weights “Interest” highly - and there’s no other way to demonstrate your interest for a school than to legally bind yourself to going there with a smaller chance of financial aid if you’re accepted to Early Decision.</p>
<p>What’s interesting is that most people say a reason colleges admit more early decision is because they KNOW that the applicant wants to attend at that institution (and won’t pass it up for say colleges that are higher in terms of prestige). In terms of Penn, wouldn’t this fall short when applying to Wharton, considering it’s considered the best undergraduate business school?</p>
<p>I think that they may be true that the admit rate is higher in ED because people ‘show’ interest. But the main reason is because EA/ ED is when top schools can snatch the URMS and athletes quick before other competitive schools will. So they admit the students they need to diversify their class. The admit is also higher because more qualified students apply ED than RD. In RD you have a lot of students who have 0% chance with 1300< SAT or 2.5 GPA<. Not too many in ED though</p>
<p>Do people really apply with stats that bad? ^ They must be pretty amazing at something to even consider. And I thought I was bad. Why do they even apply?</p>
<p>Okay I was exaggerating about the SAT but I’m sure there are people who have 1300< SAT or 2.5 GPA< who apply. I know of people especially legacies and URMS who have applied with below a 3.0 GPA and 1800 SAT.</p>
<p>I recently went to an info session where I asked a UPenn addmissions officer the same question. . .she said that applying ED gives you about a 10% edge during the ED round. After that it all becomes speculation, but by the sounds of it if you were deferred ED you probably have a 1-5% edge over other kids just because you’ve displayed interest, which UPenn really cares about. This 1-5 number is a personal guess, but I know having applied ED will give some sort of a boost and I doubt if it’s above 5%.</p>