Best use of ED

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When people say “you should only ED to a school you’d have no regrets with,” it makes me wonder if they’ve considered the regrets they could by not EDing somewhere more reasonable.

+1. My kid got into WM ED. A couple of her friends had it as first choice in state/ first choice match/high match, but used ED for the dream school and we’re denied. But the majority said they just weren’t ready to commit in October and didn’t ED at all. They assumed WM was a match and RD admission was a given because they hit the 50% or 75% stats on SCHEV. Every single one was denied or put on the WL. White girls from NOVA are way over represented in the applicant pool.

A handful are headed to VT or JMU in humanities or pre-med/ science. Which are fine schools, but not the smaller school experience they hoped for. One is going to CNU because it’s small. Two wanted a smaller school enough to stick with SLAC admissions. And are headed to 50-60 ranked SLACs. They got into Kenyon, Oberlin, Macalaster, etc. with some merit. But not enough to bring the cost down to WM in state, which was what the families could afford.

All of these kids had stats in line with my kid. And some had better stats. And there is a lot of regret.

My kid wanted to ED Brown. And I wouldn’t have stopped her if she insisted. But we looked at Naviance from her school and literally no one has gotten in. And we had an honest conversation about the fact she did well in HS. We looked at the number of actual slots once athletes, URMs, Legacies were admitted and the number than would go to white girls in the DMV. She not top 5 kids in the class/ cure cancer 36 ACT, 4.0UW. We also discussed the fact that with WM, she has 100k left over for grad school or whatever comes next and with Brown, we would have to spend every penny.

She chose WM. Got in and felt good. But watching all of her friends get rejected really secured for her that she made the right call doing ED. It happens infrequently with teens, but she actually came in and thanked me for being honest with her about her chanced at Brown and her chanced at WM RD after her good friend was outright rejected. This girl was so certain she would get in, she was making plans to. Room with DD.

DD is very sure she made the right decision having watched it all play out among friends.

Every family will approach this differently. But in this environment, so not assume your kid will get into match/high match schools.

And agree with PP: research. WM outright says that they want kids who want them and that ED is an easier path than RD for unhooked kids.

Also, not having college admission stress in the spring was a huge bonus. Although I agree with PP. she had an ED2 school chosen and had 8 applications in to other schools when she was accepted in December, with 1-2 more applications to finish. She prepared as if she would not get in ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A family friend in CA whose DD went through the process last year is an example of what not to do.

DD was 4.0 UW GPA, 1590 SAT, 10+ APs, and Asian, full pay, Duke and Michigan legacy.

DD applied ED to Brown because that was her dream school and was denied.

However, if it had been my own DC, I would have pushed for Duke in ED and be done with it, as that would have been the best strategic use of the ED. Brown was a reach for her.

She was admitted in RD to WashU, Amherst, Georgetown, Duke, Michigan, UNC, Carleton and went to one of these schools on a full-ride merit scholarship, so I don't feel bad for her outcome. But the process was very stressful for a few months.

Unless Duke was the one that gave the full ride merit, it seems like your strategy probably wouldn't have turned out better than theirs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those recently thru the applications cycle - in retrospect, what do you feel is the best use of a binding early application? With regular decision acceptances seemingly very low, and so many schools looking to secure early candidates... is it smart to be practical and apply ED to a great school within stats where likelihood of ED acceptance is good, but whose RD acceptance rate is low (and give up hope of going to top choice reach), or to that top choice reach? Reach meaning also within stats but a reach for everyone bc of extremely low admission rate (ED rate better). OR student. Decision personal of course but interested in hearing thoughts from you. Thanks!

Don’t base your “smart” ED strategy on the comparison of the ED and RD rates. The perceived advantage of ED is often an illusion for unhooked applicants.

This can’t be repeated often enough. Anyone looking at ED acceptance rates, thinking that these indicate an advantage in applying early are ignoring the fact that almost all athletes are counted with the other admits. Athletes can be 35-40% of a freshman class at a SLAC, wildly skewing the early admit data for what is a small freshman admit group to begin with. Throw in some othe hooked applicants getting the concierge treatment during the early admissions process and it’s easy to see how those numbers can soar.

The bottom line is that acceptance rates at the highly selective SLACs are very misleading overall. Hooked candidates can make up 50% of a freshman class or more. So, if they publish a 10% acceptance rate, cut it in half. It’s really 5% for regular applicants. If they publish 20%, assume 10%. And so on.

Agreed. It is important to do your research. It's very school specific. The biggest regrets are to blow your ED on a school that doesn't use ED for kids like yours AND to forego strategic use of ED based on solid research and then be left with less attractive choices after RD decisions come out. I can't stress enough how important is to use ED strategically based on good data.

This is an interesting point but raises the question: how can one determine which schools use ED for kids who are not being recruited for sports or a not hooked applicants being given the 'concierge treatment'? An added confounding factor is legacy. For example, I've read that around 25% of the class at Penn is legacy and a bit over 50% of each class is ED. If you need to apply ED to receive the benefit of that status (which I believe to be the case but could be mistaken), then Penn's ED admit rate for non-athletes/non-hooked/non-legacy is much closer to its RD rate of 5% than it is to its published ED rate of 15%.

Perhaps I've answered my own question, at least in one case. Confounding!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A family friend in CA whose DD went through the process last year is an example of what not to do.

DD was 4.0 UW GPA, 1590 SAT, 10+ APs, and Asian, full pay, Duke and Michigan legacy.

DD applied ED to Brown because that was her dream school and was denied.

However, if it had been my own DC, I would have pushed for Duke in ED and be done with it, as that would have been the best strategic use of the ED. Brown was a reach for her.

She was admitted in RD to WashU, Amherst, Georgetown, Duke, Michigan, UNC, Carleton and went to one of these schools on a full-ride merit scholarship, so I don't feel bad for her outcome. But the process was very stressful for a few months.

Unless Duke was the one that gave the full ride merit, it seems like your strategy probably wouldn't have turned out better than theirs.

I also think this worked better than ED to Duke bc then the applicant knows what options are, and those options include Duke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those recently thru the applications cycle - in retrospect, what do you feel is the best use of a binding early application? With regular decision acceptances seemingly very low, and so many schools looking to secure early candidates... is it smart to be practical and apply ED to a great school within stats where likelihood of ED acceptance is good, but whose RD acceptance rate is low (and give up hope of going to top choice reach), or to that top choice reach? Reach meaning also within stats but a reach for everyone bc of extremely low admission rate (ED rate better). OR student. Decision personal of course but interested in hearing thoughts from you. Thanks!

Don’t base your “smart” ED strategy on the comparison of the ED and RD rates. The perceived advantage of ED is often an illusion for unhooked applicants.

This can’t be repeated often enough. Anyone looking at ED acceptance rates, thinking that these indicate an advantage in applying early are ignoring the fact that almost all athletes are counted with the other admits. Athletes can be 35-40% of a freshman class at a SLAC, wildly skewing the early admit data for what is a small freshman admit group to begin with. Throw in some othe hooked applicants getting the concierge treatment during the early admissions process and it’s easy to see how those numbers can soar.

The bottom line is that acceptance rates at the highly selective SLACs are very misleading overall. Hooked candidates can make up 50% of a freshman class or more. So, if they publish a 10% acceptance rate, cut it in half. It’s really 5% for regular applicants. If they publish 20%, assume 10%. And so on.

Yes, totally agree! It is confounding. Very hard to get the facts, and you have to accept that you'll have imperfect information to base your decisions on. NEVERTHELESS, some information is better than jumping to the conclusion that "ED doesn't work for non-athletes at any school" or "legacies eat up all ED spots at every school." The CDS sets aren't perfect, but it's amazing what you can conclude (with reasonable certainty) from what the schools tell you. Couple that with Naviance data and reliable word of mouth, and you're on your way.

Make strategic decisions using the best information available. It won't guarantee anything, but it does improve your odds. The admissions game favors the informed (and other groups too--but also the informed).

Agreed. It is important to do your research. It's very school specific. The biggest regrets are to blow your ED on a school that doesn't use ED for kids like yours AND to forego strategic use of ED based on solid research and then be left with less attractive choices after RD decisions come out. I can't stress enough how important is to use ED strategically based on good data.

This is an interesting point but raises the question: how can one determine which schools use ED for kids who are not being recruited for sports or a not hooked applicants being given the 'concierge treatment'? An added confounding factor is legacy. For example, I've read that around 25% of the class at Penn is legacy and a bit over 50% of each class is ED. If you need to apply ED to receive the benefit of that status (which I believe to be the case but could be mistaken), then Penn's ED admit rate for non-athletes/non-hooked/non-legacy is much closer to its RD rate of 5% than it is to its published ED rate of 15%.

Perhaps I've answered my own question, at least in one case. Confounding!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those recently thru the applications cycle - in retrospect, what do you feel is the best use of a binding early application? With regular decision acceptances seemingly very low, and so many schools looking to secure early candidates... is it smart to be practical and apply ED to a great school within stats where likelihood of ED acceptance is good, but whose RD acceptance rate is low (and give up hope of going to top choice reach), or to that top choice reach? Reach meaning also within stats but a reach for everyone bc of extremely low admission rate (ED rate better). OR student. Decision personal of course but interested in hearing thoughts from you. Thanks!

Don’t base your “smart” ED strategy on the comparison of the ED and RD rates. The perceived advantage of ED is often an illusion for unhooked applicants.

This can’t be repeated often enough. Anyone looking at ED acceptance rates, thinking that these indicate an advantage in applying early are ignoring the fact that almost all athletes are counted with the other admits. Athletes can be 35-40% of a freshman class at a SLAC, wildly skewing the early admit data for what is a small freshman admit group to begin with. Throw in some othe hooked applicants getting the concierge treatment during the early admissions process and it’s easy to see how those numbers can soar.

The bottom line is that acceptance rates at the highly selective SLACs are very misleading overall. Hooked candidates can make up 50% of a freshman class or more. So, if they publish a 10% acceptance rate, cut it in half. It’s really 5% for regular applicants. If they publish 20%, assume 10%. And so on.

Yes, totally agree! It is confounding. Very hard to get the facts, and you have to accept that you'll have imperfect information to base your decisions on. NEVERTHELESS, some information is better than jumping to the conclusion that "ED doesn't work for non-athletes at any school" or "legacies eat up all ED spots at every school." The CDS sets aren't perfect, but it's amazing what you can conclude (with reasonable certainty) from what the schools tell you. Couple that with Naviance data and reliable word of mouth, and you're on your way.

Make strategic decisions using the best information available. It won't guarantee anything, but it does improve your odds. The admissions game favors the informed (and other groups too--but also the informed).


Agreed. It is important to do your research. It's very school specific. The biggest regrets are to blow your ED on a school that doesn't use ED for kids like yours AND to forego strategic use of ED based on solid research and then be left with less attractive choices after RD decisions come out. I can't stress enough how important is to use ED strategically based on good data.

This is an interesting point but raises the question: how can one determine which schools use ED for kids who are not being recruited for sports or a not hooked applicants being given the 'concierge treatment'? An added confounding factor is legacy. For example, I've read that around 25% of the class at Penn is legacy and a bit over 50% of each class is ED. If you need to apply ED to receive the benefit of that status (which I believe to be the case but could be mistaken), then Penn's ED admit rate for non-athletes/non-hooked/non-legacy is much closer to its RD rate of 5% than it is to its published ED rate of 15%.

Perhaps I've answered my own question, at least in one case. Confounding!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those recently thru the applications cycle - in retrospect, what do you feel is the best use of a binding early application? With regular decision acceptances seemingly very low, and so many schools looking to secure early candidates... is it smart to be practical and apply ED to a great school within stats where likelihood of ED acceptance is good, but whose RD acceptance rate is low (and give up hope of going to top choice reach), or to that top choice reach? Reach meaning also within stats but a reach for everyone bc of extremely low admission rate (ED rate better). OR student. Decision personal of course but interested in hearing thoughts from you. Thanks!

Don’t base your “smart” ED strategy on the comparison of the ED and RD rates. The perceived advantage of ED is often an illusion for unhooked applicants.

This can’t be repeated often enough. Anyone looking at ED acceptance rates, thinking that these indicate an advantage in applying early are ignoring the fact that almost all athletes are counted with the other admits. Athletes can be 35-40% of a freshman class at a SLAC, wildly skewing the early admit data for what is a small freshman admit group to begin with. Throw in some othe hooked applicants getting the concierge treatment during the early admissions process and it’s easy to see how those numbers can soar.

The bottom line is that acceptance rates at the highly selective SLACs are very misleading overall. Hooked candidates can make up 50% of a freshman class or more. So, if they publish a 10% acceptance rate, cut it in half. It’s really 5% for regular applicants. If they publish 20%, assume 10%. And so on.

Agreed. It is important to do your research. It's very school specific. The biggest regrets are to blow your ED on a school that doesn't use ED for kids like yours AND to forego strategic use of ED based on solid research and then be left with less attractive choices after RD decisions come out. I can't stress enough how important is to use ED strategically based on good data.

This is an interesting point but raises the question: how can one determine which schools use ED for kids who are not being recruited for sports or a not hooked applicants being given the 'concierge treatment'? An added confounding factor is legacy. For example, I've read that around 25% of the class at Penn is legacy and a bit over 50% of each class is ED. If you need to apply ED to receive the benefit of that status (which I believe to be the case but could be mistaken), then Penn's ED admit rate for non-athletes/non-hooked/non-legacy is much closer to its RD rate of 5% than it is to its published ED rate of 15%.

Perhaps I've answered my own question, at least in one case. Confounding!

Yes, totally agree! It is confounding. Very hard to get the facts, and you have to accept that you'll have imperfect information to base your decisions on. NEVERTHELESS, some information is better than jumping to the conclusion that "ED doesn't work for non-athletes at any school" or "legacies eat up all ED spots at every school." The CDS sets aren't perfect, but it's amazing what you can conclude (with reasonable certainty) from what the schools tell you. Couple that with Naviance data and reliable word of mouth, and you're on your way.

Make strategic decisions using the best information available. It won't guarantee anything, but it does improve your odds. The admissions game favors the informed (and other groups too--but also the informed).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

This was my DDs experience at UVA

This was DS’s experience at Duke.

So Duke (and schools of that sort) can be considered high matches?

It was a low reach for DS. That was based on his stats and lots of research into who Duke admitted in years past for which major. DS is a humanities major, which we thought factored in.

We ended up calculating 50-60% odds for Duke ED and about 20% for Brown, his favorite Ivy.

Would love more info on your research into Duke, if you wouldn't mind sharing, it is my kid's top choice but he thinks it is a high reach for him. My son is at a DC private that hasn't had a lot of luck at Duke compared to other even more competitive schools so counselor has feels like he doesn't have great info. Thanks for your help and thoughts.

Also interested in what others think of "how" Duke uses it's ED applicants to fill spots. DC is interested. At Big 3 GPA on higher end of the 3.8-3.9 range (no weighting), highest rigor course load, 36 ACT superscore ACT (over 2 tests), varsity for 2 sports all years, captain, humanities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Best decision my kid made was applying to WM ED. It was a high match. Many of her friends with higher GPAs/ at or above 75% applied to reaches in ED and WM in RD and weren’t accepted. They are now headed to JMU, VT arts & sciences, GMU or VCU. All good schools, but a tier down.

This was my DDs experience at UVA

This was DS’s experience at Duke.

So Duke (and schools of that sort) can be considered high matches?

It was a low reach for DS. That was based on his stats and lots of research into who Duke admitted in years past for which major. DS is a humanities major, which we thought factored in.

We ended up calculating 50-60% odds for Duke ED and about 20% for Brown, his favorite Ivy.

Would love more info on your research into Duke, if you wouldn't mind sharing, it is my kid's top choice but he thinks it is a high reach for him. My son is at a DC private that hasn't had a lot of luck at Duke compared to other even more competitive schools so counselor has feels like he doesn't have great info. Thanks for your help and thoughts.

Also interested in what others think of "how" Duke uses it's ED applicants to fill spots. DC is interested. At Big 3 GPA on higher end of the 3.8-3.9 range (no weighting), highest rigor course load, 36 ACT superscore ACT (over 2 tests), varsity for 2 sports all years, captain, humanities.

It can be specific to schools, but that looks like good ED odds. It also screams Chicago ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When people say “you should only ED to a school you’d have no regrets with,” it makes me wonder if they’ve considered the regrets they could by not EDing somewhere more reasonable.

+1. My kid got into WM ED. A couple of her friends had it as first choice in state/ first choice match/high match, but used ED for the dream school and we’re denied. But the majority said they just weren’t ready to commit in October and didn’t ED at all. They assumed WM was a match and RD admission was a given because they hit the 50% or 75% stats on SCHEV. Every single one was denied or put on the WL. White girls from NOVA are way over represented in the applicant pool.

A handful are headed to VT or JMU in humanities or pre-med/ science. Which are fine schools, but not the smaller school experience they hoped for. One is going to CNU because it’s small. Two wanted a smaller school enough to stick with SLAC admissions. And are headed to 50-60 ranked SLACs. They got into Kenyon, Oberlin, Macalaster, etc. with some merit. But not enough to bring the cost down to WM in state, which was what the families could afford.

All of these kids had stats in line with my kid. And some had better stats. And there is a lot of regret.

My kid wanted to ED Brown. And I wouldn’t have stopped her if she insisted. But we looked at Naviance from her school and literally no one has gotten in. And we had an honest conversation about the fact she did well in HS. We looked at the number of actual slots once athletes, URMs, Legacies were admitted and the number than would go to white girls in the DMV. She not top 5 kids in the class/ cure cancer 36 ACT, 4.0UW. We also discussed the fact that with WM, she has 100k left over for grad school or whatever comes next and with Brown, we would have to spend every penny.

She chose WM. Got in and felt good. But watching all of her friends get rejected really secured for her that she made the right call doing ED. It happens infrequently with teens, but she actually came in and thanked me for being honest with her about her chanced at Brown and her chanced at WM RD after her good friend was outright rejected. This girl was so certain she would get in, she was making plans to. Room with DD.

DD is very sure she made the right decision having watched it all play out among friends.

Every family will approach this differently. But in this environment, so not assume your kid will get into match/high match schools.

And agree with PP: research. WM outright says that they want kids who want them and that ED is an easier path than RD for unhooked kids.

Also, not having college admission stress in the spring was a huge bonus. Although I agree with PP. she had an ED2 school chosen and had 8 applications in to other schools when she was accepted in December, with 1-2 more applications to finish. She prepared as if she would not get in ED.

Kudos to you and your DD for thinking the process through. Especially the financial aspect. W&M is an awesome school and the benefit of having $100K left over for graduate school is a huge benefit for her in 4-5 years. Also, realizing that when your "2nd choice" is an instate school that highly values strong interest, using your ED for that is HUGE! Especially kudos to your and your DC for understanding that if even 90% of those with 1580+ and 4.75GPAs and 15 APs are getting rejected ED at IVy's, it really is best to determine whether using your ED for one is the best process---your DD is very smart and will go far, but as you said "she didn't cure cancer, etc" so is "hookless". With the crap shoot that is RD/EA these past few years, your approach is much more balanced than applying ED to an Ivy/T20 school and it's refreshing to see parents enlightening their kids to reality so their kid is happy with their options (and stress free after Dec, can't say that enough!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those recently thru the applications cycle - in retrospect, what do you feel is the best use of a binding early application? With regular decision acceptances seemingly very low, and so many schools looking to secure early candidates... is it smart to be practical and apply ED to a great school within stats where likelihood of ED acceptance is good, but whose RD acceptance rate is low (and give up hope of going to top choice reach), or to that top choice reach? Reach meaning also within stats but a reach for everyone bc of extremely low admission rate (ED rate better). OR student. Decision personal of course but interested in hearing thoughts from you. Thanks!

Don’t base your “smart” ED strategy on the comparison of the ED and RD rates. The perceived advantage of ED is often an illusion for unhooked applicants.

This can’t be repeated often enough. Anyone looking at ED acceptance rates, thinking that these indicate an advantage in applying early are ignoring the fact that almost all athletes are counted with the other admits. Athletes can be 35-40% of a freshman class at a SLAC, wildly skewing the early admit data for what is a small freshman admit group to begin with. Throw in some othe hooked applicants getting the concierge treatment during the early admissions process and it’s easy to see how those numbers can soar.

The bottom line is that acceptance rates at the highly selective SLACs are very misleading overall. Hooked candidates can make up 50% of a freshman class or more. So, if they publish a 10% acceptance rate, cut it in half. It’s really 5% for regular applicants. If they publish 20%, assume 10%. And so on.

Agreed. It is important to do your research. It's very school specific. The biggest regrets are to blow your ED on a school that doesn't use ED for kids like yours AND to forego strategic use of ED based on solid research and then be left with less attractive choices after RD decisions come out. I can't stress enough how important is to use ED strategically based on good data.

This is an interesting point but raises the question: how can one determine which schools use ED for kids who are not being recruited for sports or a not hooked applicants being given the 'concierge treatment'? An added confounding factor is legacy. For example, I've read that around 25% of the class at Penn is legacy and a bit over 50% of each class is ED. If you need to apply ED to receive the benefit of that status (which I believe to be the case but could be mistaken), then Penn's ED admit rate for non-athletes/non-hooked/non-legacy is much closer to its RD rate of 5% than it is to its published ED rate of 15%.

Perhaps I've answered my own question, at least in one case. Confounding!

Yes, you have answered your own question. That is why the ED rates at many elite schools are not really what they seem. It's not just Penn. It's many of the elite schools---Athletes and legacy are often in the ED pool. So while ED is slightly higher than RD, it's not the 15% vs 5% or the 25% vs 7% (Northwestern). ED still gives an edge, just not as much as the published numbers make it seem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those recently thru the applications cycle - in retrospect, what do you feel is the best use of a binding early application? With regular decision acceptances seemingly very low, and so many schools looking to secure early candidates... is it smart to be practical and apply ED to a great school within stats where likelihood of ED acceptance is good, but whose RD acceptance rate is low (and give up hope of going to top choice reach), or to that top choice reach? Reach meaning also within stats but a reach for everyone bc of extremely low admission rate (ED rate better). OR student. Decision personal of course but interested in hearing thoughts from you. Thanks!

Don’t base your “smart” ED strategy on the comparison of the ED and RD rates. The perceived advantage of ED is often an illusion for unhooked applicants.

This can’t be repeated often enough. Anyone looking at ED acceptance rates, thinking that these indicate an advantage in applying early are ignoring the fact that almost all athletes are counted with the other admits. Athletes can be 35-40% of a freshman class at a SLAC, wildly skewing the early admit data for what is a small freshman admit group to begin with. Throw in some othe hooked applicants getting the concierge treatment during the early admissions process and it’s easy to see how those numbers can soar.

The bottom line is that acceptance rates at the highly selective SLACs are very misleading overall. Hooked candidates can make up 50% of a freshman class or more. So, if they publish a 10% acceptance rate, cut it in half. It’s really 5% for regular applicants. If they publish 20%, assume 10%. And so on.

Agreed. It is important to do your research. It's very school specific. The biggest regrets are to blow your ED on a school that doesn't use ED for kids like yours AND to forego strategic use of ED based on solid research and then be left with less attractive choices after RD decisions come out. I can't stress enough how important is to use ED strategically based on good data.

This is an interesting point but raises the question: how can one determine which schools use ED for kids who are not being recruited for sports or a not hooked applicants being given the 'concierge treatment'? An added confounding factor is legacy. For example, I've read that around 25% of the class at Penn is legacy and a bit over 50% of each class is ED. If you need to apply ED to receive the benefit of that status (which I believe to be the case but could be mistaken), then Penn's ED admit rate for non-athletes/non-hooked/non-legacy is much closer to its RD rate of 5% than it is to its published ED rate of 15%.

Perhaps I've answered my own question, at least in one case. Confounding!

Yes, you have answered your own question. That is why the ED rates at many elite schools are not really what they seem. It's not just Penn. It's many of the elite schools---Athletes and legacy are often in the ED pool. So while ED is slightly higher than RD, it's not the 15% vs 5% or the 25% vs 7% (Northwestern). ED still gives an edge, just not as much as the published numbers make it seem

You can actually figure out the edge that RD gives your kid, or get an informed estimate. For some schools and some kids, it’s slightly higher as you say. For other schools and other kids, it’s much higher. Information is power.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ED is best used for a school that is within reach but not a shoe-in.

Correct. This was my ds with UMiami. He was willing to forgo chances at others to have an early sure thing he knew he would love rather than dither around with RD and waitlists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Someone pedantic has found this thread. The Stats Police and the Grammar Police all in one.

Pedantic isn’t a noun

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Someone pedantic has found this thread. The Stats Police and the Grammar Police all in one.

Pedantic isn’t a noun

NP here. Correct, it is used as an adjective in that sentence.

Now, can we please get back to the original query?