My two cents is I think at colleges like Middlebury or Tufts, the non-hooked ED admits are pretty much all applicants the college already would have liked a lot, but in some cases so much so that they might have waitlisted or even rejected them in RD because their yield model would have said there was very little chance of an offer being accepted.
Which is worth considering. If you are a very competitive candidate, the kind who is likely to get offers from multiple highly selective LACs and research universities, but it happens that a specific college like Middlebury or Tufts is at the top of your list, applying ED may avoid them making a “mistake” where they falsely conclude you are likely to choose somewhere else.
What I am very skeptical happens much, or at all, is that there is some unhooked applicant who would not have gotten an admissions offer in RD because the college didn’t quite see them as someone they wanted that cycle, but then since they applied ED they got “boosted” into being someone the college did want that cycle. In borderline cases like that, I think at most they might defer you ED, not actually admit you, including because by hypothesis they are likely to be able to replace you out of the RD pool anyway.
Unfortunately I think there are a decent number of kids/parents who really believe that applying ED can turn a candidate who would not meet the college’s normal standards for RD admits into an ED admit. And that is a potentially dangerous attitude to the extent I sometimes see such people basically using ED1 and ED2 as a substitute for a proper list of Target/Match colleges.
I agree but with the exception that a few may have been very very close to acceptance but there just wouldn’t be room, and the ED app showed the school it is a serious app and the student really did have the school as their #1.
Thank you for saying what I’ve thought for a while now. Was almost going to use it as my annoying admissions platitude.
I just don’t think anyone who couldn’t make the RD cut would make it ED because they applied ED. So where’s the “bump?” Indications of interest in RD, to @twoinanddone ‘s point, can be signaled through counselors or essays or communications with the AO’s or other ways.
Never bought into it outside of the hooked, who have someone on the inside (Development, Athletic, Music departments, etc.) putting their name on the line for the candidate.
I think this is generally true, but there are exceptions, schools that rely heavily on ED to help their yield. The University of Chicago and Tulane come to mind.
I suspect that there are certain priorities/attributes which are filled in the ED round and which may no longer carry the same weight in the RD round, precisely because they were filled in the ED round. Let’s say that a school wants to have a strong cohort of students interested in Classics. (This could be anything, like theater, music, journalism, – that the school wants but that may not be a hook.) If the school ends up with plenty of kids with an interest in Classics in the ED round, remembering that both hooked and unhooked students will be checking these boxes, this interest may be less compelling - maybe even unnecessary– in the RD round. So a student who could have been “we gotta have this” in ED may not be so desirable RD.
I am talking about kids who are well-qualified, btw. But the ace up their sleeve loses value after many other cards are played. So the timing, in this case, may matter.
I really don’t think Chicago accepts many unhooked people ED they would not also WANT to accept their RD offer. Like if Chicago would not even want them to accept an RD offer, I think Chicago will likely just reject them ED too.
However, I am quite sure it is true Chicago often sees someone applying RD and thinks some form of, “Well, this person looks great. Too great. Our experience is this sort of applicant almost always accepts some other offer in the end. And it is not worth it to make and hold open an offer for them if they are that unlikely to accept it. Maybe we can waitlist them, though, and see if they actually do still want an offer.”
OK, so when Chicago does that, waitlist or possibly even reject someone who they like as an applicant on the merits, but their yield models says is very unlikely to take their offer, then it is going to improve their yield. Conversely, to the extent they can persuade more such people to apply ED, then of course that will also improve their yield.
So I have no doubt Chicago is using ED in a way that increases their yield. I just don’t think that requires believing Chicago is letting in people through ED who they would not actually want in RD.
I agree that could sometimes happen, but I think it is putting some pressure on what it actually means to be hooked or not.
Like one common example is they seem to like to have students from as many states as possible. So if you are applying with excellent credentials from Wyoming, you may reasonably think that may be helpful. But if some other kid from Wyoming is accepted ED, now maybe not helpful in RD.
But then how is being a kid from Wyoming all that different from being, say, a football QB? OK, with the football QB, the coach will tell them if they are the one they want, and then maybe tell them to apply ED. If the coach says, nah, no recruited athlete slot for you, now you know applying ED as a football QB probably isn’t going to help.
So the certainty level from the applicant perspective is higher, because the coach tells you. But the institutional logic is pretty similar.
To me, the practical import of this is realistic self-assessment. If you are in fact a kid from Wyoming and think it might help to apply ED, I’m not going to tell you otherwise. But most kids are basically not a kid from Wyoming in any notable way. That doesn’t mean they can’t be accepted, it just means that realistically, a college is not going to view them as having anything in particular they can’t also get out of the RD pool fairly easily.
And I think most things are realistically like that. Like colleges might have some rough idea of wanting at least a decent number of kids who will consider Classics, but at many of the relevant colleges, there is nothing stopping a kid who seems to like Classics from deciding to be a pre-med instead once they arrive. So they can treat this probabilistically, like do overall mixes that through experience gives them a fighting chance at some Classics majors emerging. But I think it is unlikely to be the sort of “bucket” where it would really be filled after ED, in the same sense the Wyoming bucket could be filled.
I am distinguishing between categories like athletic recruits, whereby the school – via a coach – identifies students individually to fill needs, and the overall balance in a class. Admissions typically has a lot of general parameters – from gender balance to academic interests – to deliver on every year. They also have to make sure that these kids are going to spread themselves over all their departments. Admitting 500 students with pre-med aspirations will be a problem. How they get this balance is their business, and students in this group tend to be more interchangeable than those with true hooks.
Every student will fill certain of these more general categories – girl from MA, interested in environmental science and has interest in student publications. In fact, that student may be a field hockey recruit, so when the coach taps her for his team, admissions has also added her to each of the other columns as well.
So if a column has a lot of check marks after the ED process is over, an RD candidate offering those attributes will be less attractive than one who can fill columns with needs. This isn’t a hook – it’s more serendipity.
With that said, I suspect that more often than not, the kid who is accepted ED would also have been accepted RD. But as the school is essentially completing a puzzle, there can be a bit of a first-mover advantage there.
ED is the strongest possible expression of high level of interest the applicant can make, so it gives the best “bump” in the category of “level of applicant’s interest” to the extent the college uses it in admission. However, that is likely more important for “overqualified” applicants than for applicants reaching for the college.
Another possible “bump” for ED is that if the applicant has a specific attribute that the college wants to fill a limited number of, applying ED may make the applicant the first one the college sees with that attribute, while applying RD may mean that the need for that attribute has already been met with ED admits. EA or early rolling applications can also gain this advantage.
At colleges that admit a very large percentage of applicants ED, RD may be significantly more selective because not much space is left. This is also the case for EA and early rolling applications.
The total number of slots won’t really change but ‘tips’ can and do. Slots are limited by NESCAC rules to 2 per sport plus 14 (ostensibly for football) which can be used for any sport. Based on conversations with AD’s and coaches ‘tips’ are supposed to be roughly the same but this is not a NESCAC rule and it varies widely among schools and across years depending on team needs. If you are looking to be recruited a conversation with the coach is needed because some teams almost never get slots and can only tip. If you are looking for general numbers ~150 (slots + tips) is a realistic starting point but numbers can vary significantly.
If the school aggressively practices yield protection, I can easily see kids that get in ED not get in RD, not because they are not qualified, but because they are among hundreds/thousands of equally qualified students and there are only limited spots. I also think if your kid is a “tuba” player, ED is going to be more effective as outlined above. Conversely, I think the vast majority of kids that get in RD would have gotten in ED.
Only if the music department is allowed to tell admissions whom they would like to admit. And sometimes, that’s the case. Often though, the mandate is simply to make sure there are enough musicians in the incoming class to maintain the orchestra. Or there’s a request thst they need “a tuba player”, but not a specific one. So that person isn’t hooked, but they have a desired quality. That’s when the well-qualified tuba player(s) in the ED round is/are admitted and the well-qualified tuba player in the ED round is not – because there are other priorities to be addressed. This is the serendipity that can make ED advantageous.
I really like that term, first-mover advantage. I think that is a more helpfully inclusive term than “hooked”.
So before I said:
What I am very skeptical happens much, or at all, is that there is some unhooked applicant who would not have gotten an admissions offer in RD because the college didn’t quite see them as someone they wanted that cycle, but then since they applied ED they got “boosted” into being someone the college did want that cycle.
Let’s try instead:
What I am very skeptical happens much, or at all, is that there is some applicant without a plausible first mover advantage who would not have gotten an admissions offer in RD because the college didn’t quite see them as someone they wanted that cycle, but then since they applied ED they got “boosted” into being someone the college did want that cycle.