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<p>I was talking strictly about in-state, as I said. OOS is a completely different ball game and obviously more selective. It has always been this way. OOS tuition is also more expensive and OOS’ers would be more unlikely to apply ED than IS’ers because of this IMO. Furthermore, legacies are put in the IS pool and have their apps judged by those standards. </p>
<p>I don’t really think predictability will decrease. It was somewhat unpredictable because of the highly selective nature OOS, but as I said, IS decisions are very consistent. OOS applicants need to be more hooked obviously since selectivity is increased. </p>
<p>With all due respect, I think you’re arguing two points if you say predictability is decreased with the loss of ED. That would imply the applicant pool becomes more competitive than in times past (unlikely at any rate as soon the number of students applying to college overall will decrease based on population trends). Before you seem to be implying that the applicant pool will become less competitive with the loss of ED. </p>
<p>Either way, the predictability I’m talking about is not really linked to ED or not IMO. When I say “consistent decisions,” while I hesistate to reduce it to something formulaic, I mean that when you look at my school’s past applicants and decisions, no one above a certain GPA in IB classes has been rejected. Looking only at that factor, the students in the top ten in my class could be fairly assured as to whether we would actually get in. Also, 25 kids were admitted last year, and you can expect that it won’t suddenly go from 25 to say, 3 (though of course it can fluctuate between say, 20 and 25, but their class was bigger). The reason I hesistate to appear to be making it TOO formulaic is because obviously the assumption that you can pretty much be assured of your chances assumes that you will dot the i’s and cross the t’s - spend time on your essays, submit everything in a timely manner, give your teachers enough planning time to create a recommendation. Certainly I have heard the “urban legends” of the kids with the 3.9s and 1400s who didn’t get in - usually if it’s even rooted in truth AT ALL, it turns out they didn’t spend any time on the app, didn’t submit everything, had been suspended junior year, etc. Obviously this won’t hold true in extentuating situations. But my point was the top students don’t apply ED unless they know for sure that they won’t even entertain a notion of another school. In some cases, people who have borderline ability for NCAA may want a few months to see how another season plays out, etc, there are a lot of factors like that, even though they know come RD round decisions time, they will most likely accept their seat at UVa.</p>