<p>^where do you get the stats that say 1/2 ed admits are athletes and legacies? Even if so, it doesn’t account for the fact that many weaker applicants unhooked applicants get in ED than in RD.
If you have 2400, 4.0 (And you took honors/ap courses challenging yourself in school), and you have good ECS (not even need to be great) Your chances are going to be pretty high. There are not that many people that score perfect on the SATs, and if you have that colleges want you, providing that you have a strong academic record and relatively good ecs otherwise. Colleges want prominent and brilliant people that are good learners.
An under avg applicant with a non-athletic recruit hook (yes even legacy) cannot top that. Stats are always going to be the first thing they look at. With a high sat score / school ranking, etc, you make yourself stand out in the ED pool even without a good hook. When the admissions look over ED applicants, there are still a lot of spots left, and chances are you are going to have a better chance in the ED pool than in RD where there is more luck involved.</p>
<p>Need proof? look at the ED results this year. Lots of weaker applicants without such “hooks” got in (not legacy or athletic recruit). Not saying that they would not get in RD since there’s always a lot of luck involved, but it’s pretty obvious that their chances would not have been as good in the RD round (comparing to last year’s RD admits) there were very few people who got in with stats that were so under avg and did not have a good reason for it (socioeconomic background - non-asian minorities or super low income).</p>
<p>Antiflamer
I can only speak to what has been reported here in the ED results and the only “low” stats I have seen (and by low I still mean very good) were for hooked applicants. Legacy, Athletes or URM. Just to restate NONE of the results I have seen would be unqualified just unhooked people with higher stats were deferred.</p>
<p>monydad, interesting article.
antiflamer,
I disagree that postings on collegeconfidential are really a good source of information about admissions. Many qualified applicants who are denied never post their result.
there are a lot of perfect scores and 4.0 applicants out there. look at schools like Lawrenceville and Andover. They have many. (and they cost like 50K a year)
many colleges, not just the ivys, reject many perfect stat applicants every year.
legacy helps, but super generous legacy is a big hook, on par with top athlete.
being a top ranked athlete in a big sport is a huge hook and with recruitment will give applicants a great shot at the ivys and other top schools, even with just medium stats.
after the recruited athlete and connected legacy hook, the other hooks help, but are not as big.
cornell released data, I think they do it every year, on the number of athletes thaty accepted and the number of legacy. You can look for it at their web site. Of the total admitted, if you assume that all the athletes are ed and even 1/2 of the legacies are ed, then I think you get around 600. When you take 600 out of the number admitted ed, the ed pool is not nearly as easy as many think and just about the same as RD. Those are the numbers.
ed does probably help a little at cornell for the unhooked applicant, but I don’t think it is big because of the fact that cornell takes so many athletes ed.
ed would be much more help at a school like dartmouth that does not recruit so many athletes.
I think your post has a lot of useful info. however, relying on the “result” threads here at cc for anything about admissions stats may not be the best idea.</p>
<p>@ mony, I do not know whether the source is credible and whether or not the trends have changed so i cannot rely on that source. I draw my judgment from an admissions officer himself @ ivy.</p>
<p>Bottom line is, just apply ED if you want to go to the school. I doubt any college would pit against you because you show interest @ the school enough to put yourself in a binding contract. There is no way that it doesn’t help at all. To what degree, I don’t know and there’s no sure way of telling, but in my opinion it helps a lot. A lot of kids with 30-32 ACTs or 2100 SATs with no legacy/athletic hooks get in during this time period, and imo it seems pretty weak.</p>
<p>As lazy says, “if applying ED to Cornell doesn’t provide any benefits, let’s face it, no one would apply ED to Cornell. ED applicants make the trade-off that they will commit themselves to attending Cornell, for the higher likelihood of getting admitted. If there is no such benefit, why would anyone apply ED to any school? You may as well wait till RD, apply to other schools as well, and compare your options.”</p>
<p>Much of objective data (as well as subjective) show that ED is easier. Cornell admissions rep himself said that ED applicants stand a better chance. And, Cornell website also said that ED applicants stand a better chance. ED admit rate = 35%, RD = 14% (or even less) I remember admissions rep at U Michigan who visited my high school, she said that “the earlier you apply, the higher the chances you will get in because there are more seats available.” Although U Michigan doesn’t have ED, early applicants here get in much more easily. This is a proven fact. This exact same concept applies to Cornell ED, law school admissions, etc. I am not writing more on this topic because it’s getting repetitive.</p>
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<p>Um, no. You kept refuting my point and argued that ED doesn’t provide admissions benefits. Yet, the very reason people ED to any school is to increase their chances of admission. (for the trade-off that they will commit to the ED school if admitted)</p>
<p>For those who don’t get in ED (around 65% of all ED applicants at Cornell) they would need to go into additional 3-4 months of anxiety or stress for their RD applications. In other words, they are much worse off than RD applicants who never applied ED to any school. They feel the stress during the fall semester (when ED apps are being evaluated) and additionally, during the spring semester.</p>
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<p>Feel free to ask an admissions rep at Cornell yourself. I didn’t say weak students get in ED. I suggested that it is easier for an applicant to stand out ED and get admitted. However, it is likely that the overall applicant pool of ED is somewhat weaker compared to RD. And, when did I twist words and meanings?</p>
<p>Nope, I never said that; maybe someone else did. I believe that ED helps at least somewhat at most schools, and I often urge applicants with a number one choice, a dream school, to apply ED.</p>
<p>Antiflamer, ED, if admitted has benefits. No one said it did not. If you get accepted you are done with applications and save money. If it is your first choice, all the better. with cornell though, because they take so many athletes ed, there is no tremendous advantage if you have no strong hook. ED likely helps, however, not a big difference. As for the numbers, you can’t survey the postings here at cc and hope to get a good view on who and what it accepted in terms of numbers. CC is a sampling, and probably not accurate for a lot of reasons. You can go through the threads at Stanford or Columbia and find unhooked kids getting in with low numbers ea / ed, that does not mean its true, accurate or something else. Relying on cc for any information about the stats of admitted applicants anywhere is not a good idea, in my opinion. there are probably a lot of kids with perfect or near perfect stats that don’t get into cornell ed and don’t post. my school had a completely unhooked middle class white kid get into yale with a 2120 total SAT this year, with a 92 average and no hook.
no one would say that Yale is now much easier ea just because of that. he had some real good ecs, nothing that great. admissions are holistic and random. don’t get caught up in relying on cc as anything but information which you need to put in context and understand that it is not very reliable. the results threads are not a great source of reliable info of stats for admitted students.<br>
my opinion is that ed helps at cornell, still it is not a big help because of they recruit so many athletes.
same is even more true at a school like stanford that recruits hundreds more athletes than cornell.</p>
<p>I get the impression that people on this site tend to overestimate the numbers of people with ‘near perfect stats.’ Scoring 2300+ on SAT would put an applicant at .1 percentile of high school students in the nation, meaning one person per a thousand.</p>
<p>perfect stats are not very common…that is true
however, if you check the top prep schools like Andover and that type, you will find several with perfect stats. those schools cost like 50K per year.
still, perfect stats and great ecs are no guarantee of admission at the ivys or other top schools, ed or rd
always better to be a hooked applicant, like a recruited athlete with medium stats, instead of an unhooked applicant with perfect stats.
the thread talks about cornell. ed helps there, however, not too much because of how many athletes that are recruited apply and get in ed
anyone at cornell admissions or any other school, will always admit that when looking at apps the recruited athletes and connected legacy are almost always in
those applicants don’t waste their time on cc comparing and chancing and all the other stuff…they just get in…</p>
<p>“and whether or not the trends have changed”
ok, yes things may have changed but at least this speaks to the past practices, in a non-anecdotal fashion. If one is positing things have changed then they would presumably have to have reasons to suppose why things would have changed. </p>
<p>To me, it seems like the specific numbers would have changed a lot, due to the vastly increased numbers of applicants. But the underlying motivations of the schools remain the same, seems to me. I’ve seen nothing that leads me to suppose they are completely different from the time of this study, just in degree, probably.</p>