Colleges where applying RD may not be worth the bother

sushiritto
Wed, 05 Jan 2022 04:41:18 +0000

MWolf:

So yes, it will likely always be worthwhile to apply RD to Michigan.

Worthwhile yes, but I’ve learned through the years that EA shows demonstrated interest to Michigan and we were told so by an AO. Last cycle with a record 80,000 +/- total apps, 55,000 +/- were submitted EA.

Michigan in the past (pre-pandemic) has accepted roughly 50% of their freshman class during EA and defers or postpones the bulk of the remaining EA apps. So, the RD pool of apps is not just the 25,000 RD apps (submitted by 2/1), but in the case of last year, includes something along the lines of 40,000-45,000 postponed EA apps, which are now considered RD for the purposes of their consideration.

Thus the competition pool goes from just 55,000 EA apps, again using last year’s numbers, to 65,000-70,000 EA-postponed/RD + the 2/1 RD apps fighting for the remaining 8,000 (50%) of acceptances.

And I believe now with a late-January EA decision date (formerly pre-Xmas), Michigan will accept a larger portion during EA, since all the ED acceptances to other schools will have pulled out of the running in December or early January pre-EA release.

IMO, “most of the highly accomplished applicants” can easily complete an application by 11/1, assuming they’re highly accomplished. One additional EA app isn’t really that much more difficult. My D18 was accepted EA from OOS in December 2017, which all the applicants around here are told to do.

But RD by 2/1 apps are still worthwhile. We’ve had a few here on CC.