<p>Rude, Rude, Rude. This is a kinda specialized topic for the general public. </p>
<p>The ivies are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, U of Penn, and Dartmouth. They were originally a sports league. They are some of the best colleges in the country, but not absolutely the most prestigious. MIT, Caltech, Stanford and Duke are in the same class. After that, it drops off very slightly to schools like Northwestern, U Chicago, and so on. Selectivity is exponential when you get into the very top 12-20 schools. Everybody in the country who is a valedictorian and student council president with a 1450 SAT thinks they have a shot at Harvard. There are 1.2 million high school grads each year and probably only 8000 or so go to one of the top 12 colleges.</p>
<p>At almost all schools: When you apply ED, one of three things can happen. You can be accepted, denied or deferred. If you are accepted, duh. If you are denied, you can not reapply for a year. If you are deferred, you are automatically considered during regular decision without doing anything else.</p>
<p>Most of the time, applying ED and being deferred will help you during RD because you have shown interest in the college. Colleges like to accept applicants who they think will actually attend because it makes their yields look better.</p>
<p>If deferred, you don’t have to reapply, but you should try to make your application look better. If you have retaken the SAT or you get any new awards, let them know. A nice letter stating your continued interest and assuring them that they are your first choice would be nice. Retaking the SAT in January might help but don’t take the SAT more than 3 times. The late registration date is Jan 4th.</p>
<p>Being Deferred instead of Accepted isn’t necessarily a bad mark, although different colleges handle it diffentially. If you eventually get Waitlisted, then that is pretty much the end of the road, but not always.</p>