So I had this theory lately. There are thousands of kids who get accepted into top twenty schools/ivies early. Probably like 20,000+. If these kids are accepted, most of them probably are not likely to apply to many other top schools RD. The few who do will probably apply to like 1-3 (just a guess at the average). And then kids who get in ED won’t apply to any because they’re like bound to that school.
So does this make the RD pool easier as a result? Are a large number of strong applicants “knocked out” as a result of early acceptances?
Probably not. Lots of strong candidates also get rejected or deferred EA or ED. Some strong candidates won’t have applied early anywhere for one reason or another.
And, depending on how you want to measure the top 20 (are you only looking at research universities or are you including LAC’s) the number of people accepted early is going to be lower than 20k, possibly by quite a lot. Williams, the #1 LAC according to USNWR, only admits around 250 students ED.
Early admissions programs aren’t knocking the strongest 20k students out of the general applicant pool for the most selective schools.
The schools are still spoiled for choice with the RD pool and can admit very, very strong classes from those applicants.