<p>Well, if there are 500 kids seeking admission to competitive colleges, that’s a pretty impressive group. But, no, I wouldn’t want that for my kid. Then again, my kid has no college guidance counseling at all…so maybe I would take that!</p>
<p>Now keep in mind that there’s a difference between EA and ED. EA is non-binding, with a reply not needed until the same deadline for regular decision acceptees. Those colleges you named are not EA colleges. The classes are filling up because with ED, the acceptance is binding on the applicant. 100% (or darn close to it) of the ED acceptees are yielded. You would have to know for sure that you’re going to attend that college to apply ED. The good news for RD applicants to those colleges is that remaining slots are NOT 100% yield. If a college has a gaudy 67% yield and a whopping 40% of slots are filled already, the remaining 60% of the slots will get filled by admitting close to 2 applicants for every remaining seat (basically, for the kids who have a choice, the college’s yield only works out to be 55%). And, better still, the athletes are already seated! And so are most of the most competitive applicants; they’re spoken for! </p>
<p>For EA colleges, there’s no way they’ve already filled all of those seats/beds…because not THAT many of the applicants have made their final decisions. That’s why if you scroll down that chart (if it’s the link I think it is) and scroll over to the right, you’ll see blanks for the percent of class already filled. The entire class (except for those who fired back their deposits) is wide open. It’s just that some got their decisions earlier.</p>
<p>One of the big downsides to ED is financial aid. You’ve got to take what they say is your number. You can reject your ED college on financial grounds, but they still may report you to other peer institutions, possibly diminishing your chances there. And if it’s not a total deal breaker where you’ve got no choice but to take your chances elsewhere in the RD round, you’d be giving up your first choice, dream college for a CHANCE that another school will be more generous. In the RD round you can at least pitch your first choice school and show that some other peer institution understood your financial situation better and came up with a more generous package.</p>
<p>The point of all this is that there’s a lot of gamesmanship out there. I don’t think all high school guidance counselors look at ED and EA the same way and it’s not because some are right and the others are wrong. They just arrived at different conclusions in intelligent, reasonable ways.</p>
<p>Check this out: [In</a> historically hard year, 189 students admitted via ED I - The Bowdoin Orient](<a href=“http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2011-01-21§ion=1&id=5]In”>http://orient.bowdoin.edu/orient/article.php?date=2011-01-21§ion=1&id=5)</p>