<p>Also, you should understand that the difference between binding ED and non-binding EA means that Chicago has to accept a much greater number of EA students to fill the same percentage of its class as the ED schools do with ED students. The fact that it’s non-binding increases the number of acceptances.</p>
<p>I don’t remember exactly how I did it, but at one point I deduced (from the various admission percentages) that Chicago only outright rejected about 10% of its EA pool. The rest of the non-acceptees were deferred to the RD round.</p>
<p>Chicago will not accept a student EA to guarantee that student’s attendance. It’s probablymore or less true that students are accepted EA because the admissions staff is confident they would be accepted in the RD round. But there is (or has been in the past) one major difference between the EA round and the RD round. In the past, the EA round included no one who had applied SCEA to Harvard, Yale, or Stanford, or ED to Princeton or Brown. That took a lot of strong potential applicants out of the EA pool; many of them doubtless applied in the RD round. So it’s quite possible both that the RD round pool is actually stronger than the EA pool, and also that EA acceptees are somewhat more likely to enroll than RD acceptees (which is probably saying about the same thing). In any event, that may change somewhat this year, as some portion of the Harvard-Princeton group may apply EA rather than RD to Chicago.</p>