Speculation on the different admission rounds and what AO’s are thinking, a little oversimplified but a start.
ED - this school is the applicants top choice and will matriculate (giving the applicant the most weight for admission), of course they still need to academically qualified to admit.
SCEA - applicant is interested in our school and is probably their top choice but were only taking the best out of this round (plus our recruited athletes) and the RD round because we can
EA - applicant is interested in our school but may not matriculate but we would still like to take the very best from this round vs RD
RD - applicant is shopping around and we may be way down their list or they need to see their FA package before they decide, so we won’t hold it against them but we may not have many slots left either.