Early action vs Early Decision

CollegeAngst
Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:02:47 +0000

Based on the class of 2020 survey, it looks like over 70% of students who applied early to UChicago and got in early had UChicago as their top choice school. I understand that around 12,000 applied early, and about 10% were given admission during early action. so of the roughly 1,200 students who applied early and got in early, roughly 800 could have applied ED if that option was available to them.

Assuming around 80% was deferred (so around 9,500) 75% of those who eventually got in, indicated that UChicago was their top choice. So I would assume that a good percentage of these kids could have also applied ED if they had a choice. Hard to factor how many got deferred and then accepted, but including those for whom UChicago was the top choice, who applied EA, were deferred then denied or got in on the wait list, that would be as high as 5,000 kids.

So a potential pool of roughly 6,000 kids among the 12,000 or so who applied EA considered UChicago their top choice. Even if you factor that 50% of those kids would not apply ED because of financial reasons, I think you can probably expect around 3,000 to 3,500 kids to apply ED to UChicago in 2021. Then there are the kids who may apply ED to UChicago now instead of applying to ED to other schools.

This tells me why the college is moving to ED. They must know that roughly 50% of EA applicants are in fact not just hedging their bets with a UChicago EA application, but for them, it is their first choice.