Early action vs Early Decision

JHS
Wed, 21 Sep 2016 14:31:23 +0000

As far as I know, there are only two colleges that ever get more than 3,500 ED applications – Penn and Cornell, both significantly larger and broader in their appeal than Chicago, with many more total applications – and none that gets anywhere near 6,000 ED applications. At least ED I.

In any event, there are real barriers to applying someplace ED, and a huge percentage of applicants just won’t do it, first choice or not. Brown and Columbia both get somewhat more total applications than Chicago, and they the first choice of plenty of kids, but neither gets as much as 10% of its applications ED. Penn is the only peer college I know that gets a higher percentage of ED applications than that. Every college with an EA program gets significantly more early applications than colleges with ED programs.

ED II is a huge, weird wildcard here, because no peer college offers it. Chicago could pull in a ton of ED II applications from very strong candidates who applied to Ivies or Stanford SCEA or ED and were deferred. I wonder if that possibility will put a damper on ED I admissions – the staff may want to see what the ED II pool looks like before it takes any risks with ED I candidates.