Early action vs Early Decision

CollegeAngst
Tue, 20 Sep 2016 16:12:17 +0000

FWIW, here’s my guesses (which are just guesses, albeit informed by some years of following admission trends): About 2,500-3,000 ED applications. About 400 ED acceptances (13-16% acceptance rate). About 9,000 EA applications (i.e., slight decline overall in early applications, but I could be super-wrong about that), with about 900 early acceptances (10%).

Here are my hopefully educated guesses

ED1 Applications: Around 3,500. Some pull from the Chicago EA pool, Some pull from students who have been applying ED to other schools, but now apply ED to Chicago in the hope of getting into a higher ranked school and the fact that Chicago is drawing more and more prep school kids

ED1 Acceptances: around 20% (This will generally be a strong pool, given Chicago’s ranking and reputation now)

EA applications: Around 9,000 (Those who still apply to ED schools, but want to hedge their bet)
EA Acceptances: around 5% to 6%

In my calculation, applying EA now is not a good strategy. I expect the admit rate to drop at least 4 to 5 percentage points form previous years. Only extremely talented, first generation, URM’s etc will stand a fighting chance.