<p>My understanding is also that if the application is not clearly admit or deny, they defer it to the RD pool. Some deferred applications eventually get admitted, some eventually get denied, and some even get waitlisted (which must be particularly annoying, to want an Early result and still not have anything definite either way by graduation!).</p>
<p>Based on the deferred applications that get reviewed a second time, it is clear that the bar for admission is higher in EA and the bar for denial is lower in EA. The only real difference is that the deferred applications are being compared to the main body of RD applications instead of the other EA applications the second time around.</p>
<p>DeanJ released the stats from last year on her blog. About 48% of all applications were EA, and about 51% of all admission offers went out in the EA round. Apparently they took very few from the waitlist this year. The yield among IS admissions is much higher than OOS, which is why they must make so many more OOS admission offers to fill half as many seats. Their targets were to get 3,570 first year students matriculating, 2,380 Virginians and 1,190 OOS applicants.</p>
<p>Total:
31,042 completed applications (7.1% increase over last year), 8,972 accepted (28.9%).
IS: 9,014 applications (2.0% increase over last year), 3,903 accepted (43.3%)
OOS: 22,028 applications (9.3% increase over last year), 5,069 accepted (23.0%)</p>
<p>EA:
14,819 completed EA applications, 4,590 accepted (31.0%), 3,771 deferred to RD (25.4%), 6458 denied (43.6%)
IS: 4,027 completed EA applications
OOS: 10,792 completed EA applications</p>