Does anyone know of a study or have even anecdotal information (e.g., things admission counselors/officers have said, the odd school that might post data, etc…) on ED1 vs ED2 admit rates?
I know that this is very hard to answer and that it depends upon the school in question. Schools usually just publish an overall ED admit rate which includes all kinds of people (legacies, donor’s kids, athletes, etc…) and they don’t break out ED1 vs ED2.
I am just curious about the knowledge that others have gained or…whether or not a “holy grail” study exists.
Anecdotally I can tell you that my friends D23 was deferred ED1 from BC (where she was a legacy) and then admitted ED2 to Villanova. I know they are look-alike schools with BC slightly more difficult to get into.
You are right that schools don’t typically break that out. A friend’s d was asked by Lehigh to move her application to ED2 from RD and was admitted. I see it as a way for schools to have better control over their yield.
In general ED1 admit rate is higher than ED2 admit rate. Example stats for Vanderbilt are below. However, this can vary. It also doesn’t tell you why the ED1 admit rate is higher. Higher admit rate doesn’t always mean your chances of admission are higher. It can instead have more to do with differences in applicant pool.
I agree. It may work best with the schools that are particularly yield sensitive.
And…that is surprising to me. I didn’t know that schools would come to kids and ask them to move from RD to ED2. I wonder how widespread that practice is?
I heard an admission officer state the following (about his school but guessing its fairly typical):
ED1 acceptance rates are typically higher as compared to ED2 admission rates because the ED1 pool includes hooked applicants (ex. recruited athletes, children of large donors, etc.).
He expected an individual non-hooked applicant would get same admission result by applying in either the ED1 or ED2 round.
I have also heard some AOs say the ED2 pool is the most unpredictable, so acceptance rates can vary greatly from year to year.
Generally schools that have EA and ED2 are the most likely to request a student move from EA to ED2. Sometimes that happens after an EA deferral to RD, sometimes before. Among the more selective schools, U Chicago and Tulane are examples of schools that have historically done this.
If athletes and hooked applicants are in ED1…one would conclude that admission rates at Vandy for the general population are somewhat similar ED1 and ED2.
Last year my D24 was applying ED to her top choice school and was wondering whether to ED1 or wait for ED2 so first semester grades could further improve her GPA (slightly, but still she had an upward trend and was right on the cusp of what they might traditionally admit from our school). Her school counselor called the AO and posed the question and the AO recommended she apply ED1. She did, and she got in. I don’t know if applying ED1 helped more than ED2 would have or not, but the AO said admission was more likely ED1. This was for a school that has a MUCH higher ED admit rate vs EA/RD.
Tulane did that with D19. (Edit: it may actually have been from EA to ED2.)
I seem to recall NYU saying that there was not much difference between ED1 and ED2 in admit rates. I presume this differs by school, especially those that encourage hooked applicants to apply ED1.
College newspapers can be a good source. Here’s an article from the Emory Wheel reporting an ED1 acceptance rate of 32% and an ED2 rate of 12% for the Class of 2028.
I have come across some websites that do break down ED1 and ED2. If I can find it, I will try to post it. I found one site with some partial colleges that break down the difference.
One would think ED1s acceptance rates would be higher than ED2. However, at least in the past, legacies and recruited athletes apply ED1. This could be a significant reason why certain school’s have unusually high ED1 rates. Schools like Williams come to mind. However, depending on the school, when you apply ED2, I believe you are competing against high stat kids who were rejected by some of the high reach schools ED1. For example, a student who applies ED1 to Williams, Dartmouth, Brown, or Cornell ED1 who has a fantastic application may get denied and then turn around and ED2 at BC or WashU, thus making it more difficult for the very good students to get into these great schools.
What are you leaning to? We are trying to decide this week whether to do ED1 or wait for ED2 - after we will have heard from 5 state flagships that we applied to EA.
Not necessarily. Say an honors program of a state school is more attractive (academics, value, etc.) than the private school where you are applying ED but you won’t know whether you get in until after the ED1 deadline. In that case, the optimal decision would be to wait until you hear from the state school and if you don’t get in - apply to the other one ED2 to maximize your chances.
Well,it could be either. Top public schools don’t have ED but will usually have EA, the privates will often have ED2, so it really depends on what the second choice school is. Anecdotally from D19, some of her classmates were ED2 rejected from ivies, but I don’t know how prevalent that was for the ED2 pool as a whole.
