Also depends on when EA decisions are released and if the student is banking on honors college, those decisions often come later in the process.
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Ivy League schools don’t have ED2.
Yes, I understood he meant people who had been rejected from ivies’ ED applying ED2 at other privates.
Or maybe my post wasn’t clear: some of D19’s classmates had been admitted ED2 at her school, to which they had applied after being rejected from ivies.
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If you want a public Honors and it’s not one that you can ‘chance’ and you’d rather that than the ED school, you shouldn’t ED.
If you won’t find out til after the ED2 deadline and this is your preference, you shouldn’t ED2.
Note that at least I believe, Honors is for the kid. In most cases it’s not getting them a job. There’s not even a place for it on job apps.
So the pedigree isn’t why you should do it. But rather the experience at a lower cost.
Good luck.
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Agree 100% about the value of Honors. And of course saving $200K is a consideration. Say you could theoretically have to choose between Clemson Honors and Wake and you like both for different reasons, and you could afford Wake full pay. What do you do?
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Clemson. But I was full pay with a $50k max.
My kid is at Charleston. Got into W&L RD full pay.
My other was at dirt cheap Bama. His choice. Own room and shared bath with one. Went over Purdue with merit for engineering.
If you have a budget, set it and don’t cross it.
If you don’t have a budget, it’s much harder.
Ps I’d choose Clemson regular over Wake but that’s me. Pps Clemson isn’t the right comparison. It’s expensive. U of SC or Miami Ohio are better comparators for your argument.
Please don’t hijack the thread. Any discussion not related to the OP’s question or their student should be taken to PM…or start a new thread. Thank you for your understanding.
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As mentioned–ED really differs by school. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the numbers. Super-selective schools use ED to admit Hooked students–essentially students that are told they will be admitted in advance.
A few schools use it to cherry-pick FGLI students.
A few schools use it to boost their overall yield numbers.
Depending on the school, ED can be the same as RD for students applicants. The boosted acceptance numbers are easy to misinterpret.
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The fact that ED2 exists at a school is pretty good evidence they are attracting at least a decent number of applications from kids who do not get admitted to their ED1/REA/SCEA/EA1 school.
That said, the effect this might have on ED2 admit rates (the question the OP is asking) is quite complicated.
Like, some of the people just rejected ED1/REA/SCEA/EA1 might not be particularly competitive for ED2 either. Not to be overly simplistic, but maybe they are just overshooting at BOTH schools, in the hope a big “ED boost” will make it happen for them.
And of course, the ED1/REA/SCEA/EA1 school typically has the option to defer applicants. Deferred applicants then face an interesting choice–keep hope alive or apply ED2 somewhere? And who is more likely to make which choice? That is a subtle but interesting question, since arguably the stronger you feel about your chances at the deferral college, OR about your chances at the potential ED2 school if you apply RD, or about your chances at other colleges RD, or possibly all of these things, maybe the less you see the need to do ED2.
And then of course different first-round colleges have different deferral practices, some deferring a lot, and some a much smaller fraction.
And then not every college that is a plausible second choice to a very competitive ED1/REA/SCEA/EA1 college is going to have ED2.
And finally, again the numbers might be small enough in ED2 that it actually depends year to year how all this goes down at a particular ED2 college.
All this said, I do think this effect likely contributes to the ED2 pool maybe at least often being a bit more competitive on average than the RD pool at many of the colleges with ED2. But that’s a pretty qualified claim.
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Just to confirm…if you are deferred ED1/REA…that generally voids the “ED contract,” correct? You can keep your application alive with your (deferred) ED1 choice and then apply ED2 somewhere else. This risk being that the ED1 school eventually comes through, but you are now committed to ED2 if they should accept you.
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Correct - the moment you are declined for any ED round (1 or 2) you are absolved from the “contract” and become a free agent. 
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At the point you get admitted ED2, you are supposed to withdraw all other applications. So you wouldn’t know whether or not the ED1 might have come through later.
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You can’t submit ED1 AND ED2 at the same time.
Typically ED1 decisions come out before the deadline to apply ED2. Is there overlap between some schools? There might be… but probably on the rare side.
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Yes, exactly. That is why one of the rational inputs to the decision is whether you think there is actually a chance the ED1 school will admit you after a deferral.
Just to give an example, the consensus strongest applicant in our feederish HS applied SCEA to Yale, and was deferred. He then decided not to ED2 anywhere, and proceeded to get a ton of great admissions, including the Morehead-Cain at UNC.
But he also got into Yale RD, and that is where he went.
So he is an example of an extremely competitive applicant who theoretically could have ended up in the ED2 pool somewhere, but decided against it. And he won his bet on himself.
If it helps, my S24 was also deferred by Yale, thought about ED2 at WashU, and then decided against. He was not admitted RD to Yale, but was admitted RD to WashU, and some other great places. And he chose WashU. Another variation on betting on himself that didn’t really help in the end, but didn’t hurt either.
So kids like this may take themselves out of the ED2 pool. But their reasoning involves believing they are very strong candidates. And I think some other strong candidates would go the other way, but this is all going to complicate exactly what the ED2 pool really looks like in any given year, at any given college.
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Yes, assuming the ED2 notification date is before the deferral college’s RD notification date (which is in fact the ED in ED2), and you do what you are supposed to do, you will never know if the deferral college would have accepted you in RD.
But we know it does happen sometimes. And kids who feel like they have a real shot will rationally be less inclined to do ED2.
DD applied to Cornell ED1 and was deferred. Applied to BC ED2. So it does happen. And these are the “lower” ranked Ivies that actually do ED1 and not REA.
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Yes you can. Daughter ED1 Cornell at the same time as BC ED2. The reason is for scholarship purposes at BC. We contacted both admissions offices which confirmed that this is allowed. If you get into ED1 you must decline ED2.
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Interesting. BC’s current website recommends applying for Regular Decision before Nov 1st for scholarship consideration, and later allows switching to ED2.
Regular Decision applicants who wish to be considered for our full-tuition, merit-based scholarship through the Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program must submit an application by the priority scholarship deadline of November 1. No separate application is required. Finalists will be notified of their status, along with an official offer of admission, by February 1. All other Regular Decision applicants will receive their admission decisions by April 1.
If you submit your Regular Decision application early, but later decide that Boston College is your first-choice college, you may convert your application to Early Decision II. Please complete and sign the Common Application Early Decision Agreement form and email it to the Office of Undergraduate Admission by January 8 to make this request.
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Same with my D21. Deferred by Cornell ED1 (didn’t get in during RD) and ED2 Pomona. Didn’t get in Pomona and ended up at her EA which she really enjoys.
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According to the websites, Cornell ED1 decisions go out mid December. BC ED2 application deadline is 1/1. Not sure why someone would be applied to both at the same time. Or, you could apply but would be withdrawing your ED2 app before they even started looking at it.
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