As the OP, I would like to point out that the above is what this thread is supposed to be about. We got off to a really great start, but it has been awhile since someone has directly addressed the original question.
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I have noticed a surprising amount of Buyer’s Remorse with the ED process (kids I know IRL, so “personal anecdotes”). Kids who regretted not letting the process play out with a larger list of schools, even if they got admitted to their ED choice; kids who regretted “reaching” in ED, getting rejected, but realizing from watching their friends that they might have been admitted ED to a “less reachy but still fantastic” school, etc.
I have also noticed that the parents of these kids are quick to dismiss these feelings. “You can only attend one college, so what’s the big whoop if you end up at College A and not College B” (true, but why the pressure on your kid to apply in October if that’s how you feel?). Etc.
Is it parents who are pushing students to apply ED, or is it private prep school college counselors or outside college counselors who do that pushing?
On the other hand, pushing students to apply non-binding EA and early rolling whenever possible (while carefully noting the restrictions of any restrictive EA schools) makes sense in most cases, since many such colleges become more selective in the later part of the admission cycle due to filling up their class or popular majors early (or they may have given out most of their scholarship money early).
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Yes, I agree (on the frat thing). I didn’t want to turn this thread into a Greek thing, but that’s why I said it was great in some ways perhaps that they eliminated frats. But in the end, they now still have extremely exclusive parties where you have to be a member of a specific sports team to attend. Still something very very unhealthy about that, IMO. At least frat parties often are open to the entire student population to attend. However, this is a big conversation and there are pros and also some serious cons, and such a range of behaviors at different schools and different frats, and is pretty far off topic. I just wanted you to know I don’t disagree with you.
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I don’t think anyone was coming down on you over semantics. I think people were pointing out that NYU does, in fact, hook or a give a bump to its recruited athletes, similar to other schools. The larger a school is, generally the smaller % of the student body the varsity athletes will be as a soccer team only needs X number of players regardless of how big the university is (thus the perhaps surprising data point mentioned above that Amherst actually has more athletes than Alabama, or something like that referenced by someone above, which would mean that at Alabama the athlete % must be absolutely tiny compared to that % at Amherst). So yes, both things can be true—NYU does give preference to athletes as do a large majority (all?) of the selective schools, and at a school like NYU which is significantly larger than a small liberal arts school, the impact of that is going to be less significant percentage-wise. (The semantics point was really more of a criticism or analysis of NYU’s wording, which was perhaps a little misleading to imply that they don’t give a bump, when people are well aware that they in fact do.)
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The prep school my student attended was really good about adjusting the ED advice to the circumstances of the student. If they knew the family was full-pay and the student was a credible applicant for a college that was their favored option, the counselor encouraged ED. Sometimes, however, they had reservations about an ED application and indulged the kid knowing that someplace else on the list would probably work out in ED2 or RD.
There was someone in my kid’s friend group who was really adamant about Duke, for example . They were not competitive for Duke. The counselor basically said, “hey, if that’s how you feel, go for it, we still have schools X, Y and Z.”
There was another kid in that friend group who kept pounding away at US News T20 schools, mainly at the parents’ insistence. These parents also found an outside counselor who told them what they wanted to hear. The prep school’s counseling office was trying to cook with too many chefs in the kitchen. They gave really good advice that was ignored. That kid was rejected from the ED choice and, during RD, all their reaches and all but one of what they saw as their targets, and ended up at a safety/likely. Of course, the family and the student were not happy with this safety or that target because they did not bother to research them for fit because they never expected them to be their only two acceptances from twenty+ applications.
My kid was down to two options for ED1. Based on my kid’s profile, the counselor thought the chances would be slightly better at School B. My kid liked School B a lot, obviously, but was disappointed that ED-ing there would knock out School A, so that clarified which was truly the favorite. My kid is at School A.
At that same prep school, there were also some very good examples of FA kids being advised away from ED to some very strong merit opportunities.
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I think that feeling is pretty common. My S24 went ED and is perfectly happy with his decision. But having to withdraw pending apps, and wondering “what if” certainly pops into my mind periodically. It never crosses his mind, though, which is most important!
We had a long and grueling season with S22 so I was pushing for S24 to go ED, I just didn’t want all the anxiety from December to April.
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We attended a fall open house at Denison.
During a breakout session that included all sorts of admission data, I flat out asked, “What is the ED acceptance rate for unhooked candidates?”
The admissions rep (who was high up the food chain vs. an intern), sort of sputtered and acted surprised at the question, as if they had never considered it.
He said he guessed that it would be close to 20% vs. the overall ED acceptance rate of 25%.
He also said RD rate was 15% with an overall acceptance rate of 17%.
Later when I looked at the actual application numbers I couldn’t make sense of his percentages especially considering the number of athletes who apply ED.
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I’m no expert like many of the respondents here (meaning I do not do any sort of data deep dives, but I 
the CC’ers who do it for us–thank you!), but I can say anecdotally that we had a good experience with ED in our house at WUSTL. My kid was unhooked and nobody from our high school had ever been admitted, but they want to do a combination of majors that is very particular to WUSTL and they did have an exceptional application for the major that they want. So I thought they might have a fighting chance even though WUSTL is very selective. I kept that hope to myself, though–managing expectations is key as we know and so we had good targets and safeties but none with quite the program match.
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Can you explain why you’d lump Questbridge applicants in with E.D. kids who have an advantage over non-hooked E.D applicants? Yes, I totally get it that Questbridge applicants are first-gen and/or low-income, and that can be considered a hook, as many colleges have set goals for admitting low-income applicants.
But look at the acceptance rates for Questbridge kids participating in the National College Match (that is, applying early). Only around 30 percent of Questbridge kids doing the (early) National College March are accepted ANYWHERE. Some of that one-third who get in via N.C.M. may have applied to15 schools, some to 10 schools, some to four or five, some to two or three…
Do you see what I mean? If you read Questbridge results and also anecdotally, Questbridgers aren’t accepted at higher rates via E.D. than anyone else. They aren’t advantaged in terms of acceptance rates as legacies or athletes are.
I’m not being a devil’s advocate, I’m sincerely asking.
Because the QB ED spots that the school takes/intends to take aren’t available for unhooked applicants. Some QB students are also admitted in the EA and/or RD rounds. Posse spots also further decrease the available ED seats, so one has to look at that too. Middlebury takes 30 Posse students in ED for example.
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Questbrridge says that their college partners don’t set numbers (goals, quotas) for the number they’ll take. They don’t set seats aside. Do you think that’s not true?
Meanwhile, the acceptance rate for Questbridge kids isn’t higher than it is for other early applicants.- it isn’t privileged as it is for legacy or athletes.
So I still can’t see how Questbridge can be considered in the same privileged category for E.D.
What am I missing?
It seems to me that what Questbridge does is give low-include kids a chance to participate in the E.D. round which otherwise they’d be barred from. (Due to the fact that you can’t apply via “normal” E.D. if you are poor because you aren’t in a position to be legally bound to a contract that you may not be able to pay for and haven’t seen the financial terms for yet.)
And I’m genuinely curious. I’m not trying to be argumentative. 
Maybe colleges do set aside Questbridge seats?
Again, the OP was interested in what surprised you about ED. Discussion about QB, whether colleges lie, or really anything not answering the OP is better served in its own thread
My anecdotal experience is that “tipped” kids seem to do relatively well at ED. By tipped, I mean the student is a solid fit academically AND could fill a campus need/preference but it’s not essential for the school to get the tip-top student for that need or preference. So, maybe the kid plays an instrument well enough to be in the school orchestra (but not well enough to be hooked as a musician.) Maybe the kid could contribute to the debate team; or serve a role on the school paper.
To me, those kids who have the stats plus something a little extra the school can use seem to do well with ED.
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Still early in the process with S26, but looking at Naviance, what really surprises me about ED is how much it varies for my son’s school specifically. For some highly selective schools, ED is absolutely a huge advantage, for others it just makes no sense. As an example, U Chicago ED acceptance rate for his school is about 40%, for Brown, it’s about 4%. No data on the hooks, but I don’t see why those would vary much from school to school.
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We see similar weird things in my daughter’s school.
In our case, it is usually the result of the small N problem. When you have 2 out of 5 kids getting in over 5 years yielding a 40% ED admit rate…GREAT! But that is a pretty small sample size.
I think this may have helped my kid. Her stats were in the lower part of the middle 50 ( though I suspect her letter of recommendation was fabulous - the teacher used to rave to us about what an asset she was in his class). I do know that a couple of her classmates who looked noticeably better than her on paper wrt grades and ECs were rejected RD.
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