<p>Basically, hooked applicants who like a college very much are actually expected and encouraged to apply Early (ED, EA SCEA- whatever the school offers) so that they can be flagged and evaluated carefully with extra readings, lower AI’s, etc.</p>
<p>It is no secret.</p>
<p>The schools seem to want to fill a number of slots in the first round with these institutional priorities to achieve diversity, good alum relations, donations, filled and successful sports teams/happy coaches, etc.
These types of applicants’ acceptance rates are higher than the acceptance rates of others, in both the Early round and during the Regular round.</p>
<p>That is why non-Hooked early applicants need to discount that lovely acceptance rate in the early round quite a bit.
p.s. I do wonder how H and P were able to recruit athletes, attract URM’s and celebrities, etc. while they were not offering EA… I suppose they were relying heavily on Likely Letters???</p>