Is there an advantage in applying ED to Williams?

TheGreyKing
Sat, 29 Jun 2019 23:42:20 +0000

Your “bucket” matters, too. A bunch of friends at Williams all requested their admissions files and compared notes. Some of them had been admitted ED, some RD. They saw their academic ratings, their overall recommendation ratings, their checked-off special “attributes” (like being African American, etc.), and- fascinatingly- the committee that had evaluated them. For example, one student’s file noted, “Decision rendered by the First Generation Committee,” another student’s file noted, “Decision rendered by the Division Two Committee,” and yet another’s noted, “Decision rendered by the Institutional Ties Committee.”

ED probably increases your chance of being one of the people admitted from your bucket of similar applicants, before many of those spots already have been filled. But make no mistake- you are competing against applicants of similar backgrounds to your own.