Long story short…
We are offering an Early Action application option.
WashU has begun considering demonstrated interest. See what it means to us below.
One less optional essay to worry about!
No change to our test optional policy.
A priority deadline for students who want to be considered for a Signature Scholar Program or the Nemerov Writing Scholars Program.
That struck me as a pretty helpful discussion of what demonstrated interest actually means to them.
Of course, the strongest possible demonstration of interest is applying binding ED. Applying EA is a much weaker demonstration of interest, but presumably greater than applying RD.
On that page, WUStL says that “about 60% of our class is admitted through an ED round.”
As always is worth being a bit careful with such statistics.
Per their 2024-25 CDS, they had 1217 ED admits, which probably yielded around 1180 enrollees. They enrolled 1847, so that would make ED enrollees around 64% of total enrollees. So that’s consistent with their statement, understanding this varies a bit from cycle to cycle and we are just estimating ED yield.
However, they admitted 3951, so ED admits were only around 31% of total admits.
The reason for the difference when looking at admits versus enrollees is of course that non-binding yield is much lower. In this case, it looks like non-binding yield was around 24%.
OK, so I think sometimes people interpret numbers like the 60% as implying they won’t be admitting many more people after ED. That’s not correct, however. They’ll still admit a lot more people, but because many of those people won’t yield, ED admits will end up majority of students actually enrolled.
And then of course considering demonstrated interest is about improving that non-binding yield.
Definitely a good idea to be careful with these ‘stats’, especially when schools make misstatements, as WashU did in their info release. They should have said ‘about 60% of our class is filled (or enrolled) through an ED round.’
Regardless, it will be interesting to see if the ED class size changes with the EA round. I expect it won’t, and what will really change will be the RD round…especially considering that EA is now offered and they are going back to factoring in demonstrated interest in the admissions decision. Like other schools with ED/EA/RD, RD admits will likely fulfill whatever institutional priorities are left to be filled after ED and EA…and there’s no way to predict what that will be in a given year.
Is this all a sort of move to a more UChicago-ish type of model? I wonder if they might try to get students that are deferred EA to move to ED2? It’s a sort of “You showed some interest applying EA, but would you really like to show some interest with ED2?”
maybe! I thought it was just for more applications, generally. Especially with no extra essay? But you could be right….
The funny thing there last CDS already said they “considered” interest too 
I am curious if next one will say it is important? or maybe they are just getting around to publicly announcing it?
I would just chalk that up as another example of a school’s CDS not reflecting what actually happens in admissions.
totally agree it is often not accurate… though I did (because I am crazy) look back at the prior 2 CDS before, and those both said they didn’t consider interest and/or it was blank. so I think they may have really started just this last year and didn’t make an announcement about it….(which they are certainly allowed to do!)…They may have started this past cycle to test if it helped yield and are now making a big deal about it? we shall never know of course!
Good sleuthing! I agree with your potential explanations, and….nothing would really surprise me 
Yeah, my understanding is EA is basically ALSO a form of demonstrated interest. And in general, if between EA and this formalized consideration of demonstrated interest they can successfully improve their non-binding yields, then they will be able to admit fewer people total non-binding to achieve their enrollment targets. Both generally and also as to specific institutional enrollment goals.
Possibly!
The other thing about private EA1 rounds is they are typically disallowed by REA/SCEA rules. Like if, say, you look up Yale’s SCEA rules, they are:
Restrictions
If you opt to apply through Single-Choice Early Action at Yale, you may not also apply through Early Action or Early Decision to other colleges or universities, unless:
The early admissions program is a non-binding rolling admission program.
The early admissions program is a non-binding early program at a public institution.
The early admissions program is an Early Decision or Early Action program that notifies applicants after January 1. These programs are typically titled “Round 2”
The early admissions program is at an institution outside the United States.
When you sort through all the exceptions, basically there are really only two main restrictions: first-round binding admissions anywhere, and first-round early action specifically at US privates . . . like WashU.
OK, so you already couldn’t apply ED1 to WashU and apply SCEA to Yale, but you could apply ED2 to WashU if things didn’t work out with SCEA at Yale. Now you could also choose to apply EA to WashU, but then you can’t apply SCEA to Yale, or the other colleges with this sort of restriction.
Obviously some people will then still choose REA/SCEA over WashU for their early application. But, to the extent adding this program helps move any applicant to EA at WashU versus REA/SCEA at these other colleges, that is probably a net yield benefit for WashU.
And this is unfortunate for all the applicants who need their 1st semester senior grades to help their application. It seems like the college admissions timeline has really moved up now and schools are relying heavily on a student’s 9th-11th grades and senior year is discounted a bit. Speaking as an educator, some kids just don’t mature until later in the high school years and this will put them at a disadvantage.
It’s interesting that WashU is committing to communicating EA admissions decisions Dec 23, before the holidays. I would expect they will easily receive 20K apps by Nov 2 (ED 1 and EA deadline, counselor materials deadline Nov 9)…that will be a lot to review in 6-7 weeks!
Yeah, that is actually a pretty nice offer in my view, for the kids who are not doing something like REA/SCEA. Obviously you need to get your application in, and they could still defer you. But potentially some kids could cut a LOT of RD applications if they got an offer from WashU on that timeline (this is assuming you didn’t get in somewhere ED1, which would moot all this).