<p>Northwestern is admitting more ED’s for several clear reasons.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yearly ED applicant numbers have risen dramatically (there were 8% more applicants this year than last and numbers have doubled in the past 5 years)</p></li>
<li><p>The quality of the pool of applicants keeps increasing yearly (stats of this year’s group were the highest in NU’s history)</p></li>
<li><p>With ED’ers now representing 43% of freshmen, Northwestern has caught up with the crowd, differing little from other similar academic institutions (e.g. Duke at 44%, Penn at 49%)</p></li>
<li><p>And most importantly, President Shapiro has made it clear he wants to assemble a freshman class that “declare that this is their dream school” (what better way to guarantee a happy and cohesive student body?). It is he who has driven changes in NU’s admission policies.</p></li>
</ol>