<p>The admit rate will drop no matter what happens. Unless NU rejects every ED applicant, the inevitable impending bump in RD applicants will let the admit rate drop (assuming yield stays constant).</p>
<p>If the raw number of ED acceptances goes up, then that means that even more RD applicants than last yr are competing for fewer acceptance letters than last yr. It doesn’t make too much sense to reward the ED field while punishing the RD field. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, there are simply more RD applicants and they comprise a bigger part of the NU student body. I would hope that NU would not overtly favor one pool over another. </p>
<p>Take a school like UPenn which is pretty overt in how much it favors ED students. Applying to UPenn RD is like doing so with one hand tied behind your back. I presume that has some dampening effect on the amount of RD applications UPenn sees. Whereas Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc operate under the principle that eliminating ED yields an overriding rise in RD applications.</p>
<p>My unscientific prediction: the amount of ED acceptances is roughly flat (maybe a SLIGHT increase), while the ED acceptance rate drops. NU is starting to prove that it can compete with Penn, Duke, MIT, Stanford etc. Note that the yield that the past few yrs has been higher than expected and getting off the waitlist has become increasingly difficult. I presume that the admissions office will respond accordingly and just accept fewer kids with the assumption that the higher yield will necessitate fewer acceptances.</p>
<p>Don’t forget the X factor: our football team is GOOD. A few hundred (thousand?) kids may tune into ESPN on Saturday morning and see College Gameday @ Wrigley. The immediate recognition that NU is a great school (I expect at least a few references to our intellectual heft during Gameday), with a good football team and is a few miles from a FANTASTIC city could sway a few kids who would’ve applied to Duke for Coach K but ignored the Power of Fitz.</p>
<p>Go Cats!</p>
<p>It’s a great time to be a Wildcat!</p>