Ranking most competitive EA/ED applicant pools?

Applying to College
1

<p>Just curious, does anyone have an idea which schools have the most competitive pool for early admissions? I’m assuming that EA pools are generally a little more competitive than ED pools, due to the non-binding nature of EA (there are, of course, many exceptions). Anyways, here are my estimates (from most competitive to less competitive):</p>

<ol>
<li>Yale SCEA</li>
<li>Stanford SCEA</li>
<li>MIT/Caltech EA (cross-applicants)</li>
<li>Dartmouth ED (high number of recruited applicants)</li>
<li>Columbia ED</li>
<li>UPenn ED (legacies)</li>
<li>Brown ED</li>
<li>UChicago EA</li>
<li>Georgetown EA</li>
<li>Cornell ED</li>
</ol>

<p>I know that non-SC EA schools can overlap, but I specifically wanted to include MIT/Caltech on its own tier. Overall, do these appear like they’re in the ballpark in terms of actual competitiveness/selectivity? Anything appear out of place? How would you rank early admissions selectivity/the competitiveness of the early applicant pool for top schools?</p>

2

<p>At all of those schools a huge percentage of those admitted early are recruited athletes, legacies, staff kids, development and other friends of the school. As for advantage for the unhooked, I think you need to go to schools ranked below these that have to worry about yield. That’s where applying early helps.</p>

3

<p>So are you saying that at all of the aforementioned schools, chances for an unhooked applicant would actually be increased by simply applying RD?</p>

<p>Regardless, I am still interested in the relative difficulty of being admitted in the early round at top schools.</p>

4

<p>dartmouth ED would not be a good idea</p>

5

<p>Georgetown EA should be higher relative to the ED schools since it is non-binding and attracts a large (6000+) and stellar group that can hedge their bets for the Spring season.</p>

6

<p>I would say Duke ED is up there along with the ED/EA of top 20 colleges.</p>

7

<p>An important part of your research is to look into the school’s policy on rejection v deferral during the early action process. Stanford makes every effort to provide a final decision during EA so they will reject many more than they defer. MIT defers a ton and rejects very few during EA. Yale rejects more than MIT but defers a high percentage also. Look at their past statistics before you decide where to use your single choice EA.</p>

8

<p>does Dartmouth has ED…i don’t think so…you might want to check that</p>

9

<p>Yeah I say stanford is the hardest because they reject almost everyone.</p>

<p>MIT is good because you have a high chance of being deferred.</p>

10

<p>^But the deferred/rejected difference doesn’t really matter if most of the deferred will not be accepted anyways…</p>

11

<p>dartmouth definitely does have ED</p>

12

<p>Most of those schools would say the unhooked have the say chance ED/EA and RD.</p>

13

<p>^So the whole “expressing particular interest in a school” thing doesn’t really help?</p>

<p>Anyways, like I’ve said, it’s interesting to just get an idea which pools are most competitive. Particularly I am most interested in the differences between the Yale SCEA and the Stanford SCEA pool.</p>

14

<p>I highly doubt there is a significant difference between the two.</p>

<p>and interest doesn’t work for HYPS, because they know that 99% of the applicants are interested.</p>

<p>and ED>RD but EA=RD IMO</p>

15

<p>Demonstrated interest does not count at any ivy.</p>

<p>The only real difference between Yale and Stanford is how they handle the rejected in the EA pool, Yale defers and Stanford rejects the majority. In the end it’s all the same, about the same percentage get in.</p>

16

<p>yes yes…sorry…Dartmouth does have ED…i’m wondering how did i get the wrong impression though??</p>