<p>Well one thing I’ve heard is that if you are not accepted/deferred EA, you wouldn’t have been accepted/waitlisted RD. I have to imagine this is true, although maybe there’s a few exceptions (what is the chance you will be one of these, though?)</p>
<p>That said, it seems that the consensus is that Stanford’s early program does not give the applicant an advantage in terms of gaining acceptance, but rather reducing admissions stress (at least for accepted students). I think other early programs offer a significant advantage and lower their admissions standards. So a disadvantage to applying EA to Stanford is the opportunity cost of not being able to do so at other schools, as Stanford’s is restrictive.</p>
<p>On a tangent: One thing I’ve always wondered is that if one is deferred, is the fact that they had to send in the application earlier taken into account? Because when compared with the RD pool, deferred applicants had less time to work on essays and would be unable to get a senior-year recommendation. The deferral-update form does not address these matters (how could it?).</p>