<p>Think of applying ED as a quid pro quo. You are giving up the right to explore other admissions options and financial aid packages and getting a quicker admissions decision and an absolute admissions advantage. The school is improving their selectivity stats (yield), grabbing some who they would lose to other more competitive schools, and probably taking students who need less aid. The admissions statistics will say the acceptance rate is much higher in the ED round although those numbers are skewed upwards becasue of hooked candidates and a likely stronger applicant pool. Nevertheless, I have never seen a school state that there is no ED admit advantage. There is the general consensus on CC that Stanford’s REA round has an admissions disadvantage (ie. harder to get in than RD) but you sound like the type of applicant that may be very successful in this round.</p>