“@theloniusmonk i wouldn’t necessarily say early decision is biased towards kids who are full pay… plenty of schools are need-blind and meet full need, such as dartmouth, grinnell, davidson, hamilton, etc., so a lower income student is benefitted too.”
It’s an implicit bias because as I posted previously the kids prepared for ED or EA tend to come from wealthier income families and school districts. And the stats behind ED (not necessarily EA) show that more full-pay families apply than low-income since they’re not dependent on the school giving and can take the risk of admission without FA. Lower-income families would be better off to compared FA packages even if they’re full need. FA packages are different based on percentage of loans/grants/work-study etc.