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<p>‘self-selective’ agreed, ‘more competitive’ not. I think the RD is more competitive because many more similarly qualified applicants will apply in the RD round. If 5,000 applied early and 650 admitted (13% admission rate); with the remainder (1,350) selected from about 30,000 RD applicants (4.5% admit rate), then is EA still more competitive. I think not. Of these 30,000 RD applicants most of them will be as qualified as any of the EA applicants – particularly those RD applicants who did EA to Princeton, Yale, Caltech, MIT, Stanford, etc. So, the OP is right if he says that the EA round is less competitive than the RD round. JMO</p>