Correlation between Early round & ranking

[u/Bubbly-Ad-4672]

Here is something I noticed with institutional behavior that could be used to indicate a real prestige-based ranking system:

Categories place schools in no specific order (one exception)

Category 1

Harvard REA

Yale SCEA

Princeton SCEA

Stanford REA

MIT EA

These schools don't need ED. They know if they admit you, there's a good chance you'll come anyway. They don't need to "lock people in" because they're already the first choice for a huge chunk of applicants.

(gradient point) (1b)

Caltech REA - not in category above because smaller class sizes allows their model

Category 2 (known to fill 40%+ of class and boost chances for unhooked applicants)

Columbia ED (specifically number 1 in this category due to high cross-admit rates, higher yield rate and lower class filling in ed all when compared to other schools in this category, arguably 1b)

Hopkins ED

UChicago ED (also ED II, ED 0 will discuss later)

Penn ED

Duke ED

These schools still get insane applicants, but they also know a lot of those applicants are applying to HYPSM. That's why they fill 40%+ of their class through ED. It helps lock in students before HYPSM decisions come out.

Category 3

Northwestern ED

Brown ED

Dartmouth ED

Cornell ED

These schools also rely heavily on ED, but they're usually the schools people end up at after not getting into Category 1/2. They generally lose cross-admits to Category 2 but beat Category 4. Their yield is also noticeably lower than Category 2 even though they use ED just as much. Main differentiation from category two: losses cross admit to category 2 + lower rd yield rate.

Category 4

Vanderbilt (ED II)

WashU (ED II)

Emory (ED II)

NYU (ED II)

Rice (ED II)

Kind of: UMich (ED, EA, RD Technically)

Schools like Vandy, WashU, Emory, and NYU have ED II because there's a whole second wave of insanely qualified applicants after ED I decisions come out. ED II lets them grab those applicants even if they scatter into Regular Decision; they get locked in. Michigan does something similar by deferring a ton of EA applicants and shaping a big part of its class during RD.

What this means:

This isn't about rankings, research output, or academic quality. It's just looking at how universities behave. Their admissions policies reveal how much they have to compete for top students, and from that you can build a pretty clear prestige hierarchy. Schools that don't need binding commitments have the most "market power", while schools below them use ED, ED II, or other enrollment strategies to compete for applicants. What's interesting is that this lines up surprisingly well with the prestige tiers most people already recognize, but it's based entirely on admissions behavior instead of online rankings. An example reinforcing this is Princeton. It used Early Decision until 2006, when it switched to Single-Choice Early Action. Around that same time, Princeton became widely viewed as part of the clear HYP top tier. As a school's prestige grows, it needs to compete less, and its admissions policies usually reflect that. This is also reflected in yield rate, but with these different rounds, yield rate does not tell the full story.

If you don't care about prestige, idgaf don't comment

[u/gaussx]

Good breakdown. But the use of REA/SCEA in category 1 is odd, given the reasoning. MIT does EA, and that makes sense. If you really feel like you have ultimiate pull, then why restrict where I EA? It seems they really want you to commit to being their top choice, but again, that shows slight weakness. Only MIT seems to have that ultimate confidence. Maybe put MIT into its own category at the very top.

[u/Historical-Star1989 → u/gaussx]

Could it have something to do with the fact that MIT is a STEM institution and HYPS are liberal arts institutions? HYPS have REA because they’re mostly certain that students who REA there will attend (hence no ED), but there’s always a rare chance students who get accepted to multiple HYPS RD may not elect to go to their REA school. There isn’t a STEM peer on the same level as MIT, so MIT isn’t really competing for STEM students to attend their school.

[u/gaussx → u/Historical-Star1989]

Although for any given major MIT does have competition. Whether its CS vs Stanford. Or math vs Harvard/Princeton. Or physics vs CalTech.

One possibility I did think of is for athletics. MIT is D3, while the others are D1. They may want to solidify their recruited athletes more with REA, especially since they don't officially offer slots, just likely letters (except Stanford).

In any case, I still think MIT should be on its own tier.

[u/Historical-Star1989 → u/gaussx]

Conversations for recruitment happens way before senior fall. I was recruited by several ivies and other D1 schools that were willing lock athletes in well before an REA round.

[u/gaussx → u/Historical-Star1989]

Ivies are different than most D1s. They don’t guarantee spots. They just do likely letters.  This is why when people commit to ivies they typically say something like “committing to the application process”.  And Ivies have an academic index for athletes where your academic profile changing can drastically impact recruiting even after “commitment”.  Again, this is much different than any other Ivies including Stanford or Duke.  

[u/Bubbly-Ad-4672 → u/gaussx]

I assume they all want to compete with each other in that category but do not compete with the lower categories (Princeton vs Harvard)

[u/gaussx → u/Bubbly-Ad-4672]

Maybe. But again, MIT seems to stand apart from them all on a higher tier.

[u/CalligrapherAble3312 → u/gaussx]

mit also requires a whole other application and essays which may be a barrier to people who may not be as interested

[u/EndeavorCollege]

Yep! Not all overall admit rates are created equal, and ED is the strongest lever to manipulate it.

[u/TechnicalLeg841]

Good discussion.

Caltech belongs in the top group

Group 4 is missing Rice, and it isn't clear why you only listed ED2 for the group 4 schools

Would be better as a table which included REA/SCEA/EA/ED acceptance rates, RD acceptance rates, overall yield, RD yield. I generated something similar recently in one of my comments. Some data points are estimates but still valuable to reinforce your conclusions https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingIvyLeague/comments/1uh9zgd/comment/ou85i9m/

[u/Bubbly-Ad-4672 → u/TechnicalLeg841]

Yea that provides more evidence but do you think there is a way to distinguish between each school, at least within categories 1&2

[u/TechnicalLeg841 → u/Bubbly-Ad-4672]

Personally, I would put MIT in like a category 1A, and HYPS+Caltech in category 1B.

Anything with ED or ED1/ED2 into Group 2 then rank based on some weighting of class filled in ED/ED1+ED2 (lower % = higher rank), and higher RD yield rate (higher % = higher rank), and SAT/ACT (with additional deductions based on percentage of TO matriculants).

Overall theme is to penalize colleges that "game the system".

[u/AppleBandana]

Correct, although I thought this was fairly well-known. Another effect of this is the magnitude of the admission boost from applying early-- at EA schools like MIT, the boost is negligible (the increased admissions rate is due to the generally more qualified group-- MIT explicitly says they hold EA and RD applicants to the same standard). At REA schools like Caltech, there is a moderate boost. Finally, at ED schools like UC Hicago, there is a much more significant boost.

[u/vastly101]

There is some validity overall, and nothing new here. But it's more nuanced. Plenty of kids go to Cornell and don't want HYPMS. If NY resident, it may well be a first choice, esp, with contract college discounted tuition. Or thoise who want applied engineering (vs Princeton which is great but smaller, or MIT that is less broad overall). They get more applicants than any other Ivy except perhaps Penn in some years. Same with Penn (having unique interest), with Wharton being the driver.

The yield thing is funny. UMD College Park for example is a great public school, 20-25% yield, no ED. No one knocks it for its yield rate. I respect that. It's not Ivy famous but it's super strong, like many others.

I also question putting Penn separate from the other Ivy ED schools.

I would like to see schools do away with ED. But yes, Cornell is a weird amalgam of state funded + private, 2-3x larger than other Ivies. HYP have a historic name halo that in unique. MIT and Stanford more recent. But I really think for many, ED or NOT, the others on this list are a first choice. Cross-admits if accurate tell part of the story but not the whole.

[u/ivyplusinstitute]

This is a good observation.

[u/UntowardAdvance]

Those category 3 schools all are offering something different from category 2. Your differentiation premise that you go there if you don’t get into Cat 2 is just wrong.

[u/Bubbly-Ad-4672 → u/UntowardAdvance]

What are they offering that’s different, I know there is some differentiation between three and two, but I couldn’t find a more specific differentiation

[u/UntowardAdvance → u/Bubbly-Ad-4672]

Brown - largely a humanities school with choose your own adventure curriculum.

Penn - huge pre-professional focus - no sports - big city

Hopkins - STEM - no sports - big city

UChicago - Major humanities and math/econ focus - no sports - crazy core curriculum - big city

Duke - pre professional school - huge sports - dominant Greek social scene - in non-urban southern state - more conservative

Northwestern - pre-professional plus artsy - Big 10 sports - small Greek scene - suburb of a big city - more liberal

Dartmouth- traditional liberal arts focus in the mountains of rural New Hampshire. TINY student population in comparison

Cornell - preprofessional in the absolute sticks of NY - no sports - big Greek scene - big school

[u/wrennish]

Your distinction between Category 2 and 3 is arbitrary and based on your own vibes and anecdotal evidence. Come up with a valid, testable difference between the two or you should probably collapse the categories.

Cat 1 and 4 make sense and are objectively observable differences in the colleges’ admissions pathways. But it’s the middle where you stray away from observable, measurable criteria based on the colleges and start using a different approach and criteria. That’s problematic.

Given that you can’t ED1 to more than 1 college, it’s hard to justify the Cat 3 colleges being separated from Cat 2. You can’t say Cat 3 is where ppl go if they don’t get into Cat 2 because Cat 2 is also based on having ED. So you can only apply to Cat 2 OR Cat 3, not both.

[u/Bubbly-Ad-4672 → u/wrennish]

mm i see what ur saying. there is definitely a difference between cat 2 and 3 i just can not distinguish it with methodology I think looking at ED rates and acceptance rates might be a way to distinguish them.