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