Early Admissions to Elite Colleges

The number of early admission applicants to colleges and universities continues to rise even though the total number of applicants to college is expected to have peaked.  For the elite schools (Ivy  League plus other top 10 colleges), the number of early applicants increased by 9%.

College	applications	% over '12	admits	admit rate	places	%  filled
Harvard	4,753	15%	895	18.8%	1,670	54%
MIT	6,541	9%	650	9.9%	1,130	58%
Princeton	3,810	11%	697	18.3%	1,397	50%
Yale	4,514	4%	709	15.7%	1,351	52%
Stanford	6,103	4%	725	11.9%	1,766	41%
Caltech	1,713	17%	250	14.6%	235	106%
Columbia Col	3,126	1%	610	19.5%	1,075	57%
Upenn	4,812	6%	1,196	24.9%	2,420	49%
Cornell	4,193	16%	1,230	33.9%	3,150	39%
Brown	3,010	3%	558	18.5%	1,515	37%
Duke	2,540	-4%	753	29.6%	1,705	44%
Dartmouth	1,574	-13%	464	29.5%	1,110	42%
U of Chicago	10,317	20%	1,380	13.4%	1,400	99%

U of Chicago continues it's recent fast growth spurt with a 20% increase y-o-y, while some colleges like Dartmouth experienced an unusually large decrease in early applicants.

The percent of applicants admitted early remains much higher than overall admit rates for all institutions.  For example, while the overall admit rate for Harvard is expected to remain below 6%, its admit rate for Single Choice Early Action (SCEA) program is more than 3 times higher at 18.8%.  This does not mean that it is much easier to get into Harvard or any of the other schools by applying early.  It is important to point out that the early pools contain most of the recruited athletes (with very high acceptance rates), legacies (with relatively high acceptances), and URMs (e.g. Questbridge, with higher than average acceptances) which tends to distort the true admit rate for applicants without any hooks.  That said, many colleges do look favorably on early applicants who show strong interest and commitment to the school.

The last column calculates the percentage of the freshman class already filled early.  Applicants should not be discouraged by the 106% for CalTech and 99% for UofChicago since their yield typically runs near 1/3 and they ultimately admit twice as many during the regular decision cycle.