If you're searching for an ED2 acceptance rate, here's the honest answer: almost no college publishes one. Schools report early decision as a single number covering both rounds, and the standard form most of them use, the Common Data Set, has one early decision line, not one per round. What the official data can show is how each ED2 school's early decision applicants as a whole fared against everyone else. At 25 schools with a confirmed ED2 round, that ranges from Tufts, where early decision admitted 32.0% against 8.5% for all other applicants, to Brandeis, where early decision admitted 35.6% against 46.1%.
Why you won't find a clean ED2 number
Here's what schools actually publish:
- The Common Data Set lumps the rounds together. Section C21 asks for the number of early decision applications and the number admitted, one line each. A school with ED I and ED II reports them as one early decision pool. The figures below come from that section.
- Admissions offices report "ED combined" when they report at all. Vanderbilt, for example, published a summary of "Early Decision I and Early Decision II combined" for the Class of 2030: 7,727 early decision applications and an 11.9% admit rate. It didn't publish an ED2-only rate.
- Some schools announce ED2 admits without applicant counts. Johns Hopkins announced 260 ED2 admits for the Class of 2030, after 553 in ED1. Without the number of ED2 applicants, there's no rate to compute.
Sites that quote a precise "ED2 acceptance rate" for a school are usually estimating or relying on unofficial reports. We only use numbers the schools published.
Early decision vs. everyone else at 25 ED2 schools
"ED admit rate" is admitted divided by applied for the school's whole early decision pool (ED I and ED II together), from its 2025-26 Common Data Set (fall 2025 entering class). "Everyone else" is every other first-year applicant: Regular Decision, plus Early Action where the school offers it. The last column is how many times higher the ED rate was.
| School | ED admit rate (ED I + ED II) | Everyone else | Overall | ED vs. everyone else |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tufts University | 32.0% (1,071 of 3,344) | 8.5% | 10.8% | 3.8x |
| Claremont McKenna College | 22.1% (216 of 978) | 7.4% | 9.4% | 3.0x |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 27.0% (1,333 of 4,934) | 9.3% | 11.9% | 2.9x |
| Davidson College | 29.1% (358 of 1,232) | 10.0% | 12.6% | 2.9x |
| Haverford College | 32.6% (229 of 702) | 11.1% | 13.3% | 2.9x |
| Swarthmore College | 17.8% (228 of 1,281) | 6.4% | 7.5% | 2.8x |
| Bowdoin College | 14.9% (296 of 1,985) | 5.5% | 6.8% | 2.7x |
| Emory University | 22.2% (1,049 of 4,728) | 8.6% | 10.3% | 2.6x |
| Bates College | 33.5% (318 of 949) | 12.8% | 14.8% | 2.6x |
| Washington and Lee University | 27.6% (289 of 1,048) | 11.7% | 13.5% | 2.4x |
| Hamilton College | 28.1% (315 of 1,120) | 11.5% | 13.6% | 2.4x |
| Wellesley College | 29.4% (301 of 1,023) | 12.8% | 14.8% | 2.3x |
| Villanova University | 59.8% (1,005 of 1,680) | 25.9% | 28.1% | 2.3x |
| Colgate University | 35.5% (477 of 1,342) | 16.0% | 17.5% | 2.2x |
| Lehigh University | 47.4% (966 of 2,040) | 26.8% | 29.0% | 1.8x |
| Bucknell University | 54.7% (656 of 1,200) | 29.6% | 32.2% | 1.8x |
| Carleton College | 34.6% (263 of 760) | 20.2% | 21.8% | 1.7x |
| University of Richmond | 36.5% (421 of 1,154) | 21.2% | 22.2% | 1.7x |
| Harvey Mudd College | 18.4% (109 of 594) | 11.6% | 12.3% | 1.6x |
| Rice University | 11.3% (647 of 5,748) | 7.4% | 8.0% | 1.5x |
| Macalester College | 42.0% (201 of 479) | 27.3% | 28.1% | 1.5x |
| Lafayette College | 38.0% (356 of 937) | 30.5% | 31.2% | 1.2x |
| Syracuse University | 55.7% (1,478 of 2,654) | 48.4% | 48.8% | 1.2x |
| University of Rochester | 41.8% (472 of 1,129) | 41.9% | 41.9% | 1.0x |
| Brandeis University | 35.6% (242 of 680) | 46.1% | 45.4% | 0.8x |
What the numbers say
- At more than half of these schools, the early decision rate was at least double the rate for everyone else. That includes WashU, Emory and Claremont McKenna, and liberal arts colleges like Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Bates and Hamilton.
- Tufts had the biggest gap on this list. Early decision admitted 32.0% of applicants, and everyone else was admitted at 8.5%, a 3.8x difference.
- The gap can be much smaller. At Rice, early decision admitted 11.3% against 7.4% for everyone else, a 1.5x edge.
- At two schools, early decision did no better. Rochester admitted early decision and other applicants at almost the same rate. Brandeis admitted early decision applicants at a lower rate than everyone else in fall 2025.
Why this overstates the ED2 edge
Treat the ED column as an upper bound for ED2, for three reasons:
- It mixes ED I and ED II. If a school fills most of its early places in the first round, the second round could admit at a lower rate than the combined figure.
- Early applicants aren't a random sample of the pool. Part of the gap may reflect who chooses to apply early, not only the round itself.
- One year of data. These are fall 2025 figures. A school can shift how many students it takes early from one year to the next.
That's why "apply ED2 for better odds" is only half the story. The data supports it at schools like Tufts and WashU. At Rochester or Brandeis, a binding commitment bought an earlier answer, not better odds.
How to use this
- Look up your ED2 school's row before you commit. A 2.9x gap and a 0.8x gap are different decisions.
- Pair it with selectivity. A strong ED edge at a school that admits fewer than one in ten applicants overall still means most early applicants are denied. ED2 schools by acceptance rate groups these schools into tiers.
- For first-round ED vs. RD, see how much early decision really boosts your odds, built from schools' Class of 2030 announcements.
- If you're deciding after a December result, read the rules for applying ED2 after an ED1 deferral or rejection and check ED2 deadlines by school.
Sources and method
Every figure in the table comes from the school's own 2025-26 Common Data Set (Section C1 for all applicants and admits, Section C21 for early decision applicants and admits), downloaded from its institutional research or admissions site. "Everyone else" is (total admitted minus ED admitted) divided by (total applied minus ED applied). Where a school reported C1 only by sex, we added the rows. Vanderbilt's and Johns Hopkins' Class of 2030 figures come from Vanderbilt's admissions blog and the Johns Hopkins Hub. A school is in the table only if we confirmed its ED2 round for 2026-27 on a current admissions page that shows the cycle year. Several other ED2 colleges post their ED2 rules on pages without a year, so they're left out until their pages confirm the cycle. See how to read a Common Data Set to check any school yourself.