These are 27 ED2 schools sorted by acceptance rate, from the University of Chicago at 4.5% to Syracuse at 48.8%. Each rate is the school's own fall 2025 admit rate, computed from its 2025-26 Common Data Set, and each school's Early Decision II round for the current 2026-27 cycle is confirmed on its own admissions or financial aid pages. If December left you choosing where to place a second binding application, this sorts the options by how selective they are, so a reach ED2 and a target ED2 aren't treated as the same kind of bet.
Two things to know before you read the tiers:
- These are overall rates, not ED2 rates. Almost no college publishes an ED2-only admit rate. The overall rate counts every applicant, so a school's early decision rounds usually admit at a higher rate than the number here. What colleges actually report about ED2 admit rates breaks that out school by school.
- Not every school calls it "ED2." Swarthmore and Carleton call their second binding round "Winter Early Decision." Bowdoin and Harvey Mudd call it "Early Decision 2." It's the same idea: a binding round with a January deadline.
Under 10%: the most selective ED2 schools
| School | Fall 2025 admit rate | Applicants | Admitted |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Chicago | 4.5% | 45,533 | 2,039 |
| Bowdoin College | 6.8% | 14,045 | 957 |
| Swarthmore College | 7.5% | 12,995 | 977 |
| Rice University | 8.0% | 36,791 | 2,948 |
| Claremont McKenna College | 9.4% | 6,939 | 655 |
Every school here is a reach for nearly every applicant, ED2 or not. ED2 still moves the odds at some of them: Bowdoin, Swarthmore and Claremont McKenna all admitted early decision applicants at well above their overall rate. Rice's edge was much smaller. The ED2 admit-rate breakdown has the numbers.
10% to 15%: highly selective
| School | Fall 2025 admit rate | Applicants | Admitted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Emory University | 10.3% | 37,561 | 3,869 |
| Tufts University | 10.8% | 33,415 | 3,613 |
| Washington University in St. Louis | 11.9% | 33,283 | 3,968 |
| Harvey Mudd College | 12.3% | 5,217 | 643 |
| Davidson College | 12.6% | 8,933 | 1,127 |
| Haverford College | 13.3% | 6,730 | 896 |
| Washington and Lee University | 13.5% | 8,963 | 1,214 |
| Hamilton College | 13.6% | 8,904 | 1,210 |
| Wellesley College | 14.8% | 8,506 | 1,258 |
| Bates College | 14.8% | 9,660 | 1,433 |
At Tufts, WashU, Davidson and Haverford, the combined early decision admit rate ran about three to four times the rate for everyone else, so a binding round can matter a lot in this tier.
15% to 30%: selective
| School | Fall 2025 admit rate | Applicants | Admitted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colgate University | 17.5% | 17,310 | 3,030 |
| Wake Forest University | 20.8% | 19,600 | 4,068 |
| Carleton College | 21.8% | 6,796 | 1,480 |
| University of Richmond | 22.2% | 16,560 | 3,683 |
| Macalester College | 28.1% | 8,819 | 2,481 |
| Villanova University | 28.1% | 25,841 | 7,272 |
| Lehigh University | 29.0% | 19,342 | 5,601 |
Several schools here are realistic ED2 targets for strong applicants. Villanova is one to look at after a December deferral elsewhere: it accepts deferred Early Action candidates and Regular Decision applicants into ED2 before a January cutoff. How to switch into ED2 after December lists that rule and others.
30% to 50%: the most accessible ED2 schools on this list
| School | Fall 2025 admit rate | Applicants | Admitted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lafayette College | 31.2% | 10,556 | 3,289 |
| Bucknell University | 32.2% | 11,561 | 3,723 |
| University of Rochester | 41.9% | 21,609 | 9,056 |
| Brandeis University | 45.4% | 9,756 | 4,430 |
| Syracuse University | 48.8% | 46,645 | 22,756 |
Don't assume ED2 is a big edge here. Bucknell's early decision applicants did much better than everyone else in fall 2025, but at Rochester they were admitted at about the same rate, and at Brandeis at a lower rate. At schools like those, a binding round may buy you an earlier answer, not better odds.
How to use these tiers
- Use the tier to set your expectations, then check the ED edge. The overall rate tells you how selective a school is. The ED vs. everyone-else comparison tells you whether binding yourself there buys anything.
- A reach ED2 is still a reach. In the under-10% tier, even a strong early decision edge leaves most early applicants without an offer.
- Check the deadline before you choose. ED2 deadlines at these schools fall in early-to-mid January, and they aren't all the same day. ED2 deadlines by school has the dates.
- If December didn't go your way, read the rules for applying ED2 after an ED1 deferral or rejection before you pick.
- ED2 is binding. Pick a school you'd attend over everything still pending. Why ED2 has grown so fast covers the financial-aid tradeoff that comes with it.
How we built this list
Each rate is admitted divided by applied, from Section C1 of the school's own 2025-26 Common Data Set, which covers students who applied for fall 2025. Where a school reported only men, women and unknown-sex rows, we added the rows. A school is on this list only if we could confirm its ED2 round for 2026-27 on a current admissions or financial aid page that shows the cycle year. A few ED2 colleges are left off for now: NYU, Vassar and Case Western because their pages don't yet show the year, and Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Tulane and the University of Miami because we couldn't extract and check their 2025-26 Common Data Set in this pass. None were left out because of their rates. See how to read a Common Data Set to check any school yourself.