Your Competitive Landscape
The applications are in. First up: the binding early round.
Early Decision: The First Commitment
In November, students make a binding promise: accept me early, and I will attend. No shopping around, no comparing offers. It's the biggest gamble in the process -- trade all your optionality for a statistical edge.
But most students are still in the game. The non-binding round is next.
The Waiting Game
Early Action is the non-binding cousin -- learn your fate in December, but keep your options open. Restrictive Early Action lets the strongest applicants signal serious interest without locking in.
The deferred join the regular pool. March will settle most fates.
Regular Decision: The Main Event
March arrives, and with it, the deluge. Every seat not locked down by ED is now contested. Phantom applicants model the national pool you can't see -- the 99%+ of applicants outside your peer schools.
Envelopes are open. Now it's the students' turn to choose.
Decision Day
For the first time all year, the power shifts. Students -- not colleges -- hold the cards. Yield -- the share who actually show up -- is the metric that keeps deans awake at night.
Not everyone is settled. The waitlist still has cards to deal.
The Waitlist
Welcome to admissions purgatory. If yield falls short, colleges pull names off the list. But most students here will never get that call.
Calibration Check
How well does the personalized simulation match reality? We compare simulated acceptance rates (accepted / applied in this pool) against published CDS figures.
Unlike the classic 20-feeder-school sim, the personalized pipeline uses per-college phantom calibration and pool-strength-aware thresholds. Points near the diagonal indicate accuracy.