dedicated themselves to an institution and are more likely to match the institution's admission standards; third, student athletes sometimes apply "early" to their top choice school to demonstrate their commitment to a college varsity coach who, in turn, can push their applications in the admissions process. Some advisors suggest that early decision is the best choice for students who have clearly settled on one particular college. In 2009, the average early acceptance rate according to one estimate was 15% greater than regular decision applicants. There is less agreement, however, whether it will help a borderline student win acceptance to a competitive college. Early decision candidates tend to have stronger educational credentials than regular decision candidates, and as a result, these candidates would have been admitted whether they applied by early or regular methods, and therefore the greater statistical likelihood of acceptance may have been explained by membership in the stronger applicant pool. But the commitment of an early decision application demonstrated by a borderline student can still be beneficial; "colleges really want qualified students who want them" and are more likely to offer acceptances to students ready to make a full commitment. Most institutions include data on the number of ED applicants and ED admits in their annual Common Data Set (a few institutions do not release a Common Data Set at all), and trends for an individual institution can be readily complied. At the most competitive schools, the number of ED applicants has increased at a more rapid pace than regular decision applicants. Although the ED admit rate has declined at these schools in recent years, the absolute number of ED admits has managed to increase while the absolute number of regular decision admits has fallen rapidly and all the admit rates have also fallen. A few schools have seen ED applicants more than double in the 2012-2019 period, including Rice (2,628 ED apps in 2019-20 compared to 1,230 ED apps in 2012-13), Emory, NYU (13,842 ED I and ED II apps in 2019-20; 5,778 in 2012-13), and Boston University (4,700 ED I and ED II apps in 2019-20; 1,069 in 2012-13). The number of ED admits has also doubled at NYU and Boston University over this period, and although the increase of ED admits at other schools has been less dramatic, that increase has nonetheless reduced the number of RD admits meaningfully because half the class or more