Pomona's ED Rate Is Roughly Double the RD Rate

Pomona College's published acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 (Fall 2024 entering class) is 7.09%, straight from Pomona's own Common Data Set: 868 admits out of 12,249 applicants. That figure is accurate, and it's already one of the lowest headline rates among liberal arts colleges. It also averages together two rounds with meaningfully different odds. Applicants who applied Early Decision were admitted at 12.98%. Applicants who applied outside that binding round were admitted at 6.12%. Roughly double the odds, from the same filing, for the same entering class.

The Decomposition

Show the math: Pomona's CDS 2024-25 (Section C1) reports 12,249 total applicants (5,283 men, 6,956 women, 10 another gender) and 868 total admits (401, 466, and 1 respectively) for the Class of 2028, an overall rate of 868 divided by 12,249, or 7.09%. Section C21 separately reports 1,726 Early Decision applications and 224 ED admits, an ED rate of 224 divided by 1,726, or 12.98%. Subtracting the ED figures from the overall totals isolates everyone outside the binding round: 12,249 minus 1,726 is 10,523 applications, and 868 minus 224 is 644 admits. 644 divided by 10,523 is 6.12%. Pomona's CDS reports Early Decision separately from the combined ED-plus-RD applicant pool that makes up the C1 totals, which is what allows this subtraction to isolate the non-ED figure cleanly.

A Gap That Has Held Steady

One year earlier, for the Class of 2027 (Fall 2023 entering class), Pomona's Common Data Set shows 12,121 total applicants and 819 admits, an overall rate of 6.76%. Of those, 1,691 applied Early Decision and 212 were admitted, an ED rate of 12.54%. The derived non-ED rate for that cohort was (819 minus 212) divided by (12,121 minus 1,691), or 607 divided by 10,430, which comes to 5.82%.

Compare that to Fall 2024. The overall rate rose slightly, from 6.76% to 7.09%, and both rounds moved up with it: the ED rate from 12.54% to 12.98%, and the non-ED rate from 5.82% to 6.12%. The ratio between the two rounds held almost exactly steady across both years, with ED admits running at roughly double the RD rate in both cohorts. Pomona's headline rate is among the lowest in this series, and unlike some schools where a shrinking applicant pool inflates the overall figure year over year, here the pool grew modestly and the rate still climbed slightly, meaning genuine demand rather than a smaller pool is driving the trend.

Why the Gap Is This Big

Early Decision at Pomona is binding. An admitted ED applicant has agreed in advance to enroll and to withdraw every other application. That commitment removes yield uncertainty, the central variable every admissions office has to manage when shaping an incoming class. A Regular Decision admit's enrollment is still a probability, since RD admits are typically comparing offers from multiple schools before deciding. That uncertainty forces RD admission rates down, because a college has to admit conservatively enough to hit its target class size even accounting for RD admits who choose to enroll elsewhere. This is a structural fact about how binding admission plans work everywhere they exist, not a claim that ED applicants to Pomona are stronger than RD applicants.

The RD pool is also a different population from the ED pool almost by definition. Committing ED means naming Pomona a first choice before you've seen a financial aid offer. Plenty of applicants who would have been competitive ED admits choose to apply Regular Decision instead, because they want to compare aid packages, because a fall semester's grades were still coming together, or because Pomona wasn't their clear first choice until later. A 6.12% non-ED rate reflects a much larger, later-stage applicant pool competing for whatever seats the ED round hasn't already filled. It says nothing about how strong those applicants are relative to the ED pool.

What This Means for Your Application

The 12.98% ED figure isn't a rate you can borrow for an identical Regular Decision application. The ED and RD pools are different populations, so the roughly 2.1x gap between them overstates what switching rounds alone would do for one specific applicant with one specific file. It reflects the odds each pool actually faced, not the odds available to a single student choosing between rounds. Our breakdown of real acceptance rates walks through this same pattern at other colleges if you want a broader comparison before deciding on a round.

ED is also a financial commitment as much as an admissions one. Agreeing to Pomona's binding plan means committing to enroll before you've seen its financial aid offer and before you can compare it against any other school's package. If comparing aid matters to your family, that comparison has to happen before you apply ED, not after, because a signed acceptance removes your ability to negotiate or shop the offer once it's in.

Pomona is a liberal arts college with an open curriculum: students apply and are admitted as undeclared first-years and choose or change a major after enrolling, with no admission by department or division. There's no per-major breakdown to weigh here. The 12.98% and 6.12% figures already describe Pomona's entire applicant pool. Our college list builder can help you see how Pomona compares to your other targets, and our application deadline tracker can help you line up its ED and Regular Decision dates against the rest of your list.

If Pomona is a genuine first choice and financing isn't the deciding factor, the ED numbers reflect a real structural advantage. Talk to a Dewey Smart advisor if you're still deciding whether that trade-off fits your situation.

The Waitlist

Pomona's Fall 2024 Common Data Set (Section C2) reports 937 qualified applicants were offered a spot on the waitlist. Of those, 680 accepted the spot, and 58 were ultimately admitted off the waitlist, a conversion rate of about 8.5% among students who accepted. The list is unranked, per the filing.

For context, the prior cohort's waitlist was smaller on every count: for the Class of 2027 (Fall 2023 entering class), Pomona offered 845 students a spot, 587 accepted, and 62 were ultimately admitted, a slightly higher conversion rate of about 10.6% among those who accepted. That's a different cohort than the Class of 2028 figures above, so treat it as background on how Pomona's waitlist has recently behaved rather than a number for the current cycle.