Putting a class together is much more art than science. They need regional diversity, demographic diversity, socio-economic diversity, a variety of athletes, musicians, rough quotas for majors, prior enlisted, brainiacs and charismatic leaders. They start by going through the EA apps and grabbing all the no-doubt rockstars, the recruited athletes, any obvious keepers regardless of class composition. With that central core assembled, the tent pole up, they start filling in the rest of the gaps with a bunch of CGAS grads, the deferred EAs and the RA folks. A recent example: for the class of 2025 they offered 246 acceptances to the 747 EA applicants, vs 147 to the 1321 RA folks in a year with a 285 class size goal. I'm not sure if the deferred EAs were counted in that RA number, but overall it's about a 33% acceptance in EA and about 10% in RA. But if you read prior year acceptance threads you'll see the acceptances coming in regular waves and a lot of the deferrals and rejections occuring near the end of the EA period.
Let me be clear about a couple things: prior year numbers don't guarantee future process, as they try different things from time to time. EA being deferred to RA is a relatively new thing, for example. Next, there's no true secret for what it takes to get accepted because from year to year you get a different cast of Obvious Keepers in EA which leaves a different set of gaps to fill in RA each spring. You might be looking for a definition of Obvious Keeper, but that'll vary from year to year based on who else is applying. If you think you're an attractive candidate and your ducks line up by October, the numbers say to try for EA. If you need to wait for another quarter of grades or a winter sports captaincy or something, hold off. It's not the end of the world to go RA because that's where a lot of plebes come from.
TLDR: Don't try to be what they are looking for, present yourself with pride and enthusiasm. Live your best high school life, show them a record you stand behind, and then go finish your senior year with joy and optimism. The chips are going to fall on their own, so don't waste a lot of your remaining days with your friends fretting about this. Good luck.
EDIT: I had the CGAS in the wrong place above. I believe they are RA, in the spring.