A Year Without EA - A Recap of the Harvard Admissions Year

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
221

<p>The VP for such things at the University of Chicago claimed that the students it accepted EA this past year included a slightly higher percentage of low income and URM students than its RD accepted pool.</p>

<p>I think we will ultimately learn something about the results of Harvard’s experiment. If it works, Harvard will want to publicize it to influence others. If it doesn’t, Harvard will probabaly go back to the SCEA system. But it will take more than one year’s results to evaulate the idea, as marite said.</p>

222

<p>Regarding #220:
The number of Pell grant eligible applicants are used to report
disadvantaged (financially) (severely disadvantaged = 100% Pell
eligible) traditionally.</p>

223

<p>That is what will determine if Harvard’s eliminating EA achieved its purpose, if it did indeed get more apps from kids who are Pell grant eligible and were able to place more of them. If EA was truly hurting the chances for those kids, then, getting rid of EA was a good move, though they could have achieved the same goal by dropping EA accept rates down to RD rates.</p>

224

<p>Let me paint the future for them</p>

<p>Class – EA/No EA ---- Accept. rate — # of Applied ---- Yield – X-admit
2012 … no … 7.1% … 27000 … 74% … 29%
projected, if everyone believes he has a chance
2013 … no … 5.8% … 34000 … 72% … 25%
2014 … no … 5.0% … 40000 … 70% … 20%
2015 … no … 4.4% … 45000 … 68% … 15%
…</p>

<p>You get the picture. When they make an impression that everyone has a chance, I am sure that people will make a shot at their chance, and it is becoming to win a lotto. Why are we doing this?</p>

225

<p>MIT 012 - Thanks for the definition.
Harvard also increased fin aid and that along will increase the number applications from the disadvantaged even with EA. Still we will not know if eliminating EA helped or not.</p>

226

<p>Yale and Chicago increased financial aid, too, without eliminating EA. It ought to be possible to assess the relative effect of EA-or-not-EA at a variety of colleges that are trying to attract the same class of applicants.</p>

227

<p>2009 should have fewer apps. Less of these “lottery” folks after this miserable year.</p>

228

<p>I think Yale announced its FA policy would be changing after the EA deadline had passed.</p>

229

<p>

</p>

<p>It’s time to post my FAQ again. </p>

<p>DEMOGRAPHICS </p>

<p>Population trends in the United States are not the only issue influencing the competitiveness of college admission here. The children already born show us what the expected number of high school students are in various years, but the number of high school students in the United States, which is expected to begin declining in a few years, isn’t the whole story. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/education/09admissions.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/education/09admissions.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>First of all, if more students who begin high school go on to college, there will be more applicants to college even with a declining number of high school students. And that is the trend in the United States and worldwide. </p>

<p>Second, colleges in the United States accept applications from all over the world, so it is quite possible that demographic trends in the United States will not be the main influence on how many students apply to college. The cohorts of high-school-age students are still increasing in size in some countries (NOT most of Europe). </p>

<p>Third, even if the number of applicants to colleges overall stays the same, or even declines, the number of applicants to the most competitive colleges may still increase. The trend around the world is a “flight to quality” of students trying to get into the best college they can in increasing numbers, and increasing their consensus about which colleges to put at the top of their application lists. I do not expect college admission to be any easier for my youngest child than for my oldest child, even though she is part of a smaller birth cohort in the United States. </p>

<p>And now I would add to this that at the very most selective colleges that have just announced new financial aid plans, next year’s (and the following year’s) crush of applicants will be larger than ever. When colleges that are already acknowledged to be great colleges start reducing their net cost down to what the majority of families in the United States can afford, those colleges will receive more applications from all parts of the United States, and very likely from all over the world. </p>

<p>The Austin American-Statesman newspaper in Texas published news about these trends in an article about a particular applicant in April 2008. </p>

<p>[Perfect</a> college entrance exam scores don’t help student who dreamt of the Ivy Leagues](<a href=“http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/19/0419perfect.html]Perfect”>http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/19/0419perfect.html) </p>

<p>The Economist magazine published a brief article about these trends in April 2008. </p>

<p>[University</a> admissions | Accepted | Economist.com](<a href=“Accepted”>Accepted)</p>

230

<p>^ I find the anticipated increase of international applicants very interesting. Any discussions on limiting the number of spots these applicants are given at selective schools? I’m not advocating this but wonder if this might become an issue, much like other forms of protectionism rhetoric we are witnessing.</p>

231

<p>2009 should have fewer apps. TO HARVARD, for sure. With a sloppy engineering school and computer science program, 1/3 of class 2008 can’t find jobs with an average salary of $45,000 for those lucky ones, 7.1% acceptance rate, and you have to apply for the regular decision-- which means “Have A Resentful, Very Annoying Regular Decision” (HARVARD). :-)</p>

<p>As for the international students, you will find what will happen by looking at those international graduate students.</p>

232

<p>None of the “problems” you refer to is a new phenomenon. Over the past few years, application numbers have continued to rise. There is not reason to expect that next year will be any different.</p>

233

<p>ewho, I’d be happy to accept your bet on Harvard applications going down. I think tokenadult has it right.</p>

<p>And, where did you get your interesting numbers from? What are the comparables?</p>

234

<p>Well, no SCEA will make a difference next year.</p>

235

<p>from yesterday’s usnews and [The</a> Harvard Crimson :: Harvard’s Daily Newspaper Since 1873](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com%5DThe”>http://www.thecrimson.com). I am not allowed to provide the links. Just google “Even Harvard Grads Feel the Job Squeeze”, and you will see.</p>

236

<p>

</p>

<p>It didn’t make a difference this year.</p>

237

<p>nice post Tokenadult. You always provide your sources, it’s appreciated!</p>

238

<p>This year is different. A lot of people did not know what was going on without Harvard’s SCEA. Let me give you an example, an elite private school I know usually always sent top 3 kids to Harvard, so naturally they thought that they were sure to get in. Now the the top two did not get in, which is such a surprise to the school. I am sure that next year kids will think twice about applying to Harvard.</p>

239

<p>Your argument, anecdotal as it is, seems to be that when rejections increase, fewer students will apply the following year. Please correct me if I am misstating your position. Historically, a falling acceptance rate has not discouraged students from applying. Why should things change now just because Harvard did away with SCEA?</p>

240

<p>Those kids are very likely to apply Yale, Stanford and MIT through SCEA, or ED for other schools they think that they can get in. A lot of them will get in and Harvard and Princeton will likely reject them. Ask any good school GC, and he will tell you HYPS try to avoid cross-admits once they know you are in the other three, unless you are truly special, even I do not what special means anymore. The changes to Harvard is not only that they have a record of applications, but also, on the other hand, lower yield, a record waitlist drawings.</p>