<p>So, do you think it should be revived…?</p>
<p>The lack of an ED program has affected Princeton’s yield considerably, but I don’t think it should be revived. Maybe an EA program, but I’m still skeptical of that…most of the elite schools like Stanford / MIT / Yale will begin to phase out their EA programs as well, and then Princeton’s low yield will no longer be so significant</p>
<p>From a student’s perspective though, an ED / EA program is certainly nice if one has a #1 choice…therefore, im thinking maybe an SCEA program could be viable</p>
<p>I believe that its not necessary to bring up again Princeton University the ED round. Yes it would be more helpful for students who they have Princeton as their first choice. But I still have my doubts about it.</p>
<p>I agree with ib612</p>
<p>Idk…I think schools should all have some kind of early admissions policy. Maybe I’m saying this very selfishly. However, it was hard for me to have to wait literally a year after visiting Pton to hear my admissions decision. Pton was my top choice (tho schools like Harvard, Stanford, and Penn dual degree weren’t crazy far behind), and I would have loved to hear that I didn’t make it in december rather than in april. I think all elite schools owe their students at least that much in that if a given top school is the #1 choice of a student, the student shouldn’t be uncertain of their admissions decision for an entire year. Plus, I believe it sets up kids for inevitable heart break in the spring when admissiosn decisions come in. I certainly was upset about my rejection even tho I got into my third choice (Penn LSM) and some other elite schools. However, I think most of the pain came from the fact that my anticipation over Pton had been building over a year. Additionally, you get back a TON of admissions decisions the same day as Princeton and, if you aren’t a God-like applicant, rejection is likely at other elite colleges. So, if one is given their decision in December, not only does one have the ability to get over their rejection but it also prevents tht rejection from compounding with other rejections.</p>
<p>Now, we must also consider how ED/EA would affect Pton as a whole. Well, its yield did drop to 59% this year, which is still outstanding. However, peers like Stanford and Harvard are both beating Pton pretty badly in their area. The differences would level out if all schools dropped their early admissions policies (with Harvard prbly still dominating everyone even tho they currently have no form of early admission) or embraced them. So, for the reason outlined in my first paragraph, I believe they all should do the latter.</p>
<p>I got in through Early Decision, so I’m biased in favor of it. Princeton was clearly my top choice, and I am extremely happy that I had a chance to hear back in the middle of December. </p>
<p>When I think of bringing back ED, I don’t really think about our yield (although that would be nice). To me, it’s really more of doing extremely interested applicants a courtesy, both by letting them know early and by letting them demonstrate a higher level of interest in Princeton than is indicated by the rest of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>I also think it’s kind of cruel that many athletes recruited by Princeton now have to wait four extra months before being certain of their admission (yes, I know we give them likely letters, but 1) it’s not the same, and 2) it may be unfair to offer likely letters to athletes only and no one else). An acceptance letter in the middle of December is something that schools which retain EA/ED/rolling admissions (read: the preponderance of schools in America) offer their recruits.</p>
<p>I thought that Princeton’s ED program was horrible. It took half its class from about 15% of its applicant pool. And it was clear to everyone who looked at the question that unaffluent students generally felt excluded from ED, even if they shouldn’t have, and that the ED pool was persistently richer and whiter than the applicant pool as a whole. So they were right to do away with that.</p>
<p>As for SCEA, there are no logical reasons not to use it, except for the fact that unaffluent students continue to confuse it with ED and thus to avoid it (although not anywhere near to the extent they avoid ED), and that some students from “bad” schools may have trouble getting it together to apply by November 1. I think those arguments are pretty weak, so I would think it was fine if Princeton adopted an SCEA program like Stanford or Yale.</p>
<p>I think they should at least institute a SCEA program like Yale and Stanford. It sucks that they don’t have one. Princeton’s my first choice (by a MILE) but I don’t want to give up the advantage of Early decision at another, equally competitive, school.</p>
<p>PrincetonDreams – There really isn’t any Early Decision program at an “equally competitive” school, except perhaps for Columbia and Brown (and, honestly, if Princeton is your first choice, it’s very unlikely that Columbia or Brown is your second choice). Harvard is just like Princeton, Yale and Stanford have SCEA, and MIT and Caltech have plain old regular EA. So if you are in fact a competitive applicant to Princeton, you have lots of places to which you can apply early that will not prevent you from applying to Princeton even if you are accepted. (Also, Georgetown, BC, Chicago.) There’s no reason not to take a shot at Stanford or Yale (you would be pretty happy if you got into either of them, even if Princeton rejected you later), or, say, a combination of MIT, Caltech (if you like it), and Georgetown.</p>
<p>Of course, in general you don’t see anything like the same apparent advantage applying EA as you do ED, precisely because the EA schools attract a lot more applications than binding ED schools do.</p>
<p>My guess is that eventually Yale, Stanford and MIT will get rid of their EA plans to follow the lead of Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>Lets wait it out.</p>
<p>At that point in time each and every one of the HYPSM schools will reach an equilibrium admissions yield of exactly 66.598%.</p>
<p><a href=“note%20-%20the%20supercomputers%20at%20CalTech%20were%20used%20for%20the%20above%20yield%20calculations”>I</a>*</p>
<p>My guess is that Princeton and Harvard will eventually abandon their current policy and re-institute some form of SCEA. The current stance was very strongly tied to the personal feelings of William Bowen and Derek Bok, neither of whom is getting any more relevant as time moves on. There was never anything inherently wrong with Harvard’s SCEA program, and it does have the advantage of spreading their applications over a longer period (something I know Harvard has struggled with a bit the past few years). The current system is something of a sham anyway because of the heavy use – heavier at Harvard than at Princeton, I think – of “likely letters”.</p>
<p>I think if other institutions were going to follow their lead, besides Virginia, it would have happened already. Instead, the momentum is in the other direction. Other schools’ EA programs are getting more and more popular, and more and more representative of their overall applicant pools in terms of race, ethnicity, and income. And they work, both for students, who like them, and for admissions staff.</p>
<p>I have no idea whether Yale and Stanford will eventually follow Harvard, Princeton and UVA in abandoning their early programs but I doubt that either Harvard or Princeton will go back to those programs in the near future. The new system appears to be working just fine for both schools. At Princeton, the gender imbalance that had been associated with the use of the early program disappeared, the classes have become much more diverse and academic profiles have grown even more impressive. Not a bad outcome.</p>
<p>I certainly agree with JHS that Early Decision programs distort applicant pools but SCEA programs like Stanford’s and Yale’s aren’t much different. On paper, it would appear that they are very different given that students are not required to matriculate if they are admitted but in practice they show nearly the same distorting effects as ED and still reward the schools themselves with higher matriculation rates. ED programs tend to increase a school’s matriculation rate by 8 to 10 percentage points. SCEA programs increase matriculation rates by 4 to 6 percentage points.</p>
<p>Every Ivy other than Harvard, Princeton and Yale currently uses an early decision program and most fill more than half of their classes from these small pools. As JHS noted, they are taking about 50 percent of their freshman class from around 15% of the applicant pool. Single Choice Early Action (SCEA) ends up having similar numbers though Stanford and Yale use it a little differently. Stanford does not fill as high a percentage of its first year class from the SCEA pool as does Yale. At Yale 50% of every class comes from the SCEA pool which constitutes about 20% of the applicant pool. If you add in the differed SCEA applicants who are later accepted from the regular action pool, then between 55% and 60% of each class comes from the 20% of students who originally applied SCEA.</p>
<p>SCEA pools, like ED pools are weighted heavily toward legacies, wealthier students and athletes. Academically, this group can be quite strong but there is no doubt about the fact that its composition is different from the regular action pool. It has a far higher percentage of students from elite boarding schools, magnet schools and suburban high schools with more professional college counseling services.</p>
<p>ED admits enroll at a rate of about 98%. (Some drop out due to financial aid or other concerns.) SCEA admits are only slightly less likely to enroll. Both Stanford and Yale have between 85% and 88% matriculation rates from their SCEA admits. This is largely, but not entirely, because of the “SC” part of that “SCEA”. Because both schools prohibit simultaneous applications to other peer schools, students’ choices are more limited. MIT, which uses a completely open Early Action program without prohibiting applicants from applying to other early action programs, does not see these high matriculation rates from the early pool. There are other reasons as well for the high SCEA matriculation. Early pools contain many more legacies and athletes–two groups that typically receive special attention in the admission process and are far more likely to matriculate at every school. In addition, many more SCEA admits are pleased enough at having been admitted to either Stanford or Yale (two of the world’s great institutions) that they have little interest in applying elsewhere. Finally, even those who decide to apply elsewhere after having been accepted SCEA are often persuaded to matriculate at the SCEA school due to the heavy marketing in which these schools engage during the three and a half months before the students hear the results from their other applications.</p>
<p>There are both strong advocates and critics of early programs. College counselors from the more elite high schools and the students they represent tend to support the programs and it certainly can be satisfying to have finished the college application process in December. Academics who study higher education policies, along with counselors and students from less elite high schools, all tend to oppose them.</p>
<p>The interesting part of this is that Princeton and Yale have both reversed their positions. At Princeton, the former Dean of Admission was a strong advocate of restricted early programs. He argued, with some justification, that restrictive early programs cut down on the overall number of applications clogging the system and allowed students to indicate their first choices in an effective manner. </p>
<p>Yale’s President Levin took just the opposite view. At that time, Yale, like Princeton, had an early decision program and Levin railed against such programs in the national press, including a much-discussed New York Times story. Levin stated that he thought all schools should give up their restrictive early programs for the sake of a fairer system for all applicants but that Yale would not be able to go it alone and that there would need to be simultaneous common action among all of the more competitive schools. </p>
<p>Not long after that, Yale and Stanford moved part way in this direction by switching to SCEA. Princeton did not follow. (I was never a strong supporter of ED and thought that SCEA would have been at least a little better so I was disappointed when Princeton didn’t join the other two.) When Princeton’s new Dean of Admission began discussions with the trustees regarding this issue, she took the same position as had Levin, that all restrictive early programs should go, but that Princeton would wait until there was agreement with others about dropping them simultaneously. When Harvard then announced three years ago that it would drop its early program, Princeton immediately followed suit (as did UVA). Strangely, Yale’s Levin, who had been an outspoken leader in criticizing early programs now suddenly became a defender of them, arguing that the SCEA program served Yale well and would be kept. There was a certain amount of snickering in the academic community over the hypocrisy associated with this sudden change of heart, but Levin and Yale’s new Dean of Admission stuck with it. Editorialists in the Yale Daily News questioned Levin’s motives but their peers at the Stanford Daily came out strongly for restrictive early programs and belittled Harvard’s, Princeton’s and UVA’s moves.</p>
<p>Overall, keeping SCEA has continued to work relatively well for Yale though there are some signs of trouble. When Princeton and Harvard dropped their early programs, they saw an immediate drop in their matriculation rates. Even Harvard, which, among universities, tends to be the most immune to changes such as this, saw its matriculation rate drop from the low 80% range to the mid to high 70% range. Princeton saw a larger drop of about 9% in its matriculation rate when it gave up binding ED. Since this change, it appears that matriculation rates at both schools may have stabilized. The second year after dropping the early programs, both schools saw an increase in their matriculation rates. The third year (i.e. this year) both saw a slight drop. We’ll have to see if there are longer term trends. At Yale, on the other hand, there has been a small but steady drop in the matriculation rate for each of the past five years accompanied by an increasing gender imbalance in the applicant pool. Yale has addressed the diversity disadvantages of early programs by giving extra weight to that factor in the regular applicant pool. So far, this has been a successful strategy and, like always, Yale has enrolled terrific classes. Stanford has other tools in its recruiting kit including athletic scholarships and, given its location in the most diverse state in the country, normally doesn’t have a problem with ethnic diversity.</p>
<p>JHS is correct in noting that the heavy use of “likely letters” helps to increase matriculation rates just as does the use of restrictive early programs. Princeton uses very few of these and limits them almost exclusively to athletes who are being courted by scholarship-granting schools. However, even schools that have early admission programs still use this device and some schools send out very large numbers of them.</p>
<p>In summary, there are complex issues involved in this debate and I think reasonable arguments can be made on both sides. </p>
<p>For some articles about this issue see the following:</p>
<p>[The</a> Atlantic | September 2001 | The Early-Decision Racket | Fallows](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2001/09/fallows.htm]The”>The Early-Decision Racket - The Atlantic) </p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Yale moves to early action for 2008](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2002/11/07/yale-moves-to-early-action-for-2008/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2002/11/07/yale-moves-to-early-action-for-2008/)</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Levin’s suspect stance against early decision](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/opinion/guest-columns/2002/10/25/levins-suspect-stance-against-early-decision/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/opinion/guest-columns/2002/10/25/levins-suspect-stance-against-early-decision/)</p>
<p>[College</a> Rejects Early Admissions | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/9/12/college-rejects-early-admissions-in-a/]College”>College Rejects Early Admissions | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>[Early</a> admissions dropped - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2006/09/19/15838/]Early”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2006/09/19/15838/)</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Princeton to drop E.D.](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2006/09/19/princeton-to-drop-ed/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2006/09/19/princeton-to-drop-ed/)</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Drop in apps shouldn’t affect EA debate](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/opinion/the-news-views/2006/11/27/drop-in-apps-shouldnt-affect-ea-debate/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/opinion/the-news-views/2006/11/27/drop-in-apps-shouldnt-affect-ea-debate/)</p>
<p>[Yale’s</a> Surprise Decision to Keep Early Admissions May Undercut Efforts of Other Ivies to Recruit Highly Qualified Blacks and Low-Income Whites](<a href=“Sabrina Cherry of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington Wins Peace Corps Award : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education”>http://www.jbhe.com/preview/winter07yale.html)</p>
<p>[Seven</a> Things You Need to Know About Early Action : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7082167]Seven”>Seven Things You Need to Know About Early Action : NPR)</p>
<p>[Early</a> action benefits students and schools | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2006/10/01/early-action-benefits-students-and-schools/]Early”>http://www.stanforddaily.com/2006/10/01/early-action-benefits-students-and-schools/)</p>
<p>[Standing</a> our ground | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2006/10/03/standing-our-ground/]Standing”>http://www.stanforddaily.com/2006/10/03/standing-our-ground/)</p>
<p>PG, these figures have now dropped to 79% and 77% for Stanford and Yale, respectively for the class of 2013.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Where do you guys get those numbers?</p>
<p>I’m sure SCEA boosts yield at Stanford and Yale. Some accepted students will treat it like ED – and why not, if they get accepted to their first choice with adequate financial aid? But 77-79% isn’t grossly out of line with the RD yield that would imply. I can see how Princeton boosters would be grumpy about it – Yale’s RD yield is much closer to Princeton’s than the overall numbers make it seem, and Penn’s is much farther away from Princeton’s by the same token. But does anyone (who matters) really think less of Princeton because of overall yield numbers? Come on! (And, in the end, all any discussion of yields at hyperselective colleges does is remind you that Harvard has truly solidified its position as #1 in the public imagination, to an extent that was not true even 10 years ago. In a world with no early admissions programs, Harvard’s yield might top 90%.)</p>
<p>The reasons to institute an SCEA program at Princeton and Harvard are (a) students like it, (b) admissions staff like it, because it smooths out the workload, (c) it’s not structurally unfair the way ED is, and (d) effectively, that’s the way the world works now. When I was 18, everyone found out all of their college acceptances within a week of April 1; now, only Ivy RD applicants wait that long. It’s a quaint vestige of the past, and the only places it can resemble a norm at all anymore is at HYP. Princeton and Harvard are taking a position that’s paternalistic (those poor kids and minorities are too dumb to understand the difference between EA and ED, even the ones who are smart enough for Harvard or Princeton; those poor stressed high school seniors shouldn’t be applying to college in October), and mostly symbolic (since they, and the UCs and UVA, are the only ones with that position). They can sustain it because they are so strong, just as the UCs and UVA can sustain it because they are superb public universities in states that are vibrant and growing (at least long-term). And because they all make exceptions for athletic recruiting, and at some of them other stuff as well.</p>
<p>If the world consisted only of HYPS and state flagships, Yale and Stanford might very well come around to the H/P/UVA/UC position. But that isn’t the world, and as a result Harvard and Princeton’s symbolic position doesn’t mean much, for them or for students, except that it creates inconvenience. (I am not aware that H and P are doing so much better on economic and ethnic diversity compared to Y and S as a result of their position, but maybe JohnAdams or Pton Grad knows those numbers, too.) That’s why ultimately it won’t be sustained.</p>
<p>Maybe Princeton doesn’t actually care about poor kids and minorities - maybe that’s just a smokescreen for the press, when in reality, Princeton simply believes that the type of kid who applies EA/ED isn’t as “well-qualified” as the kind that would apply via RD in a two-round system and thus wishes to increase its ability to admit the best of the best by pooling all of the applicants together.</p>
<p>I think there’s an Ivy Group agreement about when RD decisions come out, or otherwise I believe Princeton should consider announcing decisions on March 1st instead of April 1st.</p>
<p>One of the things I like most about Princeton is that it doesn’t do any of the gimmicks that its peer institutions do. No grade inflation, no early programs–sure, it hurts Princeton’s stats–but I think that only makes it more admirable.</p>
<p>I understand that it would be nicer for prospective applicants to apply early, I am against it. For me, Princeton wasn’t my top choice, though it was certainly up there. I wouldn’t have applied early to Princeton. I would (and did) apply early to Yale, where I eventually got rejected. And then I would (and did) apply to Princeton during its regular round, where I was thankfully accepted. If Princeton had had its early program, it would already have selected a significant amount of its applicants early, and I’m not so certain that I would have made it in.</p>
<p>In an ideal world, early programs would be obliterated altogether. I respect Harvard and Princeton for doing so. Now, if only Stanford, Yale, MIT, etc. would get rid of theirs as well…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Early admit rate plunges to 13.4 percent](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2008/12/15/early-admit-rate-plunges-to-134-percent/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2008/12/15/early-admit-rate-plunges-to-134-percent/)</p>
<p>Thank you, John. I stand corrected and am embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed (or had forgotten about!) the change. As you can see from the above article, the 88% figure had been the standard for Yale’s SCEA yield before Harvard and Princeton dropped their early programs. When they did, it appears that the Yale SCEA yield dropped to 80% that first year for the Class of 2012 and then 77% last year according to submissions to The College Board. </p>
<p>[College</a> Search - Yale University - Admission](<a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board)</p>
<p>We won’t know what it is this year until the numbers are reported next fall but given the use of the waitlist, one or both of the yields (RD, SCEA or both) declined again this year.</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Yield rate sees slight decline](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2010/05/27/yield-rate-sees-slight-decline/]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2010/05/27/yield-rate-sees-slight-decline/)</p>
<p>I agree with JHS that yield means relatively little these days, given the wide variety of ways in which it can be artificially increased. I disagree, however, regarding the likelihood that Harvard and Princeton will switch back. If the quality of Princeton’s classes began to decline, I’m sure the change would be considered. As it is, the opposite is taking place. The classes are actually getting stronger and it appears to be related to dropping the early program.</p>
<p>JHS, here you go, from CB:</p>
<p>Stanford:</p>
<p>Early Decision & Early Action
Early decision and early action plans let you apply early to colleges, but there are different rules for each plan. See Help for more information.</p>
<p>Plan(s) available:
Early action - restrictive
Number of early action applications received: 5,361
Number admitted under early action plan: 689
Number enrolled under early action plan: 547</p>
<p>Yale:</p>
<p>Early Decision & Early Action
Early decision and early action plans let you apply early to colleges, but there are different rules for each plan. See Help for more information.</p>
<p>Plan(s) available:
Early action - restrictive
Number of early action applications received: 5,557
Number admitted under early action plan: 742
Number enrolled under early action plan: 574</p>
<p>i dont think PR would be good if Princeton went backwards.
pretty much the largest reason for going back or going to EA or SCEA/REA would be to protect yield, and no university wants to make a decision that will reflect only that.</p>
<p>Yes, it should be!!! Just because I’m a legacy. So applying ED as a legacy would help me considerably.</p>
<p>As an applicant, yes. As a student, idc.</p>