NYT Guest Opinion: The Early Decision Option Is a Racket. Shut It Down

[Mashinations]

Caveat Emptor

There’s enough purchase options out there that - at least at a private institution level - they can have whatever admissions/enrollment criteria they want (within the bounds of legal/non-discrimination). I haven’t given it a ton of thought but I probably agree with the idea that ED should not appropriate to the State University systems. My $0.02.

[twoinanddone]

@JES_96

Common App should have something like an NPC supplement. Where the kids/parents sign off on the calculated NPC value and the tracing information for the NPC submission that generated that value. Then Common App agrees to keep that information private until merit/financial aid is released by the university. Then there would be a record of exactly what people agreed to rather than this wishy washy gray area.

That might work if the parents put in the correct numbers for the NPC. Did they list all 529 funds, all bank accounts, the correct tax info for the prior 2 years? I think many people don’t enter it correctly or include the correct home value or the beach property as they don’t read the NPC instructions correctly. They enter the same info on the Cornell NPC as the Williams one, and those schools may consider different things.

[twoinanddone]

@Mashinations

I haven’t given it a ton of thought but I probably agree with the idea that ED should not appropriate to the State University systems. My $0.02.

And I think the opposite. I don’t see what the big value to Harvard is to accept anyone ED. Are they going to have even one empty seat come May 1 if they only have an EA class or even an all RD class? Will they maybe lose a kid to Princeton or Stanford? Sure, but will they pick up an equally qualified applicant? Yes. Even if Harvard had to take 20% of its class off the waitlist, they’d still have a very qualified class.

IMO, it is the smaller LACs or schools like Tulane that lock kids in with ED because it benefits the schools . They might lose more if they had all EA or RD and then some kids get off the wait list at Harvard or Duke or even their flagship with a big scholarship, so leave the LAC or Tulane and maybe those schools can’t fill from the waitlist.

Sure kids get to know where they are going earlier if they get in ED, but does that justify the schools locking in a 17 year old? Now athletes aren’t even locked into the schools in Nov (or for football, the old Feb date). They used to sign the Nat’l Letter of Intent and the school gave them athletic money and the student gave a promise. The student could go to another school, but not play the sport for 1 academic year so the student still had options . Now athletes can immediately transfer and play (2 times).

[Mashinations]

Nowhere in your resonse disagreeing with the quote do you mention why/where ED should be appropriate for the State school system(s)??? All you mention are privates.